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Energy Wrongthink: Now a Hate Crime?
Keir Starmer’s suppression of free speech in the UK is expansive in its scope. Doomberg reports:
According to the BBC, a 40-year-old man was recently charged for social media posts that “were alleged to contain anti-Muslim and anti-establishment rhetoric.” The characterization of the latter as offensive has raised more than a few eyebrows, including ours (and now, probably yours). Warnings have been sent across British airwaves to avoid posting or retweeting anything that could be interpreted to cause harm, “regardless of their intent.”
One particularly concerning trend is the manifest effort to include so-called “climate denialism” under the umbrella of hate speech, exposing those with alternative views on energy policy to potential legal jeopardy. In a piece we wrote in March titled “Climate Newspeak,” we chronicled how the self-appointed internet watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) was agitating to include opposition to wind and solar projects as “New Denial,” which they helpfully defined as “rhetoric seeking to undermine confidence in solutions to climate change.” At the time, the CCDH—led by founder and CEO Imran Ahmed, who was previously a political strategist for the Labour Party—was demanding censorship of a wide range of popular YouTube channels.
These channels include the American Enterprise Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Heritage Action for America, the Hudson Institute, the Manhattan Institute, the National Center for Public Policy Research, the Cato Institute, the Fraser Institute, and the Heartland Institute.
When attacks on free speech include the suppression of supposedly harmful thoughts having to do with science and physical reality…and speech suppressors are most unlikely to consider this sphere out of bounds to their activities… then there will soon be a palpable and harmful impact on that society’s well-being and on its overall economic and military capacity. In my post Starvation and Centralization, I cited a passage in Arthur Koestler’s novel Darkness at Noon, set in a country that was never explicitly named—though is clearly Stalin’s Soviet Union:
A short time ago, our leading agriculturalist, B., was shot with thirty of his collaborators because he maintained the opinion that nitrate artificial manure was superior to potash. No. 1 is all for potash; therefore B. and the thirty had to be liquidated as saboteurs. In a nationally centralized agriculture, the alternative of nitrate or potash is of enormous importance : it can decide the issue of the next war. If No. 1 was in the right, history will absolve him. If he was wrong…
Note that phrase in a nationally centralized agriculture. When things are centralized, decisions become overwhelmingly important. There will be strong pressure against allowing dissidents to “interfere with” what has been determined to be the One Best Way. A society’s feedback loop is broken, mistaken decisions will be unrecoverable. In the real-life Soviet Union, the official enforcement of the crackpot theories of Trofim Lysenko did great harm to the country’s agricultural output. In today’s UK, the “hate speech” designation of energy wrongthink increases the odds that that country will follow Germany’s disastrous energy policies, with baneful consequences in the form of further deindustrialization, widespread impoverishment, and harm to UK and European security.
No one should think that the US is immune from this phenomenon. If the Democrats win the presidency… and especially if they also maintain or increase their grasp on Congress, you can expect a similar broadening of the concepts of “hate speech” and “denialism”… with penalties attached… on this side of the Atlantic.
Published in Free Speech
The slide of the United Kingdom into illiberal despotism is one of the truly huge and alarming things happening in the world today, and it doesn’t get nearly the coverage it deserves. I think it has the potential, if not quickly reversed, of being an historic catastrophe.
UK law enforcement has even threatened to charge and extradite foreigners who violate their censorious social media regulations. This has prompted me to address pointed criticisms of their immigration policy and the conduct of their large population of mostly Muslim ersatz asylum seekers on Twitter every few days, along with an invitation to contact me if they want my address in order to initiate the extradition process.
Incidentally, the error the folks in the UK made was to think that, since they were frustrated by the so-called conservative governments they’d elected, they’d give more liberal folks another try. What they got is what our government will try to give us, I think, if we make the same mistake.
How is this surprising?
The criminalization of anyone not complying with any official narrative has been ongoing.
