Commentary
Hyde Park Corner in London has for centuries been a mecca of free speech, dating back to the 12th century when it was the site of Tyburn Gallows and the condemned were allowed to criticize the government with their last words.
Stroll about on a Sunday and you might find a Karl Marx doppelganger, replete with beard descending to the chest and hair down to the shoulders, grousing about missing a conference abroad on how best to unshackle the workers of the world because he refused on principle to pay the British government the fee to obtain a passport; keep walking and next you might hear the collective recitation of the Rosary, and calls for conversion from the Catholic Evidence Guild; further on you might encounter a self-styled comedian pretending to argue emphatically that the proof of Englishmen being made of tougher stuff than Americans is that they wear sweaters inside their drafty homes rather than pamper themselves with central heating. Close to every conceivable viewpoint or ideology has been represented….