In his 1859 essay “On Liberty” the British political philosopher Sir John Stuart Mill provided a rationale defining the crucial importance of free speech and expression.
Derbyshire Police have featured twice more in the past 4 years (on my 'radar', anyway):
2020 Monitoring and harassment of people, shock horror, walking outside their house to get some healthy exercise as a relief from the house arrest
2024 Recent report on X of forced entry to a private house without a warrant in respect of an offence which didn't seem to justify force (there *may* be further aspects that would justify a warrant).
The only other force from which I've seen multiple reports of dubious activity is the Met. But London has a similar population to Sweden and 10x that of Derbyshire. Is Derbs. unusually badly-run?
Ireland recently ditched their planned ‘Hate Speech’ bill in a rare win for the Irish people. The Minister and the government parties were put under fierce pressure by one particular journalist from Gript media, Ben Scallan, a tower of a man, and also by the public consultations which didn’t go their way. Ultimately though, they couldn’t actually define what would constitute ‘hate speech’ and who would determine it should someone be accused of it. Keep the pressure on Iain! 🙏
"It is abundantly clear that the real purpose of most of the harsh convictions for “encouraging” racial hatred are intended to frighten the public into imagining their opinions can be “legally” censored by the state."
Absolutely. And no doubt they were threatened with being held in jail until their trial was heard unless they agreed to plead guilty to the charge. If they are the sole income earner in their family, being held in jail for an unknown amount of time waiting for their case to be heard would create all sorts of problems, and likely serious ones, for their family. It could lead to homelessness, bankruptcy or destitution for their family. They were probably told by their state appointed lawyer, who is playing the state's game, to plead guilty to get a lesser sentence and get the pain over with as quickly as possible. Very weird how the overwhelming majority pleaded guilty, were told by judges that a more lenient sentence was being given because they pleaded guilty and how they were all prosecuted with lightening speed unless something along the lines of what I have suggested was not happening.
They were probably gaslighted too in terms of how bad life would be if they were put in a wing with mostly Muslim prisoners - "you know what happened to Tommy Robinson, they really don't like right wingers like you. Under aged girls or grown men, it's all the same to them..."- and all sorts of other psychological abuse to get them to cave in and plead guilty. Even people with a partner or elderly relatives dependent on them were given harsh sentences. And obviously when those people get out of prison they will tell everyone of the pressure put on them during the arrest interview which would make it more likely those they tell this to that they too will cave in to the same pressure if it happens to them in the future!
The UN definition should be ignored for the simple reason, it is an unelected entity and a creation of governments by association and that most of the governments who support the UN's existence themselves are illegitimate.
The United Nations [is] a famously corrupt body in which most votes are controlled by kleptocracies and outright dictatorships. Most of the member-states, as they’re called, are rated as either “not free” or “partly free” by Freedom House, and both Communist China and Putinist Russia have veto power. - quote from Heartland Institute
No matter how undemocratic, sparsely-populated, or terrorism-promoting a nation happens to be, it can be a member of the UN
How funny. I was just thinking about this (in a different context):
"people are naturally skeptical: no one really believes in change until they've had solid experience of it" Machiavelli, The Prince (1532).
And I read this from you
“the source of everything respectable in man either as an intellectual or as a moral being” is our collective ability to rectify "mistakes, by discussion and experience.”
Same but different. Thanks for another great piece.
Fascinating. An anon idiot demanding evidence. As if I have to prove anything to you. I'll tell you what. Leave your name and address so everyone will know where you are and that you obviously approve of people stealing from you. When someone does steal from you, and you provide me with the evidence, I'll provide you with the evidence.
Of maybe you might chose to leave that for the courts.
Good to know idiots and the brainwashed still abound.
You wrote: "Expressing racial hatred—vile though it is—should not be censored unless it directly incites, or directly “encourages,” others to commit real acts that cause real physical harm."
It's that word 'physical' there, which is the problem. It relegates non-physical harm to some kind of inferior status, despite the fact that, I would argue, mental and psychological harm is far worse, especially if inflicted incessantly on a person, or a minority group. If carried out continuously it leads to trauma. Trauma can obvious lead to physical harm, if we are still insisting on thinking materialistically that physical harm is more important than mental, psychological, or spiritual harm.
So if you talk about JS Mill I think you have to be more qualified about it.
There is also the undoubted psychological harm done to a person who imbibes these bigoted views. What happens to their neuroplastic brain with all that shit flowing around it? Is it not also likely that if that shit floats around long enough then they really will go out and do 'physical' harm? They will, at the very least, certainly reinforce and reproduce the non-physical harm.
Take the 'anti-woke' movement, which is full of the worst kind of pseudo-Christian 'Evangelical' (i.e. fascist and authoritarian) right-wing bigotry. That is clearly having a real-world effect of causing both physical and mental/psychological harm on those on the receiving end. Physical hate crimes against these minorities have escalated drastically in recent years. Perhaps that has something to do with the 700 million dollars worth of support for this anti-woke fascism.
Unfortunately, however, these new 'hate speech' laws contain legal exemptions/defences for hateful opinions if the person doing the hate simply claims it's 'religious' opinion. So this means they could spout some evil fascist shit from their 'bible' and they will not be prosecuted.
