By now, everyone knows that Michael Savage has been banned from Britain on the grounds articulated by disgraced former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith: “Considered to be engaging in unacceptable behavior by seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts and fostering hatred which might lead to inter-community violence.”
Attorney Summary–Savage Appeals U.K. Ban:
This week, we found out that the supposedly conservative government of David Cameron is upholding the ban. Savage’s lawyers initiated a review of the ban by sending a letter to new Home Secretary Theresa May. In it, they lay forth the full history of the case, a selective prosecution which is mind-blowing in its moral blindness and suicidal impulse to kowtow to radical Islam.
When Savage was originally banned, as the letter states, he was placed on a list alongside terrorists, racists, a child-murderer, and the alleged leader of a violent gang “that beat migrants and posted films of their attacks on the internet.” Savage, by contrast, has said some inflammatory things on the radio. And by inflammatory, I mean generally correct, even if the left hates his passion and willingness to articulate the zeitgeist.
More shocking even than Savage’s placement on the list was the government’s rationale for that placement. Apparently, they wanted to “help provide a balance of types of exclusion cases.” In other words, they didn’t just want to put radical Muslim terrorists on the list. They wanted a white dude from the United States. And what better way to show tolerance and diversity toward homegrown and immigrant Muslim terrorists and terrorist-sympathizers invading the UK than by putting their mortal nemesis, Savage, on the list alongside foreign terrorists. “See!” the government was saying. “We can’t stand terrorists, and we can’t stand those who hate terrorists!”
This was a purely political act. It had nothing to do with safety of the citizenry or with justice. Documents from the Home Office actually show that the primary researcher knew that Savage posed no threat to the UK. “[T]here is no evidence of [Dr. Savage] advocating or inciting violence; there is much evidence of fostering hatred or mistrust between communities. However, it should be noted that this basically forms [Dr. Savage’s] ‘act.’ The central characteristic feature of Savage is that he is controversial and that he ‘speaks his mind’ (read will not hesitate – might actively try – to offend).”
In other words, Savage did not incite or advocate violence. He talks. Which is what he is paid to do, and which is still a guaranteed right in most Western countries – Britain apparently not included.
So what did Savage supposedly violate in Britain’s law that called for an outright ban? The provision in question states that no person may “foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence in furtherance of particular beliefs; seek to provoke others to terrorist acts; foment other serious criminal activity or seek to provoke others to serious criminal acts or foster hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK.”
U.K. Treasury Solicitor Rejects Appeal:
Clearly, Savage does not fall within the ambit of the beginning of this passage. Britain argues that he falls within this last phrase: “foster hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK.” In the context of the entire provision, which specifically focuses on inciting crime, this phrase serves as what lawyers call a “catch-all” – it’s a shorthand for “anything else we can think of that’s similar.” It’s seriously overbroad if read out of context – virtually anything anyone says about politics could “foster hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK.” Barack Obama could be guilty of it just for statements he made about the military in 2008 in which he stated that they were air raiding villages and killing civilians. Certainly many members of the NAACP would be guilty of it for their language about Caucasians. Yet the British Home Office would never dream of targeting any of these people.
They’ve targeted Savage for the same reason they targeted Geert Wilders: they feel the constant need to reach out to the radical Muslim community living within Britain, to assure them that the British government will fully tolerate the burgeoning shariah takeover of the country. Savage’s ban is a signal. It is not a rational construction of either British law or of basic principles of free speech. The thought police is alive and well – and prosecuting – in Britain. As long as Savage’s ban remains in place, the land of Churchill must be considered the land of Marcuse, Marx, and radical Muslims.
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