Britain’s Loss Is Ignorance’s Gain (Mark Steyn’s Column No Longer in British Papers)
Via Bill Millan, via LGF, via Tim Blair, Lionel Shriver at the UK Guardian notes, and mourns, The One-Man Global Content Provider’s absence:
Lastly, let me rue the passing of Mark Steyn’s syndication in Britain, for his column has now been dropped by both the Sunday Telegraph and the Spectator. I don’t know the inside story, so I can’t be certain that the jettisoning of this notoriously conservative Canadian constitutes political self-censorship.
Thus my indignation is solely on account of my own entertainment. Fair enough, few Guardian readers would share his hard-right views. I don’t always agree with him either, but I love Mark Steyn. Even though I write them, I cannot bear most columns, which when light-hearted usually err on the trivial, and when serious usually err on the po-faced. But however you may deplore his opinions, Steyn is funny. How often do you read comment pages and laugh aloud? He writes about big issues with tremendous energy, and he has a sensibility now more pertinent to British politics than ever: a refined sense of the absurd.
We “can’t be certain,” but I would say we can be pretty sure that Steyn is no longer welcome because not only is he conservative, his arguments are irrefutably convincing and therefore unsettling to the media elite.
Leftists despise Steyn because, like Rush Limbaugh, he’s right at least 98% of the time. Also like Rush, he busts wide-open the myth that conservatism is joyless and without humor.
And leave it to Steyn not to utter a word of complaint on his own behalf.
Industrious Brits can of course still find Steyn at many places, a couple of them being his own web site and The Chicago Sun-Times. He’s needed over there now more than ever. Let’s hope that many continue to find him.