Likewise, it essentially means that any evil ideology dressed up in 'religious' language, perhaps by throwing the word 'god' in there enough times, is now categorised as a 'religion' and thus exempt under the hate speech laws. This fact seems to have been blatantly ignored by all these alt-media types complaining about 'censorship' and the OSA. Believe me, you can say whatever the fuck hurtful shit you like as long as you do a brief study of the defences permitted under these laws. If your 'ideology' happens to be 'secular' however, then you don't get that exemption/legal defence. So, if you want to be a hate-filled bigot, just get yourself a religious label. Or, alternatively, simply claim you were having a 'concerned discussion about a current affairs issue' (trust me - that one is genuinely in the new hate speech law in Scotland).
See, psychologically, these people know perfectly well that even just writing an article or holding some public discussion about 'the issue of too many immigrant brown people in the country' or 'trans people being sexual perverts in women-only spaces' or 'trans people have a transhumanist agenda and want to get every child to mutilate itself' causes genuine harm. But it's insidious, psychological harm. But if you look at the so-called Cass report you'll see a clear example of how that has led to real physical harm done to children with a recognised medical condition and a clear treatment pathway, who are now denied that treatment pathway and not just in real danger of suicide, but if denied that treatment then they will suffer for the rest of their lives.
So this is the thing about these 'censorship' laws. They are NOT about censorship at all. By virtue of the specific legal defences inserted into the legislation they are the OPPOSITE of censorship. Because they EXPLICITLY PERMIT the continuous utterance of hate speech of any and all kind. Like I say, just claim it's your religion, because 'religion' is a 'protected characteristic', which apparently trumps and overrides the undoubted psychological harm which these 'religious' ideologies cause.
The best way to solve that problem is to simply remove 'religion' as a protected characteristic. These ideologies should be seen for what they really are - ideologies. And of the worst kind.
JS Mill should've studied a lot more psychology. Then again, psychology didn't exist in his day, so I *may* forgive him for that one.
Thanks Evelyn. While I accept that the psychological and emotional abuse, all too common to domestic abuse for example, is a concern, I remain with Mill on this issue. Damaging though it can be for individuals, psychological harm is subjective. What may psychologically harm me may be of no concern to you. Therefore, if we are talking about where the limit of free speech lies, I contend it is where it causes clear physical harm by direct "incitement." Even this is context specific.
Online gang-stalking causes psychological harm, which may manifest as real physical self-harm. But we already have defamation laws supposedly able to deal with that type of offence. Verbal or written attacks based in truth cannot and must not be considered defamatory in my view, no matter what psychological harm they may cause the target.
I disagree that the OSA is not a censorship law. Quite evidently that is how it is being applied. That said, I fully accept that it is not blanket censorship but I would suggest to you that censorship has two objectives. It is to stifle dissent but also to amplify the "official" message. Censorship is the promotion of some information and suppression of other information, not its total suffocation.
I'm going to have to disagree again I'm afraid. Let's start with your use of the word 'subjective' - does this not apply to physical harm too? What I mean is, are you using the word 'subjective' here to imply 'not proven'? Obviously if person A gives person B a bloody nose that's 'proven', because it's got 'visual' evidence. But if person A causes psychological harm to person B but it doesn't show up with the material senses why does that imply it's not necessarily 'objective'? If we take neuroscience, for example, it would in fact be possible to do a brain scan and say 'oh look, the left amygdala is showing increased and sustained activity' - well, that's objective evidence.
Yes, that's a crude example, but my point remains. We are relegating 'subjective' and 'non-visual' to being of lesser importance. But over time, it's actually far more important. Inflict propaganda on a people over the course of multiple generations and you will do far more harm than stamping boots in their faces. Why? because stamping boots in faces is obvious. People react to that in self-defence. But insidious coercive control over the course of generations is far, far worse.
Think of, say, anti-immigrant rhetoric or racism which has been ongoing for generations. Without that, where is the possibility of Farage? Or support for foreign wars? Or, in days gone past, repression of the Irish (and blacks and dogs, for that matter). Or homophobia. These are not 'subjective'.
To dismiss 'subjective' as 'that's just your personal feeling' is just adding to the abuse.
The other area of contention is 'verbal or written attacks based in truth' - hmm, where's the 'based in truth' bit from? That seems a bit sinister to me - especially as something can be dressed up to look like it's 'based in truth'. That's how they get away with anti-woke culture war rhetoric. By using 'academic sounding language'.
Where I do agree with you is in the amplification of the official message - and I say the 'official' message is psychological abuse. And it's clearly not 'subjective'.
How about demonisation of benefit claimants, leading to support for coercive and abusive actual policies, Starmer's new 'banks are able to snoop on people's accounts' stuff, and real poverty affecting 1 in 3 children in Britain. Poverty is not subjective.
Maybe what I'm really saying here, to be fair, is that far, far more discussion and explanation is required about psychology. Given that propaganda is psychology, it clearly and ultimately leads to far more harm than immediate physical attacks. This is the problem with laws enabling free speech. And perhaps the word 'incitement' is totally wrong. Incitement is a very clear thing - like the crude example of 'go and burn down that person's house'. But what about the insidious 'homosexuals are paedophiles' (dressed up as some kind of 'academic psychological research') repeated ad nauseam, then followed by 'a homosexual has just moved into that house over there'.
