This Limey Thinks Your Freedom of Speech is Too Free…
By Shaun Kenney | Sunday, January 16th, 2011 | Catch-All
Truth be told, I have a great deal of love for the Mother County… and her next door neighbor, Great Britain. In fact, there are a great deal those of us in Western Civilization have inherited from East Ireland. Much of those principles thrived here in North America, while the lords and ladies of England chose to pursue empire over liberty, and thus made the wreck we Americans inherited both during the Cold War and its aftermath.
So of course it stings a little when certain English writers take aim at the principles of the United States — principles which give us not only our strength, but the ability to keep the Western world free.
The anecdotal evidence for why this intellectual version of the Black and Tans thinks our American values of free speech are too free? Why, it’s this caricature right here:
I was asked some time ago by a university-educated Texan, in the nicest possible way, what it was like to live in a country of “baby-killers” about to be “overrun by Muslim bad guys”. I inquired where he had gained this bizarre impression of Europe, which he had never visited. It turned out his sole information about the world beyond America’s shore came from Fox News. He was not stupid. But he and millions of people like him considered this source of news a sufficient window on the world. He genuinely thought American troops would soon have to save Europe from “the Arabs”.
Can we say “stereotypical ugly American” three times fast? I mean, did he actually interview anyone, or did he just flip through the coloring book and pointed at the first cowboy he saw?
Based on this anecdote, this UK Guardian columnist believes your freedom of speech is too free. Take a good look, because this is little more than the commonly held opinion of either the uneducated or the powerful who hate free minds, free markets, and a free society.
My opinion? Go back home, John Bull. How many times do we have to throw you and your ideas off this continent before you get the point?
Oh, and thanks for completely screwing up the world before your empire collapsed while its policies wrote checks Great Britain couldn’t cash. The Americans are more than happy to do your cleanup in Israel, Pakistan, Afghanistan, southern Africa, China, southeast Asia, and every other corner of the world.
At least the Irish had the common sense to throw you out of most of the country…
Unlike Britain, while one may disagree with what you have to say, I and many Americans will defend to the death your right to say it. I guess “free speech” has a more universal appeal in the paraphrasing of that little quote, doesn’t it?
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About the author
Shaun Kenney is the Chairman of the Fluvanna County Board of Supervisors, former Communications Director for the Republican Party of Virginia, and an active blogger since 2002. Shaun lives in Thomas Jefferson's backyard with his wife, six children, and a modest attempt at a farm in Kents Store, Virginia.
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15 Responses to "This Limey Thinks Your Freedom of Speech is Too Free…"
Hear hear. I can’t even watch Chris Matthews on Sunday morning because he always has that BBC correspondent Katty Kay on, and if there’s one thing I truly can’t abide, it’s non-Americans trying to discuss American politics like they have any clue what they’re talking about.
Europe seems to think that the entire United States is made up of two places – New York and Texas. There’s no in between. Either you work on Wall Street or you wear cowboy boots, talk with a twang and spit tobacco juice on the floor. It’s ridiculous.
The fact is, the Texan there talking wasn’t wrong – Europe has a major immigration problem, which pretty much anyone over there will admit. When you’ve got Germany talking about securing its borders and you’ve got a major fight underway in Great Britain over whether their efforts to protect the country from radical islam is working, I can’t blame the guy for saying what he said. I don’t know about baby-killers, but we do know that Europe has one of the lowest birth rates in the world (another reason why they’re having illegal immigration problems).
My suggestion is the usual one I have when I’m dealing with non-Americans giving their two cents on our internal politics – mind your business and we’ll mind ours.
Shaun,
You forgot how the British screwed up Nigeria and Sudan, too.
Should we even start on their former colony of Uganda?
Let’s add Egypt, Iraq, the Gulf, Zimbabwe, Kenya, India, and whatever bits of the Caribbean they chose to hold onto.
For all the glory of the British Empire and the institutions they passed on (parliaments, the rule of law, and infrastructure) the mess they left behind was truly kleptocratic.
Long may the United States fend off any aspiration of empire other than that of the Jeffersonian vision — the Empire of Liberty, and all that self-determination brings.
@Brian — Amen to all of that.
It’s no accident that the left is in charge of Europe and that free speech is not highly regarded. The left insists on ideological purity because they can’t point to historical support for the efficacy of their policies. Unfortunately America is copying their worst features so it makes it harder to criticize them. If Obama and the Dems win in 2012 some countries in Europe may start looking better than here.
As the joke goes in Germany, “Vee knows exactly how to destroy Great Britain. Vee lets dem vin anudder var.”
