Michael Savage, Among others, Banned From Britain

Let's be clear: I'm not a Michael Savage fan. I do occasionally listen and find him entertaining and stimulating. Being BANNED from a foreign country for expressing your opinions, though, is nuts. The Brits don't think so: (Yahoo News-May 5, 2005)

Britain's 'least wanted' blacklist published

LONDON (AFP) – The government published a blacklist on Tuesday of people recently banned from the country including a Hamas lawmaker and a Jewish extremist, as well as anti-gay protestors and a far-right US talk show host.
[...]
"If you can't live by the rules that we live by ... we should exclude you from this country and, what's more, now we will make public those people that we have excluded," she (Home Secretary Jacqui Smith) told the GMTV broadcaster.

Between October and April the Home Office excluded 22 people for "fostering extremism or hatred" included preachers Abdullah Qadri Al Ahdal, Yunis Al Astal and Amir Siddique, said a Home Office statement.

Hamas MP Yunis Al-Astal, Jewish extremist Mike Guzovsky, former Ku Klux Klan leader Stephen Donald Black and neo-Nazi Erich Gliebe are also on the list, as is controversial radio host Michael Alan Weiner, also known as Michael Savage.

Some of these folks need to be watched. A few probably belong behind bars. These are issues better left to people familiar with the individuals mentioned on the list.

I do know this, however. Michael Savage is an AMERICAN. What he says and how he says it are rights protected by the 1st Amendment. The Brits, who don't enjoy the same liberty, have chosen to ignore the FRENCH philosopher (Voltaire):

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

Looks like government mandated censorship has arrived in Britain. Couldn't ever happen here.....could it?


Sharpenin' My Pencil
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