Incitement, I say, can be extremely insidious and subversive and take a generation to have the real effect.
Free speech can only be countered by education, and the 'ostracism' of bigotry. Unfortunately, the State, as it is now, as you say, amplifies bigotry. So maybe what I'm really saying here is it's not the OSA per se which is the problem, it's the purpose for which it is being used by the usual bad actors (i.e. the corrupt State). Put benevolent people in charge of the OSA, and you will soon see an end to bigotry. And, ironically, the State too for that matter!
Is Christianity a protected characteristic in the way you describe, Evelyn? Not in every respect, though, surely. What about the lady arrested for silently praying in the street? She was Christian, I believe.
But you're dead right in your main point.
The effect of laws serving purposes diametrically opposite to that stated is yet another example of the (some say, Satanic) inversions we've seen inflicted upon one institution after another, over a long period.
Ah - well maybe we could argue that lady was a genuine Christian! i.e. not a bigot, more like Jesus? I don't know that story btw so I'm just randomly thinking here. I'm certain the 'law' is applied in a totally arbitrary fashion though, that's for sure. Like maybe she was the 'wrong kind of Christian', and it's only the bigoted ones (who are not really Christians) who get the out of jail free card.
I was going to mention the Satanic thing actually. I know in America for example they have complete 'freedom of religion' - and this is why organisations like 'the Church of Satan' can not only exist but have a range of legal protections.
I'm also thinking part of the sinister (yes, Satanic - I agree) psychology underlying these inversions is to inflict cognitive dissonance on people - put in normal language 'confusion' - which leads to learned helplessness (how many fingers, Winston? don't know - you tell me from now on, O'Brien). Same as this 'one rule for them, one rule for us' phenomenon. By inflicting cognitive contradictions on people it means they can't think straight anymore.
So with regards to the hate speech laws we have the phenomenon of providing 'protected characteristics' to two fundamentally opposing groups, which allows one group of bigots to continue causing harm to another group (say, trans people for example) but their 'protected characteristic' somehow becomes more legally important than the group on the receiving end. We even have the legacy media amplifying the bigots' group but presenting themselves as 'intellectual' or 'feminist' or 'erudite'. Likewise we have the likes of Farage (or Trump in the US) spouting racist hate speech in full knowledge of the hurt caused, but he's not just permitted to get away with it he's given disproportionate airtime to do it. But when some individual citizen does it, they get arrested (as Iain has described in this series).
I think the best thing we can do, to avoid the cognitive dissonance, is take a step back and see the big picture, which is a group of evil creatures inflicting all this on the population. Rather than buy into their manufactured 'culture war' shit.
Sowing cognitive dissonance is without doubt a primary aim. Ironically, most people's brains are already in a state of catatonic receptiveness, without their government's continuing intervention. The 1984 approach has worked on such folk, regrettably. Remarkably, the bludgeoning of one's perceptual apparatus seems to be effective regardless of education, class or any other broad societal identifier.
As for the rest, I suspect most effort is directed towards those relatively few whose intellect holds the potential for genuinely clear and rational thinking, particularly where we find an above average IQ coupled with a refined but somewhat 'orthodox' and compliant moral sensibility. Those on the liberal left embody this predisposition to a tee. I'm thinking of a specific friend here; a smart guy with a kind heart, but who is utterly captured by the socialist dogmas he imbibed at his father's knee. He appears literally incapable of detecting the incipient
totalitarianism unfolding around him every day. He actually admires Starmer for having "got his party under control"! These are the "mind-forged manacles" William Blake wrote his fine poetry about.
Cognitive dissonance is designed to trick people into fitting the manacles to themselves. It's all very Pavlovian.
Equally good comments. I'm just about ready to start my series of psychology articles so this cognitive dissonance/subversion thing will be cropping up a fair bit.
One point though - this idea of 'liberal left' - I think one thing is these terms or definitions like 'left' or 'socialist' have been so twisted such that they no longer mean what people like me for example would think of them.
Starmer, for example, is actually more of a fascist. There's certainly nothing 'left' or 'socialist' about him. Or even 'liberal', in the traditional sense of the word. What is now 'liberal' is actually 'conservative' and 'authoritarian' (i.e. right-wing). Likewise 'left' is, ironically, somewhat similar, and has nothing to do with 'socialism' anymore, if it ever did.
'Socialism' is by definition 'liberal', although I mean 'liberal' in the sense of 'liberating'. That's to say, 'freedom from authoritarianism'. Socialism, by providing everyone with at the bare minimum permanent access to all the necessities of existence as well as individual opportunity to acquire more through talent and effort, is by definition liberating, because the 'state' can no longer control people, if they are no longer dependent. Socialism, in that sense, is about self-sufficiency, not 'state handouts'. I.e. a kind of 'localism' with regards to self-sufficiency/control over production and distribution of resources. This is the original version of socialism which predated the likes of subversive state operatives like Marx. Marxism, which has come to be associated with 'the left' is in fact about state control/subjugation, because it results in a condition of dependency on that state. In other words, it's fascism dressed up in 'socialist' language. Yep - more cognitive dissonance lol!
I learnt something new with almost every comment you make.