Seriously now. Europeans have no understanding of the US or the Western Hemisphere in general. We are some “vast continent” unaware of global concerns to some. Others, like my German niece, do not grasph the enormity of space. She thinks she can easily jet about from New York to LA to Chicago and then to Florida as if she were flying from Frankfort to Paris to London to Rome. Germany is the size of Minnessota. Great Britain is the size of Missouri. France is smaller than the state of Texas. All of Europe combined would easily fit into the area east of the Mississippi River. Yes I get really irked when I have to discuss America _anything _ with Europeans. They have the strangest notions of this country based what I’m not sure (movies, mostly). Why they are pontificating on Fox news and like is mystery. I can’t take them seriously, nor any program that insists on putting them on the air as pundits.
We should petition the UN to strike the word “Great”
We should call them “Above-Average Britain”
Brian,
They’d only be above average because Scotland is still in the union. If the SNP manages to get Scotland out, what would be left (England, Wales, and Northern Ireland) would be the world’s largest landfill.
[Henry cues up "Scotland the Brave" on the bagpipes.]
I find the effort to force “civility” to be an attempt by Elites to position themselves as the “facilitators” of that THEY deem is suitable viewpoints.
Here in Tidewater we have the taxpayer subsidized Hampton Roads Center For Civic Engagement. The leadership of this organization believe that THEY should serve as the arbiter (filter) in any “conversation” between elected representatives and the unwashed, uncivil masses. This largely Left leaning/Progressive organization touts their role as being the purveyors of free speech by deciding which viewpoints are “authentic voices” and which as the voices of “professional citizens”.
Here is their website:
http://www.hrcce.org/
“The mission of the Center is to support sustainable deliberative democracy in Hampton Roads and to connect public decision making with civil dialogue and the informed judgment of the region’s citizens.”
Of course “informed” is akin to “indoctrinated”. Their homepage features Vivian Paige’s blog on the right hand side. One would have expected it to be on the left hand side. But then, she IS a Board Member. Along with the likes of Jim Oliver, Bob O’Neill, Henry Light, Ray Taylor, and a host of other “Future Hampton Roads” urban/“Regionalist” Elites.
All of this being funded by tax dollars, the business lobby, and the Batten family – our good “neutral” friends that founded and own the-oh-so “neutral” Virginian-Pilot.
If there is one thing that will get United States citizens to actually Unite, it’s being told by an arrogant Brit that we have it all wrong.
Of course, it was partially the “sun never setting” on the British empire which threw them into economic chaos and caused a significant tectonic shift in global politics towards the US.
Obviously a huge oversimplification, but, still, something we should remember in the U.S. as we expand our incursions into former British colonies.
“it was partially the “sun never setting” on the British empire which threw them into economic chaos”.
The sun never set on the French empire either and the main difficulty they had was giving it up (i.e. Vietnam/Algeria). But once they did there wasn’t any big problem.
The real problem with the British is a loss of confidence and belief in their country that the French have not experienced. Family members were over there in the 1940s and remarked how surprised they were at the widespread antipathy among educated British against their country and its history even after the WWII victory. Throwing out Churchill and embracing hard left socialism came naturally. The British still feel this way. I was briefly over there during the Thatcher era and was constantly barraged with anti Thatcher griping. Almost always these were people who voted for her!! I said, then vote for the Labor candidate. They would look down and say they couldn’t. The Labor party was impossible. The point is that many Britishers voting for Thatcher did so with gritted teech. Yet her conservatism was extremely mild in the scheme of things. Britain has become a sad sick country.
Does any of that sound familiar with today’s US leftists. Don’t they all wish that they had a different country to live in that didn’t embarrass them in their conversations with worldwide socialists?
The current state of Britain is a warning to the US. I hope we take heed.
As my Irish Great Grandfather used to loudly proclaim every St. Patrick’s day –
“If the old country were so g-damned great, we never would have left in the first place!!!!”
Much to the amusement of us children and the embarrassment of his proper English wife who shared the sentiment but objected to the language.
I wouldn’t get my bowels in an uproar over one misguided columnist. After all, we have plenty of those right here in our part of the USA. Eugene Robinson immediately comes to mind when I think about all the home-grown “hate America” writers.
I have lived in Europe for a total of eight years and traveled the continent from Turkey to Russia to Great Britain and Ireland. My ancestors came from Wales, Ireland, and Germany. I can tell you that for every chauvinist dingbat like this guy, there are quite literally dozens of others who truly admire America and our accomplishments on the world stage.
I find the current debate over “American exceptionalism” annoying and silly. History speaks for itself and never in the history of western civilization has there been a more exceptional society. That is why our ancestors came here and that is why our world leadership remains a burden that we willingly accept.
Well said, Roc.
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