I’ve been involved in a most curious discussion that brought up some important issues. An online acquaintance of mine, very well educated, a UK citizen working in the Netherlands, claimed that foreigners with Residence Permits should be allowed to vote in local, not national but local, elections where they are residing.
That seemed crazy to me. Given the huge problems caused by the gigantic influx of Muslim refugees (and “refugees”) into Europe, I said that in such a situation he could find himself ruled by Muslims, who do charming things like throwing gay people off of rooftops to their deaths, and who bury women up to their necks and stone them to death.
Well, I could have heard his screams of “RACIST! RACIST!” all the way from the Netherlands …
I said “How can that be “racist”? It’s the TRUTH!”
It made absolutely no impression on him. I said it could be racist if it were not true, but was he really arguing the Muslims do NOT throw gay people off roofs and stone women to death?
Again … no change. Didn’t touch him. Instead, he went on a bizarre tangent claiming that Christians and other religions do those things too … really? I asked him for some evidence, as I’d never heard of a Christian country where the law prescribed stoning people to death in 2017, while that is indeed today’s current law in some Muslim countries.
Again, no response, just a reiteration that I was being “racist” by telling the truth.
After some consideration, I realized that I was seeing first-hand the pernicious effects of two very bizarre UK laws, the libel law and the “hate speech” law. I wrote about this question before, but this was the first time I’d come face to face with the consequences of those laws.
The UK libel law is very, very different from the US version. In the US, truth is an absolute defense against a charge of libel. If you are telling the truth you cannot be charged with libel … but in the UK, that’s not the way it works. You can be put in jail for telling the truth. And if that doesn’t make your brain ache, it gets better.
Under the United Kingdom 2003 “hate speech” law, it is illegal to “annoy or impose anxiety” on someone on the internet. Have you ever heard a dumber law? You could arrest just about anyone with that crazy law. And it is not being ignored. At present about nine people per day are being arrested for being annoying, 3,395 arrested in 2016 alone.
This kind of prosecutorial discretion, where millions break the law daily and nine people get arrested, is a clear invitation for prosecutorial misconduct. The authorities can simply decide they don’t like you, find some instance where you said something controversial, and throw your sorry patootie into durance vile. And yes, I’m looking at you, my dear friend James Delingpole. You have an ugly and incredibly necessary habit of telling the very truths that annoy thousands of people … watch your six, my friend. Truly, with your AQ you could be done for a decade … “AQ”? That’s the “Annoyance Quotient”, which is calculated as the number of people you annoy with a given post, divided by the total readership of the post … and I’m sure James’s AQ is in the stratosphere.
But you don’t need to annoy people wholesale, as James fortunately does. Common people can play too, because you only have to annoy one person to get arrested… talk about legal sickness, that is truly one of the most idiotic laws I’ve ever heard of.
And once I’d reconsidered both of those astoundingly asinine laws, the libel law and the “hate speech” law, I could understand how my friend had been brainwashed into thinking that the truth can be racist … heck, if the truth is no defense again a charge of libel and it’s just fine to arrest people for being annoying, I can see how someone could think that the truth could be racist.
So to all of my friends across the pond in the UK and Europe, I gotta say you are not looking very good in this regard. The idea that the truth can be libelous is a sick joke. The fact that you can be put in prison for telling the truth is far worse.
And the fact that so many European countries have “hate speech” laws that e.g make it illegal to annoy people? Dear heavens, my friends, have you lost the plot entirely? I cannot imagine a stupider idea than putting people in jail for annoying someone!
In Sweden recently an old woman pensioner was charged with “hate speech” for posting on Facebook what she was witnessing right outside her window—Muslim immigrants rioting and defecating in the street. But oh, no, we’ve got to teach that old lady some manners, she can’t be allowed to tell the truth!
Here’s the ugly reality. In the UK and many European countries, you can now be arrested, have your civil rights taken away, and be thrown in jail for telling the truth!
You Europeans make it illegal to point out any problems with criminal immigrants, and then you wonder why immigrants are taking over your countries, assaulting women, defecating in the streets, and pissing on your laws?
It’s because they scorn you, and reasonably so. Why would anyone respect a country that muzzles its own citizens and won’t let them tell the truth? I know I don’t.
Finally, and tragically, this pernicious attack on freedom of speech is gaining currency in the US … here’s a deluded young person in Tucson, Arizona, who appears to have never read the First Amendment to the Constitution …
Whatever happened to “Sticks and stones can break my bones but names will never hurt me” that my mom drilled into us kids? I’m sorry, but there is no such thing in the US as “hate speech”. Doesn’t exist as a legal concept.
So no, “hate speech” not murder in any sense. If someone calls something “hate speech”, what they are saying is that it is free speech that they don’t like.
To close, here’s why I wrote this post—to pose a most important question for my UK and European friends. My question is, how do you justify these absurd laws?
Seriously, guys, you are cutting your own throats here. How do you explain to yourselves that it is perfectly OK to throw someone in prison for telling the truth?
My best to all,
w.
FURTHER READING:
As I said above, I’ve written at some length regarding this important issue …
Dec 12, 2016 – Hate speech? What the heck is that other than an excuse for the authorities to bust people they don’t like? You see, Wilders asking that question was ruled to be spreading hate of Moroccans … who decided that? How can I know if I’m over the line when the law is so vague that you can’t even ask questions …
Jun 20, 2017 – These European “hate speech” laws are being used in a very selective manner against anyone that the state wants to attack. Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen have both faced “hate speech” prosecutions. Meanwhile, virulent Islamists are allowed to say whatever they wish. It is that totalitarian selective …
Mar 15, 2017 – Well, the Eurotrash section of the German Parliament, in league with the social justice warriors at the German Justice Ministry, are proposing that Facebook and other social networking sites be fined FIFTY MEGABUCKS if they don’t remove all so-called “hate speech” from their websites. And how, you may …
The UN Condemns Freedom of Speech
Mar 25, 2017 – I see that the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights is continuing its lunatic hegira to some imaginary perfect world. This time they are taking up the imaginary crime of “hate speech”. These days, “hate speech” accusations are most commonly used by a variety of governments and individuals to …
Mar 11, 2017 – Let’s take what is perhaps the clearest example of hate speech in the Koran, the Apostate verse. This verse is the reason that Ayaan Hirsi Ali has to live with bodyguards. This verse is the reason that Muslims kill the Baha’i. This verse is why Salman Rushdie was sentenced to death. Here you go, roll the …
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