I'll have to ask my friend if he shares the same conception of socialism as you've outlined here. His thoughts about Starmer suggest not.
Your deft unweaving of the loaded terms 'left', 'liberal' and 'conservative' reveals yet more of the corruption of language we exchanged thoughts about previously. Once again, I think this must be deliberate, or, perhaps, a sort of complacent intellectual laziness among academics and political analysts. I mean, who cares what those terms actually signify, if "I'm alright, Jack"?
I've never been very comfortable using any of the political labels people used to derive such a strong sense of identity from. I think it must be largely because I feel they are precisely the kind of impediment to clear thought we both rail against.
When you suggested it must be deliberate, or intellectual laziness - I think we could change the 'or' there to an 'and/or'. I would imagine it's a mixture of both, with some doing it knowingly and some just following the herd.
But yes, the corruption of language is definitely used to manipulate. Especially in the psychological knowledge that human beings do, indeed, in part define themselves/their identity by reference to the belonging to a particular social group - and many of those groups do have 'labels' or 'names'. The manufactured divide & conquer 'class system' is another one (notice how Marxists are always banging on about 'class war' - thus perpetuating the division).
The cabal have always excelled at using this human social group psychology to not just divide people and put them at odds with each other, but force a kind of ostracism on those who don't conform. Likewise they can drum up 'nationalism' and 'racism' and so on. And then by making each group feel insecure about out-groups, they are essentially doing a very good job of turning more and more humans into bad guys who are prejudiced against out-groups (which is not normal or natural for human beings, despite what cabal-oriented anthropologists might say). Whilst all the time, of course, it should actually be 'the entire human group' versus the 'cabal group'. If that happened, the cabal wouldn't last long, given the numerical superiority.
But I've been writing about this recently so I'll leave it for my impending post, or series of posts which shall be starting later this evening... I just have to find some cool images...
I hope the British police are increasingly aware of their potential to be used as hostages to fortune, for purely political ends, which might result in them quietly declining to investigate the non-crimes Iain discusses here.
The Bernie Spofforth case is highly pertinent, in that regard.
They are either aware and don't care or completely unaware and just following orders. My guess is the former since so many of them have been trained in Common Purpose.
You may well be correct, but I don't have as dim a view of our police as many seem to.
They are political pawns, no doubt, but I sense there might be a growing reluctance to pursue cases where the outcomes would reflect badly on the police as an institution.
There is a pragmatic element to this, too. Why would the police want to get caught up in efforts to arrest people like Spofforth, if they will only have to let matters drop once it becomes clear no crime has been committed? Police resources are stretched enough as it is. Chief constables will surely be looking at legislation like the OSA and asking themselves if they don't have better ways of justifying their existence.
Decisions on whether to drop something or not is obviously made by those higher up rather than those who made the arrest in the first place. Even if the higher ups are reluctant to pursue a case due to image concerns, how much control do they really have in situations where a government have taken an ideological and authoritarian stance as they have done in the recent riots? Police are always vulnerable to government threats to their budget.
If Chief Constables were concerned at their resources being stretched thin and their budgets being cut, I really can't see why they didn't immediately issue orders to their staff to stop monitoring social media posts and actually do some crime solving. But they didn't. They just let if go ahead. It was after all serving the government's interests in controlling the public narrative. It has been said that the Metropolitan Police were forced to accept false responsibility over the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes during the London 7/7 bombings when he was actually shot dead by Special Forces. The reason for the false responsibility was speculated as being the Met police was subjected to the threat of severe budget cuts. See RDH and richplanet.net,
I am sure there are some good coppers but I think, sadly, they are in a small minority. Just look at the responses many people get when they try to reason with them. They just repeat policy over and over again that they sound like robots. This is Common Purpose in action.
Re 7/7 and RDH. It was either he or Dr Nick Kollestrom who put forward the idea that the Met were forced to take responsibility for the shooting of de Menezes and I think it was RDH who discovered that the particular Special Forces troops who shot him dead were ones used in covert work in N. Ireland and who have/had a brutal reputation. I can't remember exactly who said what because it's also been a long time since I watched it too, but it was said in a conversation between the two of them. I might go back and watch it again when I have time.
My theory about the JC de Menezes assassination is that given he was working as an electrical subcontractor on the underground at the time, 'they' may have thought he saw something he shouldn't have and was therefore a loose end requiring elimination. This gives weight to the theory about 'bombs planted beneath the carriages'. This is the hypothesis I am more inclined to believe, for various reasons, and certainly if the photographs of the damage to the train carriages are genuine then this makes the hypothesis almost certain, as the damage to the floor of the carriages clearly shows an upward blast from beneath the floor.
So the information about diverting responsibility to the Met is more circumstantial evidence to support this hypothesis, imho.
Dub SurgeOn isn't worth giving your attention to. There are a couple of other similarly irksome characters on here. I wish Iain could block them, but I'm not sure he can.
Well covered, Iain. You are growing in your niche of armchair writer-ing.
Derbyshire Police have featured twice more in the past 4 years (on my 'radar', anyway):
2020 Monitoring and harassment of people, shock horror, walking outside their house to get some healthy exercise as a relief from the house arrest
2024 Recent report on X of forced entry to a private house without a warrant in respect of an offence which didn't seem to justify force (there *may* be further aspects that would justify a warrant).
