Radio Talk Show Host Michael Savage gives conservatives a bad name. His outrageous claims goes beyond what society should accept as the norm. Words have consequences and he should be held accountable for his. Simply put, you are not allowed under the guise of free speech to state anything you choose. Some of Michael Savage’s claims are the moral equivalent of screaming fire in a crowded movie theater. For example, his statement about ‘illegal immigrants being used as weapons in germ warfare by terrorists intent on exploiting a weak southern border’. Tell me, Mr. Weiner (aka Michael Savage), why wouldn’t a terrorist simply go to a terminal in the nearest international airport and find a flight bound for the United States and release it there? Your words are meant to incite hatred for Mexicans. The United Kingdom is 100% correct in refusing your entry to their country. Now, if the talk radio station that employs you would recognize your idiocy and refuse you entry into the office building, we could call it a day.
Other Americans included on the list of banned persons include:
• Stephen Donald Black, a.k.a. Don Black, former Alabama Klan leader and creator of the white nationalist online forum Stormfront, banned for “promoting serious criminal activity and fostering hatred that might lead to inter-community violence in the UK.”
• Erich Gliebe, chairman of the neo-Nazi National Alliance, for “engaging in unacceptable behaviour by justifying terrorist violence, provoking others to commit serious crime and fostering racial hatred.”
• Fred Phelps, Sr., and Shirley Phelps Roper, leaders of the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church, for “picket[ing] the funerals of Aids victims and [claiming] the deaths of American soldiers are a punishment for US tolerance of homosexuality.”
• Michael Alan Weiner, a.k.a. Michael Savage, right-wing talk radio host, for “seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts and fostering hatred.” The Home Office also noted that Savage’s “views on immigration, Islam, rape and autism have caused great offence in the US.”
Michael Weiner ? No wonder the guy is so nasty. Is that like a boy named Sue? Serves him right.
According to FoxNews.com, he is planning to sue.
Well, it appears that he got his 15 minutes of fame. Perhaps he is looking to attract some like minded people who will help “fund” his message.
What a loser.
Does GB have the same laws for free speech as us?
I have only heard Mr. Weiner on the radio once. He was saying that Barack Obama was educated in a Muslim school that teaches children to be terrorists. This was many months before McCain/Palin supporters screamed as much during campaign rallies. He really wants Republicans to win, but he goes to far when he incites hatred and widespread ignorance. I have no idea if this will help his listeners to wake up and free their minds, but I hope so. Good thing it was England and not France!
Michael Savage seems to be denying a Brit freedom of speech on British soil when he threatens to sue Jacqui Smith. As usual, he sees no relationship between what he says and the impact on others.
What a despictabe human being.
You can hate what he says all you want but you can’t deny that banning him for his speech is a little scary… I’m not sticking up for this guy because I don’t agree with just about any he says but come on, at what point is free speech not free anymore? So if you don’t like what someone says you can just ban him from the country? Scary…
This sounds like something that dope Janet Nap. would try to do.
In the United States we do not as a government sanction our own citizens or others for their words. If they wish to do so in Great Britain it should be of little concern to us. I wonder if the list contains hateful extremists from other nations.
“I wonder if the list contains hateful extremists from other nations.”
Or left-wingers.
Mando, there hasn’t been a string of murders committed by people who would qualify for the list you would like to see. Ultimately, it shouldn’t matter whether you agree politically with a murderer. If their stated motive is political vengeance, we should not begrudge authorities doing what they can to prevent future acts of violence, including being aware that such hatred is often incited by people like Mr. Weiner.
This DHS thing you’ve been told to be angry about is not worth the energy expenditure. Let DHS do it’s job. Save your anger for if and when civil liberties are actually compromised as they were in the previous administration.
I have to agree with moonhowler on this one. This guy should not do this if he wants to really win the cause of removing “illegal” immigrants from the country. Every time some idiot makes this a race, gender, religious or ethnic issue, instead of a lawful issue about rule of law enforcement they completely miss th true grievance that individuals have a right to petition the government with. Any speech that targets individuals or groups must pass the legal definition of “assault” to be a crime. If it does not pass the legal test of assault, it is just “disgusting”, immature, or offensive. And I also agree with hello.
