On the banning of Savage from Britain

Scott B. writes from England:

My posted comment to a newspaper article on the banning of Michael Savage from Britain:

No one disputes that the government has the right to ban anyone from these shores, least of all Michael Savage, whose “highly offensive” argument is precisely that Western governments should exercise that very right in order to restrict immigration from members of a religion which a clear majority of Europeans in polls have said they regard as incompatible with Western civilization.

The question is not whether the government has the right to do so but whether it was right in this case, when what their decision amounts to is, under the guise of even-handedness, the opening up of yet another front in their fanatical multiculturalist attempt to criminalise or at the very least demonise any criticism of immigration and certain immigrant groups.

And so, as we continue to take no action against thousands of self-defined jihad-supporters (i.e. open traitors) already living in this country, the government bars a handful of foreign jihadists and uses that as an excuse to equate enemies of our culture with criticism of those enemies, and further to advance its totalitarian outlawing of criticism of particular problematic cultures, along with the immigration policies that allow members of those cultures to move here en masse.

But then who would ever have guessed that a left-wing government would end up destroying our economy and liberties both? I mean, such a thing must surely be without precedent!

LA replies:

This is very good. You wrote:

“The question is not whether the government has the right to do so but whether it was right in this case.”

So few people understand this. Most conservatives today think exactly like liberals, thinking it’s all a matter of rights and that there should be no restrictions at all. But the point is not that that everyone has a right not to be excluded from Britain. That’s the liberal view. The point is that when the government excludes people from Britain, it ought to do so for the right reasons. That’s the traditionalist view.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 09, 2009 03:54 PM | Send