"It's about time. God bless Blair for getting this started"

"Let no one be in doubt that the rules of the game are changing," Tony Blair is saying re new deportation measures against people who foster hatred and advocate violence, live on FOX & Friends. Rough transcript as he speaks (full transcript here):

I don't know quite what people mean when they say multiculturalism. Some think it means being isolated in separate communities. It's not what I mean by it. I think you can get hung up on the word. To use British common sense on it, you can have your own religion and your own culture and still feel integrated in the community. I think we can learn from other countries.

It's just getting interesting when FOX & Friends cuts away for talking heads. Steven Schwarz, terrorist expert:

Unfortunately the Muslim community is going to be under scrutiny, including the moderate Muslim community, and it is partially reponsible for that because it hasn't spoken up sooner.

Cut back to Tony:

It's a statement of the obvious that given what has happened, we don't know what else is out there, but in the meantime, we want to be very vigilant and alert. In respect of the internet, we have to look at it internationally because it is a real problem, the incitement to violence. I think it has got some of the same characteristics as revolutionary communism, you know, in the sense that it has got an ideology, it is very extreme, that it can be used to engage young people.

Back to FOX & Friends and Col. David Hunt (Ret.):

Blair is doing it in a public discussion, and that's what we need to do here. Saudi Arabia's exporting terrorism with the state-sponsored Wahhabi religion. The British are housing them and giving them money. We have to have the public discourse. Talking about the religious aspect of this war. It's about time. God bless Blair for getting this started.

Schwartz:

It [implementing the new laws] is a major shift for Anglo-Saxon people, who really believe it is right to let people err on the side of freedom. But it's a commonsense approach; that is, there's no freedom to incite violence. It is because al-Queda is losing in Iraq that they are undertaking this new offensive in the West.

Back to Tony:

I never have accepted that there is a clash between the concept of human rights and the concept of protecting people from terrorism. There has to be a balance. The right to free speech carries a responsibility not to incite violence.

The words of murdered writer/journalist/blogger Steven Vincent -- blogged here yesterday -- continue to resonate:

Words matter. Words convey moral clarity. Without moral clarity, we will not succeed in Iraq.

We agree with Col. Hunt: It's about time.

Update: Like our sis, Pierre Legrand of The Pink Flamingo Bar & Grill thinks we have a heart too soon made glad, noting that "just this morning we discovered that Iran is the country sending arms to murder our soldiers and marines":

False hopes are what I believe lead others to see newfound strength in the backs of leaders who use language not to threaten others but to moderate us. They talk tough so they won't have to act tough.

Do I believe that we should start carpet bombing Iran? Nope, but there should be some military consequences for supplying arms that murder our soldiers and marines. The same government that murdered our marines in Lebanon is still in power. How much longer do we allow them to spread their hatred?

Hope is not a strategy, but we hope our friend is mistaken and that the leaders of the Anglosphere will be as good as their word.

Comments

[goomp]

In the days before the rise of the IM's everyone knew that shouting fire in a crowded theater where there was no fire was not free speech. It was a crime. Let's get back to reality.

[Pierre Legrand]

This is a very tentative first step and given how the Bush administration just this past week started trying to rename the War on Terror to the Struggle Against Extremism I am not optimistic.

Everyone from Hugh Hewitt to Michelle Malkin to our administration want to separate Islam from the war we are waging and given Islams history I don't how they can explain that.

Pierre

[pam]

Granted I think in rather simplistic terms, but WHY can't we do this? Terrorism isn't just for islam-o-idiots; there would be a lot of rabid Mexican illegals who want to 'take back' the southern states leaving as well...

[Don Surber]

I agree. Should have done this before 7/7

[Graham]

I agree with the sentiment of your post. Pure hate and violence dressed up as devout religiosity is no different than the types of incitement to racism that here in the UK we frequently prosecute. I don't concede that this should have been done sooner, as if somehow that might have prevented what occured on 7/7 and two weeks later. Much grander tides are insighting such violence as parts of the world confront their dwindling ability to retain their supremacistic facistic designs. It is an ideal that is dieing as freedom spreads, and the violence we are dealing with is a consequence of that ideal being in its last, desperate throes.

Great blog btw :)