We must protect free speech as an underlying principal of democracy and personal freedoms, primarily because it will be abused by government officials and governments to oppress and control the people as you are seeing many liberal politicians now doing. On the other hand we must also understand where “actions” lead to violance, or speech that incites subversion of the country, or leads to violent criminal acts on innocent people. In most cases the law should lean heavily in the direction of “free speech”, and only apply when a “direct crime”, or participation in a direct crime as an accomplice involves more than “just words”. If no direct action or direct violent assault or battery accompanies “just words” then we must not use the power of government or the power of an office in government to suppress the voice of the people who have a right to address their greivances with the government and others “as a 1st amendment basic right”.
The issue as it always has been, is not about people’s ethnicity, gender, religion or race. “illegal” immigrants have broken a law and must be punished for it, and removed from the country, or law means nothing. If law means nothing, then we should all just ignore all laws and never show up to a court hearing, as many seem to now do in their corrupted state of mind and in their zealous pursuit of ethnic priviliges.
I believe a basic civil liberty is compromised every time someone breaks a law, harms innocent people and the law is not enforced.
“illegal” immigrants are infringing on my basic civil liberties every time they they affect my community in negative ways, affect my free speech, affect my civil liberties, affect my society and social stability, affect the cleanliness and looks of my neighborhood, affect my transportation access, affect my utility bill cost, affect my credit report, commit fraud with my social security number, affect my health and the increased risk of disease transmission by 12 million additional people in the country that should not be here, increase my risk of dying in an automobile accident, increase my risk of being murdured by a gang, increase my risk of being robbed, increase the risk of sexual transmitted diseases in the country, increase my mortgage costs because of mortgage fraud, increase my tax bill because of HUD 8A programs to 12 million more people than should be in the country, affect my rights to a constitutionally guaranteed pursuit of happiness, affect my liberty by undermining my democracy with socialist concepts, or other forms of political government ideology from foreign countries, affect my financial wealth, affect my access to jobs because they hire people based on their ethnicity, affect my children’s rights and access to competitive and fair jobs because they hire based on ethnicity, deny my children’s rights to school financial programs because the programs are based on ethnicity, deny my rights to social services because they are based on ethnicity, and illegal status acceptance, and affect my rights to basic health care coverage amounts because they increase insurance losses and increase my insurance costs. My civil rights are also violated when “illegaql” immigrants cause my taxes and my insurance to be higher than it would be if 12 million of them were not in the United States.
What part of removing “illegal” immigrants from the United States to give me back my basic civil liberties and my right to petition the government for such “greivances” do any of you NOT UNDERSTAND?
Wow….Y’all remember when this happened?
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/05/02/20090502migrantkilling-ON.html
I can see folks on this blog losing their minds over this one.
I can see people make assumptions that may not be true, and those assumptions may be racially biased by those on this blog that did not serve on the jury.
In my opinion that is one reason why prosecution of crime has to be done based on “vilent acts”, who actually lands the first blow, and not based on “what people say”.
If a man kills you because of what you say, does that make his crime of action any more or less because you opened your mouth and pissed him off?
A lot of wife beaters and husband beaters will be aquitted if the “verbal assault” that may have started the escalation of anger is considered as part of the actual crime. Such thinking requires prosecutors to get inside the head of each person and determine “intent” rather than “action”, and requires judges and jury to become psycologists, just because liberal people want to stop violence, by stopping the speech associated with violence. Speech and actionable violence are not the same thing.
In my opinion, the jury is bound to assess the facts, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or gender. To think otherwise is to bastardize law into racial, and ethnicity boundaries, morals and value systems based on what race or ethnicity you belong to rather than what you do as an “individual” to another.
We have all lost our way with correctly interpreting the law on an individual by individual basis, when we claim it MUST have a racial and ethnicity component, or a DIVERSITY on the jury for it to be JUST.
This is just exactly what os wrong with pro-ethnicity value systems and why it undermines law and democracy.
Welcome back Mando. Good to see you again. I was just wondering what had become of you, as we say here in VA.
Hello, I am glad GB banned him. They can do whatever they want. It is sort of acting out a fantasy…something I wish we could do but can’t. I wish the same for Westboro Baptist church. I don’t know the others involved but both of these have been involved in hate speech, or what most of us consider hate speech.
