The Curious Case of George

Galloway, that is.

Canadian immigration officials turned British MP George Galloway away at the door and told him to go home. They accused him of being a supporter of Hamas, which Canada declares a terrorist organization.

Naturally enough, the Canadian blogosphere has turned it into a free speech issue. I guess I'll play ball.

1) Constitutional free speech is meant for citizens, not guests, and it doesn't apply to anybody at the border. The border's a no man's land. The next time you try to cross either way across the US/Canadian border, tell the customs official that he wears ladies underwear [I originally posted that as "tell him his mother wears ladies underwear." Long day, and I got caught between a "mom insult joke" and a "dude insult joke." But it would be an interesting thing to say just to see a man's reaction], his president/PM is a total idiot, and that you wish everyone in his homeland would just die already. See how far you get before he a) puts you through a body cavity search, b) rips your car down to the chassis, and c) hands you a wrench and tells you to put it back together yourself before driving home.

2) Do I think Galloway should have been admitted to the country? I guess so, unless the story's true that he's raised money for Hamas and that his intent was to raise more money by speaking in Toronto. The Canadian government would be idiots to declare Hamas a terrorist organization, yet allow someone to throw a fundraiser for them in Canada's biggest city.

3) No one's mentioned this point yet, and there's no way to prove it, but maybe this is Canada stating, "You started it." Only last month, the UK didn't allow a Dutch MP to enter Britain. The MP, Geert Wilders, was invited by a member of the House of Lords. No dice. When he arrived in the UK, they kept him on ice for hours before kicking him out, saying they were afraid of protests from the Muslim community. In effect, Britain announced that all bets were off. It was now perfectly legitimate for a Western government to bar a visiting MP from entering their country.

The Commonwealth Games does not include the Netherlands, but pretty soon it might not include the UK. There's a political shift going on and the UK is slowly being marginalized as a power to be taken seriously or perhaps any power at all. As for it being the "mother" of Canada and the Commonwealth, a message has been sent: sorry mom, we're moving on with our lives.