I don’t mention Michael Savage much on this blog, but when I’ve done it, it’s been in a negative way. I don’t like his show (I once called my local station to complain about it), and his on-air personality gives me prickly itch. I share with a few others a not-so-secret suspicion that he’s pure snake oil—not a conservative at all, but a performer who’s found a routine that makes him money, and milks it.

But he’s not a danger to the British Commonwealth.

Here’s Threedonia’s report (featuring a cool picture of the signing of the Magna Carta) on the story of the British Home Office’s decision to list Savage among 16 people banned from their borders. Savage’s response is (for once) entirely appropriate:

“Darn! And I was just planning a trip to England for their superior dental work and cuisine,” he joked….

It’s become increasingly clear that our present educational system has cultivated public ignorance to the extent that liberals nowadays don’t even know what “liberalism” means.

Listen. I used to be a liberal. Back when being a liberal meant something. And there’s one part of liberal philosophy that I’ve never abandoned. I became a conservative, in part, because I observed that conservatives were the only people still practicing this liberal principle.

It’s verbalized in a slogan, generally attributed to Voltaire (but which actually first appeared in a book about Voltaire, citation here), one that’s so good that it’s been quoted repeatedly through the centuries, by people who were serious about freedom of speech:

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

I don’t hear that quotation a whole lot anymore. And when I do hear it quoted, it’s usually by conservatives.

Listen—this is a large part of what liberalism used to be about.

I say to myself, “I believe I’m right. I’m certain I’m right. But it would be arrogant (in the Greek tragedy sense) to completely rule out the possibility that I could be wrong. Or partly wrong, at least.

“Therefore, because I am a liberal* and care more about the truth** than about winning arguments, I will not make (or support) laws to silence, or punish, the arguments of my opponents.

“I get my say. The other side gets its say. Then our listeners can decide between us.

“I demonstrate my confidence in my position precisely by not fearing to expose it to debate.”

* “Liberal”used to mean someone who prized freedom above all earthly things. Not equality, but freedom.

** Liberals used to believe there was such a thing as truth, and that reason and argument ought to be exercised in the eternal attempt to discover it. When liberals stopped believing in truth, they stopped revering freedom of thought and expression.