There’s something the Brits may not be revealing about why Michael Savage won’t be summering in Derbyshire.

I’ll give you a hint: you’re getting warmer.

Twitter was been… all atwitter over Tuesday’s report at Politics Daily that inflammatory radio talk show host Michael Savage has been named on the British governments list of sixteen undesirable individuals who are banned from entering the United Kingdom.

The British Home Secretary (the equivalent of the US Secretary of Homeland Security), Jacqui Smith, is given credit in the Politics Daily article for making the decision to make the names public.  According to Tuesday’s World Net Daily, Smith appeared on Britain’s GMTV and dispensed with subtlety.

Smith explained to Britain’s GMTV that she believed it was “important that people understand the sorts of values and sorts of standards that we have here, the fact that it’s a privilege to come and the sort of things that mean you won’t be welcome in this country.”

“Coming to this country is a privilege,” she said. “If you can’t live by the rules that we live by, the standards and the values that we live by, we should exclude you from this country and, what’s more, now we will make public those people that we have excluded.”

According to The Guardian - London’s more liberal paper – the reason for Savage’s unvitation to visit the British Isle is his extreme views on a variety of subjects.

US talk show host Michael Savage – real name Michael Weiner – is also excluded because of his views on immigration, Islam, rape and autism, which have reportedly caused great offence in America.

I’m not a fan of Mr. Savage, so the last part – that his views cross into offensive territory – is uncontested.  The idea that his views might pose a threat to the United Kingdom or its citizens – as do other persons who made it on the list – is, however, preposterous.  Even if his views might incite violence from some radical corners, it is a case of blaming fuse for setting off the bomb.  If Britain is a teeming pool of volatile hate, only waiting for someone to walk along and toss a match, that is a societal problem for the British to tackle as a nation.

Smith has been taking heat for some time from Brits on the subject of her labeling and re-labeling of extremists to align with the political correctness of the Liberal Party, but this latest decision may cross a line that is difficult for her to jump back on the other side of.  In the country that gave George Orwell to the world – even without the free speech protections Americans take for granted – stretching the definition of “behavior” to include speech may add fuel to the burning notion voiced by her fellow Brits that Smith has moved beyond her mission to protect the motherland from existential threats and has assumed authority to conduct a political cleansing of Britain as well.

And that is where this story becomes far more interesting.  Evidence presents itself that Savage’s views on “immigration, Islam, rape and autism” may not be the sole gripe the British government could have with Savage and thus not the only possible motive for having the denial of his visa application.   No, Savage’s greatest sin may be heresy against the One True Religion of Global Warming.  Savage is what Global Warming proponents now brand as a denier and he is getting together with other deniers to discuss their dangerous denier ideas.

Today also, the environmental blog at The Guardian reported that former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, Christopher Monckton, one of The Guardian’s “top 10 climate change deniers” was given a “lengthy” interview on Savage’s radio program.  Monckton’s statements that “the science is bad, the ‘consensus’ is wrong” and accusing the United Nations of scientific fraud have been a mote in the eye of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s radical climate change agenda. 

Could Savage’s agreement with Monckton that the fear-mongering by global warming proponents is, at best irresponsible and, at worst, a deliberate manipulation of facts for devious ends, be enough to earn a rebuke of this magnitude?  Well, governments get their feelings hurt pretty easily and their responses are often undignified.  If you’re old enough, you can remember the ugliness of the Naturalization Service’s denial of John Lennon’s application for visa renewal in January 1972.  It has been put forward that the F.B.I. shared files with the Nixon administration from surveillance they had conducted on Lennon, files containing details suggesting Lennon would actively campaigning against the President’s re-election.

If Savage’s failure to accept dogma and confess his sin of heresy is the real crime for which he is being punished, then the message Smith is sending may be intended for British citizens more than external ‘foes’.  By her own account, Smith is defining the kinds of behavior that are considered unacceptable, and Savage is an example.  If outsiders can be judged to have misbehaved, why not insiders?  By erecting a straw man, the British government offers friendly lessons to all of its subjects on what not to do.  Lesson: Don’t speak about any of the things Michael Savage speaks about.

Could an aggressive campaign by the government to intimidate skeptical commentary on global warming occur in the US?  I wouldn’t have thought so until last month’s release of the embarrassing Department of Homeland Security report on right-wing extremism which appeared to be a shovel-ready tool for law enforcement to begin tracking political opponents of the Obama administration. 

There is a major reason to anticipate that, in the near future, global warming ‘denier’ will become the number one slur slung at enemies of the left and the Obama administration’s entwined energy and economic policy.  As cap and trade restrictions cause increases in the consumer prices of energy (as well as all other goods that require energy to produce; in a nutshell, everything) the banner of saving the planet from utter destruction will be raised as a way of rationalizing every American’s sacrifice as part of a life and death struggle.  Skeptics will be labeled loony or irresponsible; anyone disputing the underlying premise smeared as greedy, evil villains. 

If politics were Top 40 radio, “Why Do You Want Our Planet to Die?” and “I’m Right, and You’re Wrong Because You Don’t Agree With Me” would be the chart-toppers of the summer of ‘09.  Just like most pop music: great beat to dance to, but the lyrics just don’t make much sense.

When DJ ‘Bama starts spinning these tunes this summer, telling Americans to shut up and dance, I’ll be the one singing my own tune and counting down the days until November 2, 2010 when we have our best chance to throw out the entire playlist and have a real debate on this and so many other issues.

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