The United Kingdom Used To Be A Free Country, Right?

From the Archbishop of Canterbury’s advocacy of Sharia lite, to the country’s ubiquitous network of security cameras and the disarming of the population (except the criminals of course), it’s almost impossible to believe that the United Kingdom is the ancestral home of the freedoms we and most free nations enjoy.

The latest installment of the UK’s slide into irrelevance centers around the upcoming Olympics in China.

British Olympic chiefs are to force athletes to sign a contract promising not to speak out about China's appalling human rights record – or face being banned from travelling to Beijing.

…The controversial clause has been inserted into athletes' contracts for the first time and forbids them from making any political comment about countries staging the Olympic Games.

From the moment they sign up, the competitors …will be effectively gagged from commenting on China's politics, human rights abuses or illegal occupation of Tibet.

The amazing thing is other countries, you know the ones that actually value freedom, aren’t inserting clauses like this. In fact only New Zealand and Belgium are reported to have similar clauses, so it doesn’t appear to be an effort by China or Olympic officials. Surrendering your fundamental rights is ignoble enough, surrendering them preemptively is nothing short of contemptible.

By the way, does anyone think if this year’s Olympics were in the US that there would be clauses prohibiting athletes from speaking out against George W. Bush or the war in Iraq?

posted by DrewM. at 11:42 AM

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