Opaque Lucidity

Defending To The Death Your Right To Say It

You may know by now that Michael Savage has been banned from entering the United Kingdom along with 15 others who are viewed as having “extreme” views and whose words could promote violence in the public space. There are other Americans on the list (the Phelps family and KKK members) as well as a few men of Middle Eastern extraction and Russian skinheads. Keep in mind that almost none of these “least wanted” are being barred from the UK for criminal acts, but for the opinions they express.

Even though his name rarely comes up in media circles, Michael Savage is the third most popular talk show host in the United States in terms of listeners. Compared to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity (the first and second-most popular, respectively), Savage’s show is angrier, more rambling and much less friendly to those who are listening for the first time. Savage is a biologist by education, but his show centers on three main topics (borders, language, and culture) with a healthy dose of whatever he finds interesting on a given day. His show runs here on a three-hour delay, so I tend to listen at night after we go to bed. He offends many people on both ends of the political spectrum, but I tend to find him more of an irritable entertainer than anything else, sort of like a W.C. Fields for the 21st century. But don’t let that comparison fool you---the man is brilliant and is often correct in his predictions about the course of western society.

While the reasons for Savage’s banning from the UK are vague (“hate speech” is a phony term made up by weak-willed sisters who are afraid of challenge), I can venture two specific guesses. First, Savage has been harsh in his criticism of Islam; in my opinion, this nation would do well to repeat and magnify this criticism. In the UK, however, where imams and other Muslim leaders preach death and hate in the streets with no fear of consequence, anyone expressing doubt about the “religion of peace” is someone to be censored lest the growing minority of adherents to Islam rise up and threaten the powers that be. Better to keep a lid on the boiling cauldron, I guess. I can almost hear Winston Churchill bellowing from here about negotiating with the crocodile in the hope that he will eat you last.

My second guess is a little more conspiratorial. While Savage may be popular, he has few friends in high places, unlike Limbaugh or Hannity, who count Senators and Supreme Court Justices as close confidants. Thus, he makes an excellent guinea pig for those who wish to really test the free speech waters in the UK and, you guessed it, the United States. Don’t think for a moment that certain members of the Obama administration are not watching these proceedings, interested in just how far they can push the envelope here in the land of the First Amendment. After all, it was liberals in the US who invented the idea of “hate speech”, a hazy phrase which means something different to each group who stoops to use it. The socialists in power now (elected by those of you who can’t properly define the term) would like nothing more than to acquire the power to not just silence dissenters, but to make them out as scofflaws bent on mayhem, rape and murder if only the door is left open for their voices to be heard. If you think I’m carrying this torch a little too far, do a Google search for the following terms: tea party media coverage. What they can not silence outright, they will vilify.

As we get older, I believe most of us begin to see our parents as they truly are---flawed people who, most of the time, did the best they could with the gifts God gave them. Our children, if we have them, will see us the same way. I also view our Founding Fathers in this way, with one difference: they were almost all brilliant men who had a solid grasp of human behavior. They understood that a time would come in our nation when a group, given enough power, would seek to put limits on their opponents’ right of free expression. That’s why the First Amendment came before all the others; the right of free expression is so fundamentally important to the continuance of our society as we know it that all other rights are, and must remain, secondary to it.

In this first decade of the 21st century, the time has come for us to revisit our Founders’ thoughts on free speech. They did not wish to protect delicate, courteous debate between groups of equal stature. Speech of that sort is protected by the very nature of man. Instead, they sought to protect rude, angry and uncomfortable speech, the kind that makes people stay up all night yelling at each other. For they knew that is the kind of speech from which real change springs.

Those now in power in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and other nations in Europe are seeking to redefine free speech on a fundamental level to suit their agenda. If they succeed, George Orwell’s vision of an overbearing, all-seeing government will seem Utopian compared to the world our children and grandchildren inherit. Those of you who support odious concepts such as hate speech legislation need to give hard thought to why you believe such a radical departure from the intentions of the Founders is necessary.