As reported by the BBC today:

“Controversial US “pick-up artist” Julien Blanc has been barred from entering the UK by the Home Office.

The self-styled “dating guru” holds seminars claiming to teach men how to attract women but his methods have been widely criticised as sexually abusive.

A petition to deny him a visa attracted more than 150,000 signatures ahead of his UK tour, due to start in February.”

The fact that a group of 150,000 or so people, who strongly dislike this Julien Blanc, were able to persuade the UK government to ban him from entering the UK is not a victory for good or common sense, but a defeat for liberty and reason.

Look, I agree, the guy’s clearly a dick. But being a dick is not a crime (nor is anything else he has done or said) and so we should find it very troubling that we live in a society a where a mob can form, petition the government to initiate threats of force against an individual whom they express a strong disliking of and then representatives of the State enact that mob’s demands.

This is not the actions of a truly free and enlightened society. It’s the actions of a people drunk on the power of on-line petitions to get government guns pointed at people they don’t like and/or disagree with.

According to the BBC:

“The Home Secretary has the power to exclude an individual if she considers his or her presence in the UK is “not conducive to the public good”.

Such powers form the track to totalitarianism, and we’re already much further down it than people realise.