Michael Savage (AP Photo/John Storey)

By now you have probably heard that Michael Savage was one of the people banned from the UK for fostering extremism or hatred. He was put on a list along the likes of an anti-gay preacher, the founder of a white supremacist website, a Hamas leader, and Russian gangsters.

What I found interesting was Savage’s response to this whole situation. I first heard about it on an NPR’s Talk of the Nation as I was driving back from school. Savage was on the phone with Neal Conan, the host of the show, and started his defense with jokes about British dental care and cuisine (I later heard the same jokes on his own radio show and saw them quoted in a San Francisco Chronicle article. Good job of sticking with the talking points, Savage.)

But after a short attack on Neal Conan, Savage went on to say how being banned from the UK for expressing his opinions is a threat to free speech. Another lame joke about the country of the Magna Carta becoming the country of the mini-carta later, Savage was stressing that even liberals should be upset about this. Because after all, if the UK banned a freedom loving patriot like Savage, who would be next? He argued that he was just using his constitutional right of free speech, and that his views in no way present a threat or encourage people to commit violence. I don’t know if I believe that, tough. Listening to his show make me want to cause violence to myself.

The interesting part came when Neal Conan took the first phone call. The caller made a comment that if Savage talked about Christians or Jews in the same way he did about Muslims, he would have been off the air a long time ago. Savage lost his cool immidiately and started berating the caller. Savage accussed him of being “a nobody sitting in his pajamas in a mental institution somewhere in Iowa.” After fighting with the caller for a little bit longer, once again using his gift of clairvoyance by telling the caller what he was wearing and where he was at, he told Neal Conan that he was a busy man and had better things to do than to argue with his callers. Conan, the consummate professional, told him that maybe he should go do those other things and hung up on him.

As you can see by his response to a single phone call, Savage may love the idea of “freedom of speech”, but if you disagree with him you should not expect him to respect your freedom of speech. So while he is talking about considering a lawsuit because he was banned from the UK, he was the one  who proposed the idea of banning immigration to the US to all Muslims and banning the construction of mosques.

I have no comment on Savage’s political views or his beliefs. He has every right to express his opinion and I would be the first to defend his right to free speech. I do, however, have a problem with clear and blatant hypocrisy. The Bill of Rights grants the freedom of speech, but also the freedom of the press and the freedom of religion among other rights. You do not get to pick and choose which of the rights you support and which you don’t. If you want to run your mouth about your freedom of speech being threatened, you should not advocate the persecution of people based on their religion. Either you believe in the constitution and the Bill of Rights or you don’t. Savage clearly does not.