There’s nothing more annoying than foreigners criticising Britain for exactly the same things as Britons do. Words like ‘glass houses’ and ‘stones’ come to mind as if by themselves.
American politicians especially like to adopt a hectoring tone when talking about Britain and to the British. Many Americans in general feel they’ve solved every little problem of life, which makes it not just their right but their duty to teach others how to do the same.
J.D. Vance in particular, a hillbilly bully from a place in Ohio no one has ever heard of, is deeply concerned about our deficit of free speech. So deeply, in fact, that one may think he has nothing else to worry about.
Mind your own business, Mr Vice President, which is far from being good. Of course, Britain suffers from an advanced case of wokery, which does put clamps on free speech. But the original contagion came from the US and its campuses, where the very term and concept of ‘political correctness’ originated.
In fact, I first heard the expression from my son, at that time a student at Berkeley. That was only putting a name to a phenomenon I myself observed in the early 1970s, when I moved to America. The US was already at that time a lot more woke than Britain was in the late 1980s, when I settled there.
For example, the war against masculine pronouns and the word ‘man’ was already raging in 1974, when I was working at NASA. I was told in no uncertain terms that there were no men and women working there, only ‘persons’, and all ‘persons’ with the same job description should be paid the same regardless of the quantity and quality of work they did.
By the time I moved to London in 1988, wokery had become stifling in America. I was amazed how freely Britons expressed themselves on such thin-ice subjects as sex and race. One could hear jokes on TV that would have been impossible in the US even a generation earlier.
Alas, Britons only ever borrow Americans’ vices, not their virtues. Step by step, that particular vice infected Britain, but there was a time lag, some 10 years or thereabouts. However, it wasn’t as if wokery had left American shores behind when it migrated to Britain.
Talking to my American friends, especially those in academe, I get a distinct impression that things are no better there than here, and could even be worse. It’s those glass houses again. I wish Vance just shut up.
Now the US State Department, having taken a break from paying lickspittle to such bastions of freedom as China and Saudi Arabia, has issued a statement citing “credible reports of serious restrictions on freedom of expression” in Britain.
There are “specific areas of concern” involving curbs on “political speech deemed ‘hateful’ or ‘offensive’.” Whose concerns? The State Department’s? Surely they can’t imply that things in Britain have got so bad that she can no longer be seen as America’s ally?
The report singled out laws establishing ‘safe access zones’ around abortion clinics in England and Wales: “These restrictions on freedom of speech could include prohibitions on efforts to influence others when inside a restricted area, even through prayer or silent protests.”
They were referring to a specific case last year, when a praying Christian was arrested for breaching such a zone and refusing to move on. An outrageous case no doubt, but not one as straightforward as those Americans think.
My position on the issue is that abortion ought to be outlawed, and such clinics shouldn’t exist. I also think that heatwaves like the current one shouldn’t exist, and rain should only ever come down when it’s necessary for agriculture.
Alas, rain refuses to come when it’s needed and, when it does come, it sometimes floods vast areas. Also, heatwaves exist – and so, much to my regret, do abortion clinics. Unfortunately, abortion isn’t against the law, and neither are the places in which those offensive procedures are administered.
There have been many instances of activists harassing abortion clinics, threatening those who worked there with violence and vandalising their cars. Eventually, the police had to establish those quarantine zones, and anyone who breaches them breaks the law.
Some of such activists scream abuse at the personnel of those clinics, some – such as the gentleman the State Department had in mind – offer a prayer for the souls of abortionists and those they abort. But some others may well pack a firebomb, which has been known to happen in the US.
This isn’t a free-speech issue. For example, my right to oppose abortion has never been curtailed, even though over the years I must have written dozens of articles on the subject. A law exists and, as the Romans used to say, dura lex, sed lex. In a country ruled by law, my disagreement with a law doesn’t mean I’m free to break it.
Another touching concern expressed by the State Department is about violence “motivated by anti-Semitism”. This is indeed a problem, although again I fail to see how it is any of America’s official concern. Any American or, for that matter, anyone else, is welcome to express disgust at this appalling problem, but the State Department’s job is diplomacy, not moral outrage.
America is fortunate in that most migrants to her shores don’t espouse a religion preaching hostility to Jews. God knows there are many anti-Semites among Christians too, but when they express such feelings publicly and especially violently, they do so in spite of their religion. Muslims do it because of theirs.
Throughout Europe, the frequency of anti-Semitic incidents is directly proportional to the percentage of Muslims in the country. Consecutive British governments have been complicit in letting swarms of alien migrants into the country, but this is our problem, not America’s.
If Americans want to help, perhaps they should think a bit longer next time they feel like attacking a Muslim country than they did before their ill-advised invasion of Iraq in 2003. That created a tsunami-strength wave of Muslim migration to Europe and Britain, making one think that particular hornets’ nest should perhaps have been left unpoked.
Another popular complaint one hears from Americans is that major British cities are so crime-infested that God-fearing Americans are afraid to go out after dark. I wonder if they have similar fears in New York, where the murder rate is four times that of London.
Nor has His Majesty’s Government felt compelled to use the army as a crime-fighting force, as the US administration has done in Washington DC. Much as I’d love to watch the paras of the 82nd Airborne dropping on the South Bronx, I’m not sure about using the army to do police work.
But it’s America’s business, not mine, and it’s tactless for outlanders to offer unsolicited advice to other countries. I wish those Americans extended the same courtesy to us, at least in their official communications on record.