Because They Can: The Power To Exclude

Jacqui Smith, the British Home Secretary, has included on her list of persons banned from England the name of talk-show host Michael Savage.

Now Savage is not high on the list of well-known public Conservatives that I admire. Emotion (see previous post) and the sense of outrage trump careful reasoning in his polemic. He is deliberately provocative, and he is aggressive, often to the point of being obnoxious, but he does not encourage hate or violence.

The Left, however, is ever ready to characterize provocative* challenges as "hate-speech". They fear Savage precisely because emotional outrage is their own lingua franca, and they know it is psychologically powerful and an effective means to short-circuit debate.
Luc Van Braekel, a too-rare Belgian who speaks out in defense of free speech, is a featured writer in today's Brussels Journal. His article includes short video clips of recorded statements by Jacqui Smith and Michael Savage.

This incident, taken together with the Geert Wilders affair and others, clearly shows that Britain's fear of tolerating offensive speech has become pathological. Political Correctness, as I have said before, is nothing more nor less than cowardly dishonesty masquerading as comity and good will.

*----
The difference in meaning between "provocative" and "inflammatory" is worth noting.