The official COVID narrative provided for the corruption of any type of feedback loops that normally allow a society to discuss all sides of an issue, rather than the one that the Powers That Be have decided upon.
The COVID era with all its officials, its bureaucrats and citizen synchophants helped establish the right of the State to adopt whatever narrative and policies that the Deep Global State wished to impose.
Since April 2020 when in Blue states we were slammed with lockdowns, forbidden to go to the beach or playgrounds, anyone protesting any of this was treated as being mentally defective. (Or worse – the individual clearly wanted to kill granma.)
The same thing took place in Great Britain.
Couldn’t visit relatives in hospitals even as med personnel killed our relatives off. Meanwhile in other nations, like Japan, sensible measures were taken and people survived at a rate 62 times better than ours in the USA. (Japan’s medical establishment has not yet been bought out by governmental entities connected to Big Pharma and the WEF.)
Looking purely at the symbology, a mask across the face is exactly what is required of those who are sex trafficked.
Britain has experienced a centralized agriculture with top down protocols enforced since back in the 1990’s. Sure since the hoof and mouth disease episode things have been somewhat more relaxed.
But no one responsible for the government-insisted upon elimination of cows, sheep and goats was ever punished or even verbally humiliated by authorities.
After all, a guy named Neil Ferguson and his computer programs had indicated the only way to save British cattle was to kill most of them off.
He was never punished or even demoted. Instead as long as Bill Gates’ massive donations to Imperial College continued, this man was kept in the right place and the right time so that in Spring 2020 he could issue the proclamations of another computer program. This time around the faulty computer program showed that 3.2% of all who were infected with COVID would die.
This began years of diminished opportunities for small business owners, for needed education for our youngsters, for people keeping their true health as the vaxxes ruined the health of 16% of all who have taken the mandated vaxxes.
So today COVID restrictions are being replaced with the policies coming about from the Deep Global State’s faulty ideas about the “Climate Crisis” and the need for farmers to be supervised. Such cow-pucky concepts are now given free rein.
Just as catastrophically problematic, in Great Britain there are many reports of how farmers are systematically being eliminated through various pricing maneuvers managed by the food distribution cartels.
Many of these faulty “Climate Crisis” ideas are now embedded in every other TV series and movie. You can’t watch a National Geographic special without being informed for at least 5% of the program’s entirety as to what steps need to be undertaken to help prolong the planet ‘s life by another decade or two. (Even if the show is supposed to be about elephants on the African veldt or koala bears in Australia.)
The younger generations are fully indoctrinated, and there is most likely no way of ever reaching them.
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The current UK governing establishment also seems set on the apologize-for-everything-about-this country strategy. The mayor of London is erecting memorials to the pain and suffering brought about by Britain’s participation in the transatlantic slave trade…but no memorial for theRoyal Navy West Africa Squadron and its many sailors who fought and died to end the slave trade.
One thing to always point out is that in Great Britain, citizens do not necessarily own a fire arm.
Of course owning a fire arm did not necessarily help US citizens out during COVID. After all, if your business was shut down by authorities, just how would the individual use that weapon to stop that bureaucratic activity from occurring? Could a citizen go ahead and use a gun to take out an entire department of local bureaucrats?
So would our more liberal ability to have weapons help us out during the next few crises?
Reports are coming about of a new type of “peace officer” whose units will be up and operating here in the blue states.
People in small towns from Maryland to California are nervously noticing up to 30 people dressed in uniforms of a special type of police officer.
https://mdsp.maryland.gov/Organization/Pages/CriminalInvestigationBureau/LicensingDivision/ProfessionalLicenses/SpecialPolice.aspx
Why over the last few weeks would people in small towns need this type of increase in police personnel? Why are huge military aircraft, which weigh as much as 100 tons, routinely operating out of a public air field in southern New Mexico and then flying off to and landing at a public airfield in Sacramento? (It is my understanding that it is illegal for a US military airplane to casually use public airports.)