The only other force from which I've seen multiple reports of dubious activity is the Met. But London has a similar population to Sweden and 10x that of Derbyshire. Is Derbs. unusually badly-run?
Ireland recently ditched their planned ‘Hate Speech’ bill in a rare win for the Irish people. The Minister and the government parties were put under fierce pressure by one particular journalist from Gript media, Ben Scallan, a tower of a man, and also by the public consultations which didn’t go their way. Ultimately though, they couldn’t actually define what would constitute ‘hate speech’ and who would determine it should someone be accused of it. Keep the pressure on Iain! 🙏
"It is abundantly clear that the real purpose of most of the harsh convictions for “encouraging” racial hatred are intended to frighten the public into imagining their opinions can be “legally” censored by the state."
Absolutely. And no doubt they were threatened with being held in jail until their trial was heard unless they agreed to plead guilty to the charge. If they are the sole income earner in their family, being held in jail for an unknown amount of time waiting for their case to be heard would create all sorts of problems, and likely serious ones, for their family. It could lead to homelessness, bankruptcy or destitution for their family. They were probably told by their state appointed lawyer, who is playing the state's game, to plead guilty to get a lesser sentence and get the pain over with as quickly as possible. Very weird how the overwhelming majority pleaded guilty, were told by judges that a more lenient sentence was being given because they pleaded guilty and how they were all prosecuted with lightening speed unless something along the lines of what I have suggested was not happening.
They were probably gaslighted too in terms of how bad life would be if they were put in a wing with mostly Muslim prisoners - "you know what happened to Tommy Robinson, they really don't like right wingers like you. Under aged girls or grown men, it's all the same to them..."- and all sorts of other psychological abuse to get them to cave in and plead guilty. Even people with a partner or elderly relatives dependent on them were given harsh sentences. And obviously when those people get out of prison they will tell everyone of the pressure put on them during the arrest interview which would make it more likely those they tell this to that they too will cave in to the same pressure if it happens to them in the future!
Great series about an extremely interesting and important plot going on!
The UN definition should be ignored for the simple reason, it is an unelected entity and a creation of governments by association and that most of the governments who support the UN's existence themselves are illegitimate.
The United Nations [is] a famously corrupt body in which most votes are controlled by kleptocracies and outright dictatorships. Most of the member-states, as they’re called, are rated as either “not free” or “partly free” by Freedom House, and both Communist China and Putinist Russia have veto power. - quote from Heartland Institute
No matter how undemocratic, sparsely-populated, or terrorism-promoting a nation happens to be, it can be a member of the UN
How funny. I was just thinking about this (in a different context):
"people are naturally skeptical: no one really believes in change until they've had solid experience of it" Machiavelli, The Prince (1532).
And I read this from you
“the source of everything respectable in man either as an intellectual or as a moral being” is our collective ability to rectify "mistakes, by discussion and experience.”
Same but different. Thanks for another great piece.
Fascinating. An anon idiot demanding evidence. As if I have to prove anything to you. I'll tell you what. Leave your name and address so everyone will know where you are and that you obviously approve of people stealing from you. When someone does steal from you, and you provide me with the evidence, I'll provide you with the evidence.
Of maybe you might chose to leave that for the courts.
Good to know idiots and the brainwashed still abound.
I dare say, there is little chance of stopping this endeavour.
You wrote: "Expressing racial hatred—vile though it is—should not be censored unless it directly incites, or directly “encourages,” others to commit real acts that cause real physical harm."
It's that word 'physical' there, which is the problem. It relegates non-physical harm to some kind of inferior status, despite the fact that, I would argue, mental and psychological harm is far worse, especially if inflicted incessantly on a person, or a minority group. If carried out continuously it leads to trauma. Trauma can obvious lead to physical harm, if we are still insisting on thinking materialistically that physical harm is more important than mental, psychological, or spiritual harm.
So if you talk about JS Mill I think you have to be more qualified about it.
There is also the undoubted psychological harm done to a person who imbibes these bigoted views. What happens to their neuroplastic brain with all that shit flowing around it? Is it not also likely that if that shit floats around long enough then they really will go out and do 'physical' harm? They will, at the very least, certainly reinforce and reproduce the non-physical harm.
Take the 'anti-woke' movement, which is full of the worst kind of pseudo-Christian 'Evangelical' (i.e. fascist and authoritarian) right-wing bigotry. That is clearly having a real-world effect of causing both physical and mental/psychological harm on those on the receiving end. Physical hate crimes against these minorities have escalated drastically in recent years. Perhaps that has something to do with the 700 million dollars worth of support for this anti-woke fascism.
Unfortunately, however, these new 'hate speech' laws contain legal exemptions/defences for hateful opinions if the person doing the hate simply claims it's 'religious' opinion. So this means they could spout some evil fascist shit from their 'bible' and they will not be prosecuted.
