Michael Savage Banned from the UK

[DontSayBanana]

Not really, that would be like shooting someone across a state line or kidnapping then murdering, that sort of thing.  Not a garden variety "guy in CA kills guy in CA" murder.

True. The problem with the GAO survey is it lists the number of offenses; it doesn't seem to take multiple counts accrued, and considering that 3 times as many offenses were recorded in the federal system than the state and local, I'm wondering what the aggregate charges were that landed them in the federal system. Also, would a murder during a border crossing be treated as a state offense in Texas or a federal offense?

[Martinus]

Needless to say illegal alien contract killers are not a big proportion of the US federal prison population.   I don't have the exact numbers on this, but the total number ofillegal aliens incarcerated in federal prisons on ALL homicide charges was 13 (c end of 2003).

Generally speaking, homocide isn't a federal offense, so I would expect relatively few people to be serving time in a federal prison for homocide, so that stat doesn't really mean anything.  Doesn't change the fact that Savage is an ass, but the fact that few illegal aliens are in the federal pen on homicide charges isn't the way to prove him wrong.

That's homophobic. 

[Martinus]

Well, I'd be surprised if Savage has actually ever incited anyone to violence, but I do see the political value in using him as a lightning rod on this. (Though I fail to see why such a list needed to be published at all.) It may backfire in the end, though. I mean, with the reputation for the UK and libel cases, is there any possible way the Home Office can win a case against him? And if they lose, what does that mean for the others on the list who are legitimate threats?

I fail to see how his case would even be heard by the court. He is challenging an act of a sovereign government in a civil libel case. 

What's next? Osama suing the US government for libel, because they sent an arrest warrant after him, accusing him of crimes?

[MadImmortalMan]

Boris weighs in from the torygraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/borisjohnson/5304788/Michael-Savage-poses-no-risk-to-British-security-so-why-wont-MPs-say-so.html

Michael Savage poses no risk to British security so why won't MPs say so?
It is shocking that not a single MP has stood up to defend free speech, says Boris Johnson.


By Boris Johnson
Last Updated: 1:05AM BST 11 May 2009



About 10 years ago my brother-in-law was giving me a lift through the early morning Washington traffic when he suddenly gave a whoop of joy. "It's Howie!" yelled Ivo, turning up the radio. "We gotta listen to Howie!" And it was with mounting disbelief that I listened to the next 20 minutes of the Howard Stern show, a shameless and cynical attempt to scandalise the ear.

That morning Howard was appealing to his listeners to ring in with the most tear-jerking hard-luck story. In return he was offering a nude massage at the hands of an attractive nude masseuse. In a display of Oprah Winfreyesque exhibitionism, the audience was competing for that massage. We heard of divorces, and bereavements, and embarrassing disfigurements. But the winner (I advise sensitive readers to faint now) was a man who rang in to say that he had just been diagnosed with cancer, and might lose his gonads, but had not yet had the courage to tell his girlfriend.



Howard Stern pounced. "What's her number?" he said. With lightning efficiency his producers patched the caller through to his girlfriend, and soon she was being told – live on air – that there was good news and bad news.

The bad news was that her boyfriend had cancer, and the good news was that he was the winner of a nude massage. The poor woman gasped and sobbed. I sat there in exactly the state desired by the producers of the Howard Stern show – appalled, disgusted, but also thrilled by the horror of what was apparently (and I stress apparently) taking place on the radio.

We just don't have shows like this in Britain, I said to Ivo. That's right, he said, and he told me about the shock jocks. He explained the tactics of men such as Stern and Rush Limbaugh, how they shamelessly chased after ratings by causing outrage, how they goosed the secret prejudices of their listeners. Some people tuned in because they actually agreed with what was being said. Most people just enjoyed the theatre, the vehemence, the provocation.