Slowpoke, that case was already addressed on the Derby thread.
You trying to stir the pot? 😉
It seems like a mighty light conviction considering someone was killed. Are others to be tried also?
Something just doesn’t seem right there. I suppose there are cases tried every day where someone walks away feeling that way.
Wow Moon, I’m not sure what to make of your statement “is sort of acting out a fantasy…something I wish we could do but can’t.”
I’ve always thought of you as an extremely fair person but to ‘wish’ we could ban people from our country because of their speech, no matter how much you dislike it, is pretty shocking coming from you. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed… 🙁
No Hello, not from our country, from Great Britain.
I am sorry, I think those Westboro Baptists are lower than whale doo. There is something totally wrong with going to the funeral of anyone, much less a US solder, and screaming all that anti gay hate speech. I think that goes beyond any stretch of free speech. Frankly, I wouldn’t care if the entire crowd turned on them and beat the crap out of them.
I am not real familiar with Michael Savage. What I have heard from him is good enough to have Great Britain ban him though. I won’t shed one tear. I also am not going to tell GB how to run their business.
Perhaps you are more tolerant than I am. My tolerance stops before it gets to the point of being acceptant of Westboro Baptist invading the privacy of grieving families. That is the ultimate hate speech.
By the way, aren’t fantasies where you get to act out that which you know you can’t or shouldn’t do?
I hear ya about the douche bags that show up a soldiers funerals to protest gays in the military, I have a new found respect for the bikers who show up and rev their engines to drown out their nonsense. Hell, I wouldn’t mind a bit if a few of those protesters tripped and fell face first into a fist or two (or three or four and then fell back and sat down hard on a boot or two or three or four) but by no means would I want to BAN them from the country no matter how disgusting what their doing is.
Is it disgusting, vile, ignorant, stupid, insensitive, horrible and down right wrong, you bet your ass it is… is it their right, you bet ass it is. It’s the price you pay for free speech.
When you BAN someone from an entire country simply because of their speech that country no longer has ‘free speech’.
Of course other countries can’t be judged by our laws or constitution, but, as repulsive and stupid as Michael Weiner may be, I confess that I have a lot of trouble with the European notion that it is a good idea to ban a person because of his ideas, spoken or unspoken. Both England and France (Germany also in certain contexts) have “hate speech” laws that should be anathema to Americans. The way to deal with primitive, deadly ideas is to engage them, and try to ensure that the citizenry is educated enough to discern their demerits. It is troubling that so many people listen to Michael Weiner. Hopefully, some of them are like me, and listen because his vitriolic rants are so incredibly stupid that I find a perverse entertainment value in them. But I fear there are more than a few who are not able to see through his schtick and who might, in the wrong circumstances, even act on this kind of garbage. But, although the UK no doubt has the sovereign right to keep this kind of person outside their borders, in the end, the best protection is to let the man speak and then let educated, decent citizens reject his path.
Michael: we probably live within 20 miles of each other and none of the problems you mention has ever affected me. No illegal immigrant has ever stifled my expression of First Amendment rights or other civil liberties, diminished my health (whether by STD or otherwise – I’m fairly choosy about my sexual partners and my wife is even more so), contributed even incrementally to the general and pervasive transportation deficiencies of my region, impaired my social habits, lowered my credit rating, negatively affected my risks of dying in traffic to any extent even approaching the risks imposed by native drunks, had any success imposing socialist programs on my government (they can’t vote, you see, and I can), stolen a job from me or my kids, or had a net negative effect on my taxes (Actually, I have benefitted on the tax front from illegal immigration because like everyone in America except you, I benefit from the tax surplus immigrants – even illegal ones) create by paying in more taxes than they take out in benefits)/ Where I live we have zoning and housing codes that forbid messes and over-crowding and untidy refuse habits. These rules apply to everyone, citizens, green card holders, tourists, and illegals. The couple of times I’ve been mugged or assaulted have been by native-born Americans (one of whom now has a permanent limp that I gave him as a souvenir). There are a lot of problems on the immigration front that require comprehensive federal reform, but the ones you mention are ones that are extremely rare, if they exist at all (other than in your own unfortunate life – and for that you have my deepest, but perplexed, sympathy. )
So how is it, man, that you are so afflicted and I and virtually everyone else in the nation are skating through virtually unscathed? Rotten luck for you, man. If I had that much bad luck I think I might just try to sneak across the border to Mexico and start over. I mean, I don’t want to wish that on you, but it really can’t get any worse here. I think you just need a fresh start.