Likewise, it essentially means that any evil ideology dressed up in 'religious' language, perhaps by throwing the word 'god' in there enough times, is now categorised as a 'religion' and thus exempt under the hate speech laws. This fact seems to have been blatantly ignored by all these alt-media types complaining about 'censorship' and the OSA. Believe me, you can say whatever the fuck hurtful shit you like as long as you do a brief study of the defences permitted under these laws. If your 'ideology' happens to be 'secular' however, then you don't get that exemption/legal defence. So, if you want to be a hate-filled bigot, just get yourself a religious label. Or, alternatively, simply claim you were having a 'concerned discussion about a current affairs issue' (trust me - that one is genuinely in the new hate speech law in Scotland).
See, psychologically, these people know perfectly well that even just writing an article or holding some public discussion about 'the issue of too many immigrant brown people in the country' or 'trans people being sexual perverts in women-only spaces' or 'trans people have a transhumanist agenda and want to get every child to mutilate itself' causes genuine harm. But it's insidious, psychological harm. But if you look at the so-called Cass report you'll see a clear example of how that has led to real physical harm done to children with a recognised medical condition and a clear treatment pathway, who are now denied that treatment pathway and not just in real danger of suicide, but if denied that treatment then they will suffer for the rest of their lives.
So this is the thing about these 'censorship' laws. They are NOT about censorship at all. By virtue of the specific legal defences inserted into the legislation they are the OPPOSITE of censorship. Because they EXPLICITLY PERMIT the continuous utterance of hate speech of any and all kind. Like I say, just claim it's your religion, because 'religion' is a 'protected characteristic', which apparently trumps and overrides the undoubted psychological harm which these 'religious' ideologies cause.
The best way to solve that problem is to simply remove 'religion' as a protected characteristic. These ideologies should be seen for what they really are - ideologies. And of the worst kind.
JS Mill should've studied a lot more psychology. Then again, psychology didn't exist in his day, so I *may* forgive him for that one.
Thanks Evelyn. While I accept that the psychological and emotional abuse, all too common to domestic abuse for example, is a concern, I remain with Mill on this issue. Damaging though it can be for individuals, psychological harm is subjective. What may psychologically harm me may be of no concern to you. Therefore, if we are talking about where the limit of free speech lies, I contend it is where it causes clear physical harm by direct "incitement." Even this is context specific.
Online gang-stalking causes psychological harm, which may manifest as real physical self-harm. But we already have defamation laws supposedly able to deal with that type of offence. Verbal or written attacks based in truth cannot and must not be considered defamatory in my view, no matter what psychological harm they may cause the target.
I disagree that the OSA is not a censorship law. Quite evidently that is how it is being applied. That said, I fully accept that it is not blanket censorship but I would suggest to you that censorship has two objectives. It is to stifle dissent but also to amplify the "official" message. Censorship is the promotion of some information and suppression of other information, not its total suffocation.
I'm going to have to disagree again I'm afraid. Let's start with your use of the word 'subjective' - does this not apply to physical harm too? What I mean is, are you using the word 'subjective' here to imply 'not proven'? Obviously if person A gives person B a bloody nose that's 'proven', because it's got 'visual' evidence. But if person A causes psychological harm to person B but it doesn't show up with the material senses why does that imply it's not necessarily 'objective'? If we take neuroscience, for example, it would in fact be possible to do a brain scan and say 'oh look, the left amygdala is showing increased and sustained activity' - well, that's objective evidence.
Yes, that's a crude example, but my point remains. We are relegating 'subjective' and 'non-visual' to being of lesser importance. But over time, it's actually far more important. Inflict propaganda on a people over the course of multiple generations and you will do far more harm than stamping boots in their faces. Why? because stamping boots in faces is obvious. People react to that in self-defence. But insidious coercive control over the course of generations is far, far worse.
Think of, say, anti-immigrant rhetoric or racism which has been ongoing for generations. Without that, where is the possibility of Farage? Or support for foreign wars? Or, in days gone past, repression of the Irish (and blacks and dogs, for that matter). Or homophobia. These are not 'subjective'.
To dismiss 'subjective' as 'that's just your personal feeling' is just adding to the abuse.
The other area of contention is 'verbal or written attacks based in truth' - hmm, where's the 'based in truth' bit from? That seems a bit sinister to me - especially as something can be dressed up to look like it's 'based in truth'. That's how they get away with anti-woke culture war rhetoric. By using 'academic sounding language'.
Where I do agree with you is in the amplification of the official message - and I say the 'official' message is psychological abuse. And it's clearly not 'subjective'.
How about demonisation of benefit claimants, leading to support for coercive and abusive actual policies, Starmer's new 'banks are able to snoop on people's accounts' stuff, and real poverty affecting 1 in 3 children in Britain. Poverty is not subjective.
Maybe what I'm really saying here, to be fair, is that far, far more discussion and explanation is required about psychology. Given that propaganda is psychology, it clearly and ultimately leads to far more harm than immediate physical attacks. This is the problem with laws enabling free speech. And perhaps the word 'incitement' is totally wrong. Incitement is a very clear thing - like the crude example of 'go and burn down that person's house'. But what about the insidious 'homosexuals are paedophiles' (dressed up as some kind of 'academic psychological research') repeated ad nauseam, then followed by 'a homosexual has just moved into that house over there'.
Incitement, I say, can be extremely insidious and subversive and take a generation to have the real effect.