An overview of the aircraft:
https://simpleflying.com/lockheed-c-5-galaxy-guide/
It’s not surprising at all to anyone who’s been following events in the United Kingdom for the past three-quarters of a century.
As such a one, I am not in the least surprised.
This has nothing to do with COVID, and everything to do with the country’s exhaustion after WWII, and–as a result–its long-standing (and hopeful) infatuation with the all-powerful state and its ability to solve every social crisis. All you have to do is look to the history of the NHS, and extrapolate from that. Doing so gets you to where the UK is today in pretty short order.
Again, nothing to do with guns.
I would agree that the absence of guns in the hands of British citizens is not as much a factor in their increasing subjugation as is the absence of a strongly-held belief in the right to own a gun.
Gun ownership in the UK is allowed, with licensing. Several members of my family (both by birth and by marriage) do own guns, likely because they strongly believe their right to do so is inviolate. I can’t speak to the opinions of others.
Is it wise to diminish the role that COVID has played across Western societies?
The plandemic was a method by which the WEF crowd could access the willingness of people in agencies, hospitals, schools, businesses and churches to determine if people would follow along or not.
Amazingly, in Great Britain as in most places except Sweden, a large proportion of each society was willing to play “Simon Says” as long as Simon pretended to be draped in science.
So now there is no need for the same forces that brought about COVID to stop pretending they use “science.” That new form of “science” is now allowed to further the narratives of climate change, election integrity, as well as other new challenges which humanity might face from any new viral emergences.
Prior to COVID, with only a few exceptions, scientists were expected to debate science-related issues. Now that debate is no longer necessary as after all debate is dangerous. The COVID era taught the more compliant part of humanity that debate was something only those willing to kill granma would insist on.
The media’s insistence on a controlled COVID discussion fully instructed the public that new definitions which actually nullified the meaning of a term could be employed to bring about a necessary behavior.
So what if the COV vaccine was not actually a vaccine, as after all, it neither prevented the virus’ infection nor did it prevent transmission? The new definition of “vaccine” made it unlikely that too many would object to this nullification. (Unless of course those individuals wanted to kill granma.)
What will come about next? Will the current months of cooling off of the Atlantic Ocean be re-labelled a “warming?” Since only one side of such a debate is allowed to bring forth their ideas in the media, and since that one side can cherry pick the info, that is a likely possibility.
Lather rinse repeat.
If you think you’re wiser than I, when it comes to playing some sort of game in which the answer is always “I know better than you the role that COVID has played across Western societies,” do your best. Please have at it.
I’m not interested.
You continue to promote the idea of “surprise!” and “amazement!”
I’m neither surprised, nor amazed. For reasons I’ve previously explained and which you insist on ignoring.
I’ve never heard of any such restriction. I’ve been at small airports where military helicopters landed frequently for fuel (and, allegedly, for the hot dogs and hamburgers)
There as here, the spirit of a free people is not dead. I’m glad.
I do wish our cousins across the pond had the touchstone of the Bill of Rights. It makes it easier to take a stand against creeping authoritarianism.
I don’t know that Covid or guns directly signify anything, but they may reveal something underneath. During the Covid era, I (an American living in Texas) was alarmed at how quickly so much of the Anglosphere (the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and Canada) succumbed to authoritarian dictatorship.
As someone who has long subscribed to the thesis that many of the “Patriots” of the 18th Century American Revolution thought of themselves more as preservers of the rights of citizens in the British tradition against a tyrant King who was exceeding his legitimate authority than they did as over-throwers of a system, I was surprised at the willingness of so many people who share that British tradition to surrender their rights as a free people in a constitutional system of government.
Yet here we are in the third decade of the 21st Century with people from the Anglo traditions of inherent rights of peoples seemingly willingly surrendering their rights as free peoples.
It worries me that such attitudes might easily spread to the United States.
Some people were most surprised by Australia, having been founded by convicts, etc. But aren’t convicts used to taking orders from jailers?
