Progressive Extinction of Freedom of Speech Edward Cline
https://edwardcline.blogspot.com/2018/03/a-protected-class-and-its-protected.html
There was a headline recently about the death in Kenya of the last captive northern white rhino.
This item has not yet made the MSM, but give it time. The bloviating MSM is pretty desperate for news of any kind that will shoot down Trump, and I’m certain that a determined “reporter” will come up with ambiguous and verbose parallels between Trump and the dead rhino. Perhaps the rhino shed his yellow hair?
At the moment, however, the MSM is gathering steam to make a major impeachment-worthy story over Stormy Daniels’ claim that over a decade ago (or more) she hugged Donald Trump in amorous and scandalous collusion. It is supposed that no American president ever had “relations” with a “loose” woman; one supposes that JFK was a chaste Catholic, and that FDR was a pillar of sexual propriety, as well, and that having such a tête-à-tête proves that a man who so dallied was not qualified to sit in the Oval Office. Name me a president who never had sex with any women outside his family circle. Jimmy Carter, perhaps. The MSM is no doubt hoping that Stormy will help to accomplish what Humpty Dumpty Robert Mueller failed to do after a year of “investigating” the existence of a prancing unicorn. The Mueller investigation, amounting to likely thousands of pages of useless documents, has the credibilityof the Steele Dossier, with the consistency of a dandelion puff.
The subject here is not Trump’s extracurricular adventures, which I think most Americans care very little about, but rather, freedom of speech, here and abroad. Germany’s outlawing freedom of speech concerning the opposition to and criticism of Islam is by now old hat.
The MP for the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party detected in the force’s multilingual new-year greeting a bid “to appease the barbaric, Muslim, rapist hordes of men”. The next day her tweet—and, for 12 hours, her entire account—vanished from Twitter. In the subsequent political storm Alice Weidel, co-leader of the AfD, came to Ms von Storch’s defence: “Our authorities are subordinating themselves to imported, rampaging, groping, punching, stabbing migrant mobs,” she tweeted. That, too, was promptly deleted.
Germany’s memories of the Gestapo and the Stasi undergird its commitment to free speech. “There shall be no censorship,” decrees the constitution. Even marches by Pegida, an Islamophobic and anti-immigrant movement founded in 2014, receive police protection. But the country of Kristallnacht and the Holocaust also takes a punitive attitude to what it deems “hate speech”. Inciting hatred can carry a prison sentence of up to five years, Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” is available only in annotated form, and it is illegal to single out any part of the population for insult or other abuse that could “breach the peace”. …
Reconciling these two convictions—for free speech and against hate speech—is becoming harder, particularly since Angela Merkel’s refugee gambit in 2015. Opening Germany’s borders to some 1.2m mostly Muslim migrants has fuelled the rise of nativist outfits like the AfD and Pegida. Racist propaganda and sensationalist reports (some, though not all, fake) of criminal and rapist immigrants have rippled across social media. In 2016, for example, the number of criminal investigations into online hate speech in Berlin rose by 50%. A number of the newcomers from the Middle East and Africa are anti-Semitic. Confronting such ills without encroaching too much on freedom of expression is tricky.
The most prominent example of the balancing act is the new Net Enforcement Law (NetzDG), of which Ms von Storch’s and Ms Weidel’s tweets were early victims. Inspired by the rise of fake news and a report suggesting that only a minority of illegal posts on social media were being removed within a day (and just 1% or so on Twitter), the law cleared the Bundestag last June and came into force on January 1st. It sets out 20 things defining a comment as “clearly illegal”, such as incitement to hatred or showing the swastika. Once posts are flagged by users, a social-media firm has 24 hours—extended to a week in complex cases—to check and remove those that contravene the rules, or face a €50m ($60m) fine. In the first week, Facebook’s over 1,000 German moderators have had to process hundreds of thousands of cases.
What is more surprising is how swiftly Britain has emerged as a fascist, authoritarian country, to the point of advising Britons to snitch or inform on anyone they might see reading or accessing “extremist” literature or sites, or behaving suspiciously. Pamela Geller reported in her March 23 article, “UK Police Call for ‘Counter-Terrorism Citizens’ to Report Others Viewing ‘Extremism,’”
What? The British authorities routinely allow jihad inciters and jihad preachers into the country, while they ban counter-terror experts and counter-jihadists, and now they are appealing to the British public, asking them to act as “counter-terrorism citizens” and help thwart plots and stop the wave of Islamic extremist attacks hitting the nation.
But what will happen if British citizens heed this call and start reporting suspicious activity? Will they be arrested for hate speech and “Islamophobia”?
Britain is finished as a free nation.
Whose “suspicious” activity? The racket produced by a coven of Druids making weird sounds in the neighboring flat? An “Asian” man purchasing half a dozen pressure cookers, or a bag of drugs in the local chemists’?