Free speech can only be countered by education, and the 'ostracism' of bigotry. Unfortunately, the State, as it is now, as you say, amplifies bigotry. So maybe what I'm really saying here is it's not the OSA per se which is the problem, it's the purpose for which it is being used by the usual bad actors (i.e. the corrupt State). Put benevolent people in charge of the OSA, and you will soon see an end to bigotry. And, ironically, the State too for that matter!
Is Christianity a protected characteristic in the way you describe, Evelyn? Not in every respect, though, surely. What about the lady arrested for silently praying in the street? She was Christian, I believe.
But you're dead right in your main point.
The effect of laws serving purposes diametrically opposite to that stated is yet another example of the (some say, Satanic) inversions we've seen inflicted upon one institution after another, over a long period.
Ah - well maybe we could argue that lady was a genuine Christian! i.e. not a bigot, more like Jesus? I don't know that story btw so I'm just randomly thinking here. I'm certain the 'law' is applied in a totally arbitrary fashion though, that's for sure. Like maybe she was the 'wrong kind of Christian', and it's only the bigoted ones (who are not really Christians) who get the out of jail free card.
I was going to mention the Satanic thing actually. I know in America for example they have complete 'freedom of religion' - and this is why organisations like 'the Church of Satan' can not only exist but have a range of legal protections.
I'm also thinking part of the sinister (yes, Satanic - I agree) psychology underlying these inversions is to inflict cognitive dissonance on people - put in normal language 'confusion' - which leads to learned helplessness (how many fingers, Winston? don't know - you tell me from now on, O'Brien). Same as this 'one rule for them, one rule for us' phenomenon. By inflicting cognitive contradictions on people it means they can't think straight anymore.
So with regards to the hate speech laws we have the phenomenon of providing 'protected characteristics' to two fundamentally opposing groups, which allows one group of bigots to continue causing harm to another group (say, trans people for example) but their 'protected characteristic' somehow becomes more legally important than the group on the receiving end. We even have the legacy media amplifying the bigots' group but presenting themselves as 'intellectual' or 'feminist' or 'erudite'. Likewise we have the likes of Farage (or Trump in the US) spouting racist hate speech in full knowledge of the hurt caused, but he's not just permitted to get away with it he's given disproportionate airtime to do it. But when some individual citizen does it, they get arrested (as Iain has described in this series).
I think the best thing we can do, to avoid the cognitive dissonance, is take a step back and see the big picture, which is a group of evil creatures inflicting all this on the population. Rather than buy into their manufactured 'culture war' shit.
Excellent comments, once again.
Sowing cognitive dissonance is without doubt a primary aim. Ironically, most people's brains are already in a state of catatonic receptiveness, without their government's continuing intervention. The 1984 approach has worked on such folk, regrettably. Remarkably, the bludgeoning of one's perceptual apparatus seems to be effective regardless of education, class or any other broad societal identifier.
As for the rest, I suspect most effort is directed towards those relatively few whose intellect holds the potential for genuinely clear and rational thinking, particularly where we find an above average IQ coupled with a refined but somewhat 'orthodox' and compliant moral sensibility. Those on the liberal left embody this predisposition to a tee. I'm thinking of a specific friend here; a smart guy with a kind heart, but who is utterly captured by the socialist dogmas he imbibed at his father's knee. He appears literally incapable of detecting the incipient
totalitarianism unfolding around him every day. He actually admires Starmer for having "got his party under control"! These are the "mind-forged manacles" William Blake wrote his fine poetry about.
Cognitive dissonance is designed to trick people into fitting the manacles to themselves. It's all very Pavlovian.
Equally good comments. I'm just about ready to start my series of psychology articles so this cognitive dissonance/subversion thing will be cropping up a fair bit.
One point though - this idea of 'liberal left' - I think one thing is these terms or definitions like 'left' or 'socialist' have been so twisted such that they no longer mean what people like me for example would think of them.
Starmer, for example, is actually more of a fascist. There's certainly nothing 'left' or 'socialist' about him. Or even 'liberal', in the traditional sense of the word. What is now 'liberal' is actually 'conservative' and 'authoritarian' (i.e. right-wing). Likewise 'left' is, ironically, somewhat similar, and has nothing to do with 'socialism' anymore, if it ever did.
'Socialism' is by definition 'liberal', although I mean 'liberal' in the sense of 'liberating'. That's to say, 'freedom from authoritarianism'. Socialism, by providing everyone with at the bare minimum permanent access to all the necessities of existence as well as individual opportunity to acquire more through talent and effort, is by definition liberating, because the 'state' can no longer control people, if they are no longer dependent. Socialism, in that sense, is about self-sufficiency, not 'state handouts'. I.e. a kind of 'localism' with regards to self-sufficiency/control over production and distribution of resources. This is the original version of socialism which predated the likes of subversive state operatives like Marx. Marxism, which has come to be associated with 'the left' is in fact about state control/subjugation, because it results in a condition of dependency on that state. In other words, it's fascism dressed up in 'socialist' language. Yep - more cognitive dissonance lol!
Sorry, mustn't ramble...
Please, ramble on!
I learnt something new with almost every comment you make.
I'll have to ask my friend if he shares the same conception of socialism as you've outlined here. His thoughts about Starmer suggest not.