Related: UK universities lobbied against a free-speech promotion act because of fears of a negative reaction from China.
I don’t see how this is possible. I’ve been told by all the Best People that only for-profit institutions act selfishly; NGOS, universities, and government always act with no personal or selfish motives.
Perhaps we should treat those who come here from the UK as refugees of an oppressive government.
Me too
100 tons isn’t particularly huge. A 757, which isn’t even a wide-body aircraft, has a max take-off weight higher than that. 100 tons is about the empty weight of a 767, and is half the weight of an empty 747-400.
Your understanding is incorrect. As someone who lives close to the flight path of a mid-sized commercial airport, I see military craft all the time. Two C-130s just in the past few days.
Our private airport has guys land and eat all the time. The pilots have to get airtime. Why not get lunch too?
There are tons of ANG and other units that co-locate with commercial airports. WANG flies F-35s out of the Madison airport. We have an Air Refueling group that flies out of MKE. There used to be a MATS group too, but it shut down a decade or two back.
I highly recommend Ruxandra Teslo’s Substack posts about the whole concept of ‘misinformation’, especially this one: The Road to (Mental) Serfdom.
I know this thread is off-topic from the post, but since my late in-laws lived near the former McClelland Air Force Base near Sacramento, if that is the referenced “public airfield in Sacramento,” yes it is now a civilian facility. But several of the businesses in there are aircraft maintenance, repair, and upgrade businesses, so a wide variety of commercial and military aircraft fly in and out of that facility. It’s also used as a base for firefighting aircraft. I often found it fascinating to watch the planes in the landing pattern, which could be seen from the in-laws’ back yard.
The Brits need to push back on this now and hard.
They can’t arrest and imprison everyone.
With digital currency etc, they can “imprison” you no matter where you are.
Did I say you personally were surprised or amazed?
However, and I mean, for Pete’s sake, many people were very surprised and amazed. The global populace had to endure the WHO announcing that COVID had reached pandemic proportions while in reality fewer than 45 people had been diagnosed with the infection. The only way the WHO could have Tedros wringing his hands and explaining how serious this could be involved the decades’ long plan which included re-defining what a pandemic happened to be.
Whereas in 2009, when Obama refused to listen to Bill Gates and WHO leaders, and as president he went on to nix their notion of shutting down the USA, a pandemic was an infection that had taken the lives of a serious number of people across a significant number of nations.
By 2020, a pandemic was an infection that had involved a handful of people being reported to have been afflicted by some disease, in a handful of countries.
The definition of pandemic remains the same. Somewhere someone might have smartened up and taken apart the definitions – maybe if we get a Congress instructed by RFK Jr on the matter, such spurious definitions will no longer be acceptable. (The cynical side of me wonders about RFK Jr being who he says he is. Or if he is, will his car stay on the road, or his aircraft stay in the air long enough for him to have a political impact.)
I don’t think that it makes any difference which party you put in charge. Both are Orwellian, though often on different issues.
This has been going on for 50-60 years, even in our country, implemented through the anti-discrimination laws.
One way that I view this: now “the common interests of the UK (& US) working masses continue to be
manipulated by the Machiavellian billionaire class via their corporate, political and media cartel dividing the population into manageable ‘parcels’ of self-destructive ‘sides.’”
From a post on the web site: gaslightinggilligan.com in May 2022.
If you are part of the billionaire class, or are rubbing shoulders with such, the situation is tenable. If not, then it is time to get right with God, as the world is going to get even edgier.
As someone once observed, in the long run we are all dead.
Meanwhile, while Republicans and Democrats may be bringing the country to the same place, I think they’re moving at different speeds. Since those are the choices, I will choose the one that’s moving more slowly in hopes of buying time.
And not just time before you die and don’t need to be personally concerned any more; hopefully time in which correction may be possible.
Correct. I have skin in this game: I’d like to see my kids and grandkids thrive in a world that allows that.