They will be punished, fined, jailed, or silenced by banishment just as Martin Sellner, Brittany Pettibone, Lauren Southern, and others (Geller and Robert Spencer) have been because they spoke out against the Islamic invasion of Britain and European nations.
Back to Sweden, which has gone over the totalitarian cliff in Wile Coyote style and isn’t even visible as it plummets to the hard ground below. Swedish police will invest little energy in investigating “hate crimes” (such as rape, assaulting civilians and the police). Special victims of “hate crimes” will be Muslims. Robert Spencer reports in “Sweden: Police to focus on combating “hate speech,” quoting a Swedish publication:
The Police in the South Region will now focus more on combating and investigating so-called hate crime as “harassment of an ethnic group.” A special regional group will be formed responsible for investigating and prosecuting such cases throughout the region, the police have announced on their website. According to the police, investigations must be conducted with urgency and special skills.
It is ahead of the forthcoming elections this autumn that the police in southern Sweden now have to make extra efforts to fight so-called hatred and crime against democracy.
The police mention crimes as “harassment of an ethnic group,” but point out that the hate crime designation may apply to any crime if the intention was to attack someone because of their national origin, ethnicity, color, belief or sexual orientation. If there is a so-called hate crime motive, the perpetrator could receive a more severe penalty for the crime.
Crime against democracy is described as a crime that threatens someone’s constitutional right to exercise, for example, the freedom of expression and religion.
The police in the South region already have a hate crime group, and it is going to be expanded in the spring to work throughout the region. It will have a “holistic mission” combating crime against democracy and hatred.
“Hate speech” and “hate crime” are foggy enough in terms of precise definitions, being offences based on what the authorities think a person’s motive is or was. Flipping the bird at anyone could be construed to be “hate speech” because someone did not like someone, but took no other action, and the object of the action may feel offended. It’s the emotion that is unapproved by the authorities. It is the “failure” of the state or the political establishment to regulate and determine what a mind can think and see. After the failure, come stricter controls, in action and in language (political correctness).
But what is a “crime against democracy”? The Swedish government is guilty of a “crime against democracy” for welcoming countless migrants who resist assimilation. Sweden is no longer a “democracy,” (a term I’ve always had problems with, because democracy means mob rule; in Sweden Muslims engage in mob rule) and nor are Germany and Britain; the only group whose “freedom of expression” is no longer opposed or prohibited is that of Muslims. Muslims can demonstrate noisily in the streets in mosques or on Speakers Corner in London or preach against the West and be as “hateful” as their lungs can stand, and not be accused of “hate speech.” Antifa can violently close down a scheduled speech at a public venue but not be charged with hate speech or a hate crime; with perhaps of committing a physical assault, but never deemed as guilty of a hate crime. Antifa and Islam ideologically have much in common.
An interesting and comprehensive site, Markl Humphrys, details the consistent alliance between many intellectuals, the MSM, and politicians with totalitarians in modern times.
German philosopher Martin Heidegger supported the Nazis.
German film director Leni Riefenstahl made propaganda films for Hitler, which encouraged many young Germans to enthusiastically join the growing Nazi genocide.
American writer Ezra Pound not only supported but actually worked for the fascists in WW2.
Belgian deconstructionist Paul de Man supported the Nazis.
Nobel Prize winning Norwegian author Knut Hamsun supported the Nazis, and wrote a eulogy for Hitler in 1945.
Spanish artist Salvador Dali supported Franco and was ambiguous about Hitler.
French fashion designer Coco Chanel was a Nazi agent.
The co-founder of Amnesty International Sean MacBride supported the Nazis and worked for them.
Sinn Fein / IRA supported the Nazis and worked for them.
In Markl Humphry’s document, one can see how far back totalitarians have been winning friends, and how much, in academia, the MSM, in education, and in popular culture (such as Hollywood).
“Illegal hate speech”, is broadly defined by the European Commission as “incitement to violence or hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, color, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin.”
But even if the “hate speech” doesn’t result in violence, one can still be charged and arrested for it, in live public or private discussions and in print, or just banned. The measure of “offence” is an emotional one tacked to “hurt feelings” or the aggression into a “safe place.” The protected class is largely exempt from the enforcement of hate speech laws. Its depredations and crimes can be deliberately hidden from the public. Gatestone has an interesting column on European censorship.
One commentator noted about German “hate speech” laws noted:
Under this legislation, if Muslims generated any terror or rape attacks, reporting and commenting as such would be a punishable crime. Therefore, no reporting, the general public is kept ignorant and Brussels achieves the goal of ending in the public’s mind the main significant anti-Muslim immigration reasons. Look ma, no Muslim rapes or terror. Aren’t they wonderful and kudos to the EU for keeping us safe and making the right choice.
Comments are closed.