Your deft unweaving of the loaded terms 'left', 'liberal' and 'conservative' reveals yet more of the corruption of language we exchanged thoughts about previously. Once again, I think this must be deliberate, or, perhaps, a sort of complacent intellectual laziness among academics and political analysts. I mean, who cares what those terms actually signify, if "I'm alright, Jack"?
I've never been very comfortable using any of the political labels people used to derive such a strong sense of identity from. I think it must be largely because I feel they are precisely the kind of impediment to clear thought we both rail against.
I agree with every word you said.
When you suggested it must be deliberate, or intellectual laziness - I think we could change the 'or' there to an 'and/or'. I would imagine it's a mixture of both, with some doing it knowingly and some just following the herd.
But yes, the corruption of language is definitely used to manipulate. Especially in the psychological knowledge that human beings do, indeed, in part define themselves/their identity by reference to the belonging to a particular social group - and many of those groups do have 'labels' or 'names'. The manufactured divide & conquer 'class system' is another one (notice how Marxists are always banging on about 'class war' - thus perpetuating the division).
The cabal have always excelled at using this human social group psychology to not just divide people and put them at odds with each other, but force a kind of ostracism on those who don't conform. Likewise they can drum up 'nationalism' and 'racism' and so on. And then by making each group feel insecure about out-groups, they are essentially doing a very good job of turning more and more humans into bad guys who are prejudiced against out-groups (which is not normal or natural for human beings, despite what cabal-oriented anthropologists might say). Whilst all the time, of course, it should actually be 'the entire human group' versus the 'cabal group'. If that happened, the cabal wouldn't last long, given the numerical superiority.
But I've been writing about this recently so I'll leave it for my impending post, or series of posts which shall be starting later this evening... I just have to find some cool images...
I hope the British police are increasingly aware of their potential to be used as hostages to fortune, for purely political ends, which might result in them quietly declining to investigate the non-crimes Iain discusses here.
The Bernie Spofforth case is highly pertinent, in that regard.
They are either aware and don't care or completely unaware and just following orders. My guess is the former since so many of them have been trained in Common Purpose.
You may well be correct, but I don't have as dim a view of our police as many seem to.
They are political pawns, no doubt, but I sense there might be a growing reluctance to pursue cases where the outcomes would reflect badly on the police as an institution.
There is a pragmatic element to this, too. Why would the police want to get caught up in efforts to arrest people like Spofforth, if they will only have to let matters drop once it becomes clear no crime has been committed? Police resources are stretched enough as it is. Chief constables will surely be looking at legislation like the OSA and asking themselves if they don't have better ways of justifying their existence.
Perhaps I'm naive.
Decisions on whether to drop something or not is obviously made by those higher up rather than those who made the arrest in the first place. Even if the higher ups are reluctant to pursue a case due to image concerns, how much control do they really have in situations where a government have taken an ideological and authoritarian stance as they have done in the recent riots? Police are always vulnerable to government threats to their budget.
If Chief Constables were concerned at their resources being stretched thin and their budgets being cut, I really can't see why they didn't immediately issue orders to their staff to stop monitoring social media posts and actually do some crime solving. But they didn't. They just let if go ahead. It was after all serving the government's interests in controlling the public narrative. It has been said that the Metropolitan Police were forced to accept false responsibility over the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes during the London 7/7 bombings when he was actually shot dead by Special Forces. The reason for the false responsibility was speculated as being the Met police was subjected to the threat of severe budget cuts. See RDH and richplanet.net,
Your thoughts are.... thought provoking.
There are plenty of good coppers out there, I know. (I have two as neighbours).
I'm sure many of them are grinding their teeth in frustration at some of the insane enforcement they're expected to undertake.
I do follow RDH's work. I contributed to his legal fund in the Hibbert case. It's been years since I looked at what he had to say about 7/7, however.
I am sure there are some good coppers but I think, sadly, they are in a small minority. Just look at the responses many people get when they try to reason with them. They just repeat policy over and over again that they sound like robots. This is Common Purpose in action.
Re 7/7 and RDH. It was either he or Dr Nick Kollestrom who put forward the idea that the Met were forced to take responsibility for the shooting of de Menezes and I think it was RDH who discovered that the particular Special Forces troops who shot him dead were ones used in covert work in N. Ireland and who have/had a brutal reputation. I can't remember exactly who said what because it's also been a long time since I watched it too, but it was said in a conversation between the two of them. I might go back and watch it again when I have time.
My theory about the JC de Menezes assassination is that given he was working as an electrical subcontractor on the underground at the time, 'they' may have thought he saw something he shouldn't have and was therefore a loose end requiring elimination. This gives weight to the theory about 'bombs planted beneath the carriages'. This is the hypothesis I am more inclined to believe, for various reasons, and certainly if the photographs of the damage to the train carriages are genuine then this makes the hypothesis almost certain, as the damage to the floor of the carriages clearly shows an upward blast from beneath the floor.
So the information about diverting responsibility to the Met is more circumstantial evidence to support this hypothesis, imho.
https://www.richplanet.net/richp_guest_menu.php?person=3
Another twat with nothing to say.
Dub SurgeOn isn't worth giving your attention to. There are a couple of other similarly irksome characters on here. I wish Iain could block them, but I'm not sure he can.
Thanks for this. I missed it. Am updating the article accordingly.