/
What kind of country would we be living in if, for example, you spoke out about how much you think the government has failed us on immigration issues… oh, s$it… bad example, I suppose they would now consider you a ‘domestic terrorist’ or maybe a ‘domestic non-overseas contingency threat’?
sorry, $hit… it’s late and the baby has been up for the past 700 hours… 🙁
Nova Scout,
Standing and clapping. Thanks for your insight.
@Moon-howler
Man, I really missed out on the Derby thread! That’s two things, I think.
People need to realize that our constitution does not extend beyond our borders. If you travel abroad, don’t expect your constitutional rights to travel with you.
Slowpoke, the derby thread took an interesting turn – you should go take a look at it!
I agree about the protests at soldiers funerals over gays in the military or anything other thing. The sheer act of protesting at someone’s funeral is awful. Good for the bikers for drowining them out. I’d rather here bike engines reving than listen to a bunch of idiots shouting their protests at a funeral. That stuff is just shameful, pure and simple.
antbvbl.net makes me feel soooo bad. Using the same definition of freedom of speech that some here feeeeel so comfortable with, is there any good reason why antbvbl.net should not be banned? If faction A has more political clout than faction B — and faction A wants to keep it — what stops faction A from banning faction B’s freedom to speak?
“In the United States we do not as a government sanction our own citizens or others for their words.”
LOL!
We most certainly do–selectively, of course.
There is a fine line between inciting violence and threatening.
Old Fashioned, I have no idea what you are asking.
OLE, what definitions? Can you be more specific?
Old Fashioned Liberal, limiting freedom of speech based on political justification is an offense against our Constitution.
However, as Posting as Pinko points out, there is a fine line between exercising freedom of speech, inciting violence and outright threatening.
Free speech becomes a threat when someone advocates violence against a specific group.
Unfortunately, those who do such things tend to know how to eschew the system. They threaten in such a way that they cannot be accused of threatening. Thus, they are protected by the law under the guise of free speech.
Everyone please…
Define “free speech”.
Define “Democracy”
Define “socialism”
Define “Liberty”.
Define “assault”
Define “battery”
Define “hate speech”
Define “hate crime”
Define “civil liberty”
Define “civil rights”
Define “individual rights”
Define “LAW”
Define “lawlessness”
Define “citizen”
Define “American”
Define “illegal” immigration
Define “legal” immigration
I REALLY dare you to attempt to define these terms because I can then start a debate about how MOST people on this blog do not respect or abide by any of the above LEGAL definitions.
Define “obnoxious blow hard”
Returning to topic, Is Great Britain making a wise choice banning people it feels engage in hate speech from its soil? Why would they do this? Does it offend us as Americans because of our solid belief in freedom of speech?
It doesn’t really “offend” me. It’s their country and the people they are banning are not entitled to be there. But I think it a bad policy. Michael Weiner (aka Dr. Michael Savage) is an extraordinarily ridiculous fellow. Letting him vent his ideas on Hyde Park corner or anywhere else in the UK isn’t going to get very far in the marketplace of ideas. I guess the fear is that if a few weak minds are impelled toward violence by someone like Savage, then they have problems. The other problem is that in the UK (and on the Continent), there are some very strange and incendiary folks on both extremes of the spectrum and there is always a risk of speech-induced violence. This includes radical Muslims, neo-fascists, some of the nativists (like Le Pen) in France and elsewhere. Al told, however, I think it’s better to let that stuff flow and make sure that all decent people with three-digit IQs, better than grade-school educations and a bit of moral sense stay busy batting it down.
last sentence should read “All told . . .”
NovaScout, how do you feel about those with Westboro Baptist Church? Somehow I feel they are worse because they have a specific victim.
My opinion of them is quite low. They strike me as a completely unredeemed species of nasty crackpot. But because your issue is whether the UK should exclude them, my response is that they should not. On the other hand, the UK has every right to exclude them and they have no right to go there.