You’ve heard the story. A report in The Hill: “UK Parliament debates banning ‘crazy’ Trump”.
The British Parliament on Monday debated a popular petition to ban Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump from entering the United Kingdom.
The members participating in the debate roundly condemned Trump and his comments about Muslims, Mexicans and women, with multiple members describing the business mogul’s rhetoric as “buffoonery.”
Yadda yadda yadda. As if Trump, even if he’s as evil as alleged, has any relevance to the current deterioration of European civilization.
But here’s the punch line:
Tulip Siddiq, a member of the Labour party who is also a Muslim, pushed back against the freedom of speech arguments, saying that Trump’s comments have already incited violent hate crimes. She described an incident in Boston where two brothers assaulted a homeless Hispanic man and told police that they were inspired by the GOP front-runner’s comments about immigration.
“I draw the line on freedom of speech when it actually imports violent ideology, which I feel is happening,” she said.
And here we see on display a tragic aspect of humanity. If a British Muslim MP seriously aspires to use the force of law to silence speech that “imports violent ideology”, she might look first to putting her own house in order. Or if that’s too much to ask, at least she might pause before speaking until (as the man said) her country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.
The see, hear, speak nothing about Rotterham, have nothing to teach the world regarding public speech.