These shock jocks were national institutions, with millions of weekly listeners. They were a new and important part of the American constitution, and that is my first objection to the utterly demented decision by Jacqui Smith's Home Office to announce that Michael Savage, America's third most popular radio show host, is banned from entering this country. It just makes us look so infantile, so pathetic.

Every day the American airwaves are churned by the paranoid rantings of Michael Savage and his kind. Has this stuff warped America, or deformed its political psyche? On the contrary, the Americans have just had the good sense to elect a supremely gifted and eloquent black man – when the prospect of a black British prime minister still seems some way off. What are we, some sort of kindergarten that needs to be protected against these dangerous American radio shows? Does Jacqui Smith think we are all dimwits, who can't tell when a man like Savage is talking rubbish? Why can America take it, and we can't?

The answer is that America still has a constitutional protection of free speech, and I have been amazed, over the last few days, to see how few people in this country are willing to stick up for that elementary principle. Across Fleet Street, swords have stuck in their scabbards, swords that normally leap to the defence of liberty.

I am not aware that a single MP has spoken on this subject, apart from David Winnick, who went on Newsnight to agree with Jacqui Smith. Harold Wilson once called Mr Winnick "the stupidest man in the House of Commons", a reputation he did nothing to shake with his performance. Mr Winnick said that Savage should be banned from this country for claiming that many children with autism were "brats". That is indeed an odious and ill-informed opinion. But surely it should be blindingly obvious even to David Winnick that it is possible to despise the things that Michael Savage says, and yet to think that it is very odd indeed to bar him from this country.

Such is the terror of being associated with Mr Savage's ugly ravings, that no one dares speak up for common sense and proportionality. To exclude someone from entering this country is a serious act of state. We have not been told how the decision was taken. We do not know which criteria were applied.

All we can say for certain is that there was no attempt to consult our elected representatives in the House of Commons, engrossed as they now are in defending their expenses, and it looks very much as though the list of banned persons was rushed out to cover up the hoo-ha over the Home Secretary's taxpayer-funded bath plug.

Michael Savage has said ignorant and unpleasant things about gay people, autism and Muslims. But it is far from clear that he would be in breach of any law, even in this country. The world is full of loudmouth media berks with views that we would all like to keep to themselves, but we can't ban them all from entering Britain.

Perhaps Jacqui Smith thinks that it "sends out a signal" about the kind of Britain we want. On the contrary, it reinforces a culture – created by this Labour Government, and its addiction to political correctness – where people are increasingly confused and panic-stricken about what they can say and what is forbidden, a culture where a police officer can seriously think he is right to arrest a protester for calling a police horse "gay". Our courts and tribunals are clogged with people claiming to have suffered insults of one kind or another, and a country once famous for free speech is now hysterically and expensively sensitive to anything that could be taken as a slight.

The final absurdity of the Home Office ban is that huge numbers of British people have now listened to or watched Mr Savage, when they might otherwise have rubbed along without even knowing he existed. They will have found a boorish, excitable man who addresses his callers as "moron", who is much less gifted than Howard Stern and who is certainly no threat to this country.

[derspiess]

I wish Boris were my mayor

[saskganesh]

that Savage fellow would be certainly charged with "hate speech" in Canada. but then he would exploit the spotlight and come out ahead with a lot of earned media.

it's far far better to call him "idiot" and then move on.

The final absurdity of the Home Office ban is that huge numbers of British people have now listened to or watched Mr Savage, when they might otherwise have rubbed along without even knowing he existed

yeah.

[DontSayBanana]

that Savage fellow would be certainly charged with "hate speech" in Canada. but then he would exploit the spotlight and come out ahead with a lot of earned media.

it's far far better to call him "idiot" and then move on.

The final absurdity of the Home Office ban is that huge numbers of British people have now listened to or watched Mr Savage, when they might otherwise have rubbed along without even knowing he existed

yeah.

The absurdity is that we continue to give him the public format to do so. The right to free speech is one thing; the right to publicly broadcast abuses of such over FCC-regulated airspace is not.

