Talk show host Michael Savage - real name Michael Weiner - is also excluded. His views on immigration, Islam, rape and autism have caused great offence in America.
I'm pretty sure there isn't a law here against causing offence. In a free society I don't want my government saying what I can or can't be offended by. This kind of thing does our country no favours.
Absolutely bloody right! I can see why it might not be in the public interest to allow advocates or plotters of violence into the country but those whose opinions the Home Secretary's staff may disagree with??? Even excluding people on the grounds of racial, religous or other hatred is fraught with difficulty: where exactly do you draw the line of demarcation between fair (even if disagreeable) opinion and unreasoned hatred that may result in oppression or violence? Wiener's views seem unpleasant but challenging comment; Geert Wilders also but I think Louis Farrakhan is way over the wrong side of the line. But that is my opinion, am I a better judge than Jacqui Smith? Yeah, I suppose I am.
ReplyDeleteAs I watched the foofaraw unfold from this side of the pond, I must admit I didn't know quite what to think of this. Savage is among the vilest of nativists and apologists for our own class of commentariat nutters, but I tend to be of the opinion that sunlight is the best of disinfectants: let him spew his idiocy and be laughed out of the country, rather than having the Home Secretary ban him outright.
ReplyDeletecmw