UK politician arrested after speech quoting PM Churchill's view against Islam

[CougarKing]

I assume Weston used Churchill's passage from "River of War" that included this quote: "The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men..."

Fox News

British politician arrested after speech quoting Churchill’s take on Islam
Published April 29, 2014

FoxNews.com

Paul Weston, chairman of Liberty GB, was reportedly arrested after making a speech quoting Winston Churchill about Islam.

A British politician reading from a book penned by former Prime Minister Winston Churchill was arrested Saturday on the suspicion of religious or racial harassment, The Independent reported.

<snip>

The paper quoted a spokesman from his political party as saying Weston was addressing passers-by and quoted an excerpt about Islam from Churchill's "The River of War," which was written in 1899, when he was 25, during his time in Sudan.

(...EDITED)


Daniel Hannan, the author of “How we Invented Freedom” wrote in the Telegraph, “Why should it fall to me to defend him? Where are the lion-hearted liberals who are so quick to denounce political arrests in distant dictatorships? I realise that "political arrest" is a strong phrase, but it's hard to think of any other way to describe a candidate for public office being taken into police custody because of objections to the content of his pitch."

(..EDITED)

 

[BurnDoctor]

Had I the resources, I'd happily pay his bail/legal fees. This is censorship/political persecution/selective political correctness at its absolute worst.

 

[Metsuke]

I, originally from the UK, now in Canada  I say this is poor show, we should have a freedom of speech, and expression, and arresting him, really is quite a dictatorship move eh? Its something they do in China that is, arresting people with political opinions, and same with North Korea, terrible.. I hope he gets released, because the UK is suppose to be a nation that is supposedly "free". In fact, if you dig deep, you will see many unlawful actions committed by police officers, and people with authority, the military included. 

 

[Kirkhill]

Whiggish Churchill & Tucker Carlson etc - Providence

Seeing Churchill as icon of Anglo/American liberal order, some postliberals including Christians want to demote if not dethrone him

providencemag.com

Key to the anti-Churchill hostility among many ardent postliberals is that Churchill was the supreme champion of Anglo-parliamentary liberal democracy. He strove to incarnate the tradition of limited government in defense of liberty that dates to Magna Carta and amplifies through the Glorious Revolution, the U.S. founding charters, and subsequent democratic reforms that expanded liberty for all.

Perhaps Churchill most succinctly summarized his stance in a speech he wrote not for himself but for Queen Elizabeth at her 1952 coronation:

Parliamentary institutions, with their free speech and respect for the rights of minorities, and the inspiration of a broad tolerance in thought and expression – all this we conceive to be a precious part of our way of life and outlook.

A “broad tolerance in thought and expression” embodies what many postliberals ardently oppose as they espouse more restrictive alternatives more rooted in continental alternatives than the Anglo-American political tradition.

One of the anti-liberals was the young Pierre Elliott Trudeau - he also despised Anglo-Saxon parliamentary liberal democracy and, like much of his generation, looked up to Petain, Mussolini, Franco and Salazar and the other strong men of the Pre-WW2 age.

Post-liberalism likes a lot like the world before June 5th 1944.

The armies of the Anglo-Saxon parliamentary liberal democracies did not clean out the stables after the war. The same politicians, the same businesses, the same families, the same banks - bar some show executions - survived the war, turned their coats and joined new organizations.

Everyone became a democrat. Everyone became a liberal. But "real" democrats and "real" liberals.

The same elite.