I think we'd see some actual progress if we started forcing, not just the studios, but the jockeys to apply for a renewable FCC broadcasting license as well, we could take these guys down long before it becomes this much of a controversy.

Much of Savage's own speech could be classified as "libel," so revoking his license for those offenses would not be unconstitutional.

[derspiess]

Much of Savage's own speech could be classified as "libel," so revoking his license for those offenses would not be unconstitutional.

Like what?

[Martinus]

I think it is disingenuous to expect a country to extend every and all of its liberties, awarded to citizens, to foreigners coming to visit. Show me a single country in the world that allows everybody to enter its borders, unless they break the law of the land, and then the criticism of the UK over this would be justified.

[Valmy]

I think it is disingenuous to expect a country to extend every and all of its liberties, awarded to citizens, to foreigners coming to visit. Show me a single country in the world that allows everybody to enter its borders, unless they break the law of the land, and then the criticism of the UK over this would be justified.

I don't think anybody is saying the UK doesn't have a legal right to bar anybody from entering their country they want.

[Savonarola]

The absurdity is that we continue to give him the public format to do so. The right to free speech is one thing; the right to publicly broadcast abuses of such over FCC-regulated airspace is not.

I think we'd see some actual progress if we started forcing, not just the studios, but the jockeys to apply for a renewable FCC broadcasting license as well, we could take these guys down long before it becomes this much of a controversy.

Much of Savage's own speech could be classified as "libel," so revoking his license for those offenses would not be unconstitutional.

If Savage is slandering people why don't they sue him or his parent company?

[Martinus]

The absurdity is that we continue to give him the public format to do so. The right to free speech is one thing; the right to publicly broadcast abuses of such over FCC-regulated airspace is not.

I think we'd see some actual progress if we started forcing, not just the studios, but the jockeys to apply for a renewable FCC broadcasting license as well, we could take these guys down long before it becomes this much of a controversy.

Much of Savage's own speech could be classified as "libel," so revoking his license for those offenses would not be unconstitutional.

If Savage is slandering people why don't they sue him or his parent company?

Why would a sovereign sue someone if it can simply exercise its power?

[Valmy]

Why would a sovereign sue someone if it can simply exercise its power?

The conversation has moved on.  They are talking about his on the air shenanigans in the United States now.

[MadImmortalMan]

The absurdity is that we continue to give him the public format to do so. The right to free speech is one thing; the right to publicly broadcast abuses of such over FCC-regulated airspace is not.

I think we'd see some actual progress if we started forcing, not just the studios, but the jockeys to apply for a renewable FCC broadcasting license as well, we could take these guys down long before it becomes this much of a controversy.

Much of Savage's own speech could be classified as "libel," so revoking his license for those offenses would not be unconstitutional.

I'm not so sure that's a good idea. The lengths to which that logic can be stretched goes into all kinds of undesirableness. Imagine if Savage or someone like him wielded that same power.

[grumbler]

I think it is disingenuous to expect a country to extend every and all of its liberties, awarded to citizens, to foreigners coming to visit. Show me a single country in the world that allows everybody to enter its borders, unless they break the law of the land, and then the criticism of the UK over this would be justified.

Fallacy of the false dilemma.  There are more choices than simply allowing everyone in, and banning someone who has not even expressed a desire to enter the country, because some government politicians decide that such banning serves their interests.

The British government came out looking like morons.  I wouldn't invite Savage to dinner, but I certainly am not going to go out of my way to publicise that fact.   It is the publicity that stinks here, more than the act.  Had the British government decided (for whatever bizarre reasons) that savage is a threat to the safety of Britain, and had simply noted to their consulates that they need not even consider a visa application, Britains would not have been exposed (as you know they were, out of pure curiousity) to the very thing that so grievously endangers them.

So, yes, some of us can criticise the UK government in the absence of governments who allow anyone to enter their countries (unless they break the law of the land) even if you lack the capacity to see how to do so yourself.