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undesirable people

The home office here in england has just published a list of undesirable people who are banned from entering this country, they include a famous right wing American talk show host and a certain Mr Phelps.
This sort of raises interesting issues, the first one being should you ban someone from entering a country simply because you don't like what they say?
The other issue is that according to the home office the famous right wing radio talk show host would be be treated no differently than other extremistist and would be under constant serveilance by security services if he were an English national.
The question being why aren't these right wing extremeists under constant surveilance by American secret services?

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Permalink Reply by Karl on May 21, 2009 at 1:26pm

But he never says to kill them. I am actually quite sure that if someone did kill a homosexual and cite Phelps as his reason, he would deny all involvement and say that the person misinterpreted his message.

yes but you know and I know that people read between the lines.What you might say in court and what happens in the real world are two very different things.
I have to say that ive never claimed that what we do in Britain is the right answer and I don't think there is a real solution, if you read what i originaly said I was just reporting what had been desided with regard to letting people into the country.and America is hardly blameless when it comes to supressing what it doesn't want people to know.

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Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on May 21, 2009 at 2:49pm

"But {Phelps} never says to kill them. I am actually quite sure that if someone did kill a homosexual and cite Phelps as his reason, he would deny all involvement and say that the person misinterpreted his message.

Exactly - just as anyone accused of a crime will deny all involvement and claim innocence. It's why we have prosecutors and defenders and courts and lawyers. To determine, "Did Phelps' actions equate that of a mentor putting a gun in the person's hand and talking them into pulling the trigger?" So far as I know, Phelps hasn't gone that far. Not even quite as close to that as some of our favorite right-wing talk show hosts.

So far, such a defense would equate to, "The violent video game made me do it." Some of these games come closer to inciting a crime than Phelps does imho. But that again is a whole other issue.

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Permalink Reply by Karl on May 21, 2009 at 2:53pm

And Mary,
your constiution, from what ive seen you shout about free speech and then when someone broadcasts a radio show you don't agree with you try to take them to court to stop them broadcasting, which is just a teeny tiny bit screwed up.
I know the level of political debate in america is low at the best of times but do try to at least bit a little bit consistant.

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Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on May 21, 2009 at 2:54pm

Turning it around on ourselves again...

The title of this thread is "undesirable people." A large number of people in the Western world consider us as atheists undesirable. We speak on sites like this about how religion is a moral cancer, theists are often immoral and violent, and wouldn't it be great to see this planet become religion free?"

Should we be banned from the UK? Are we inciting a crime? Because so far, I haven't seen anyone here say "Kill all the theists." At least not in a I'm-seriously-trying-to-organize-a-plan-to-do-that kind of way.

Unless you count the "If you were god" thread. God gets to kill whomever he wants.