Dakota Beacon

Have you ever disagreed with someone? That’s a silly question, right? Because anyone who hasn’t disagreed with another human hasn’t been born yet. We can disagree over whether we like blue or green better, driving or flying, what kind of music we like best or chocolate or vanilla. It is normal to have an opinion, normal and human. Sometimes it’s even safe, but not always.

Much has been said here about the fact that Britain has melted down into a mad tyranny. We’ve talked about Tommy Robinson and his crusade (I use the term advisedly) against so-called “Asian” (Muslim) “grooming” (rape) gangs and the governmental apparatus – the constabulary, politicians and press - who have collaborated in the victimization of young British girls. This is perhaps Britain’s darkest hour – where young, defenseless girls are trapped by vicious pimps, rapists and murderers and abandoned by the very people who should be rescuing them and protecting them. But to say this, or to point out the facts and evidence which substantiate the position of Robinson and a few like-minded citizens is to commit the act of “hate speech” in Britain.

“Hate speech” sounds fairly harmless, really, doesn’t it? We all hate something. Caring deeply for anything means hating that which threatens or destroys it. We can only hate if we have the capacity to care. I will not accept the idea of not hating. So if I express an opinion against something evil, I have engaged in “hate speech” of some kind. If I express an opinion favorable toward something someone else hates, then my opinion is also “hate speech” in that other person’s view.

It is a short step from a fear of “hate speech” to self-censorship and an even shorter one from there to censorship imposed by the employer, the newspaper and the state. This can be “officially enacted” censorship or simply de facto. We are now in the phase of self-censorship, a dangerous precipice. We are rapidly moving toward the de facto imposed phase. Our Constitution prohibits this censorship. Our First Amendment guarantees us this priceless freedom, but like any guarantee, if we don’t enforce it, it is meaningless. It will atrophy.

We have seen this de facto phase already for a few years where our local newspapers refuse to print letters or articles which they, in their great wisdom, believe to be “hate speech”. Years ago, there was an event staged in Grand Forks by a local merchant, which was all about importing Somalis and how great this would be for diversity and how much we needed this in Grand Forks. I attended the event, rose to ask a question, spoke with the instigator of the event one-on-one, a man I’ve known personally for many years, and I also wrote a letter to the editor of the Grand Forks Herald. My letter was devoid of anything racist (because I am not a racist), it did not promote any form of supremacy (because I am not a supremacist), I used no abusive language nor any derogatory terms. My topic was simply that we needed to vet immigrants as to any criminal background, mental health issues, terrorist connections and their ability to adapt to our laws and our Constitution, especially as regards our First Amendment freedoms – a very important issue when people come here who believe we should not have these freedoms of press, association, speech, assembly and religion. And many who have been brought here through the agency of Lutheran Social Services and similar organizations, come from places where they have been indoctrinated against these freedoms from birth. The editor refused to publish my letter. I asked him why. I asked what words I used that were “verboten”. He said none. I asked what exactly I proposed that was in any way improper. He could find nothing in what I said that could be termed “hateful” or improper. The letter fit the guidelines for length. So what was the problem? He said it was my “tone”. He didn’t like my “tone”. He wanted to edit it or he would reject it. I said that I could not allow something I had not written to be published over my name. The matter ended there. He was the editor and he believed it was his job to filter the “tone” of letters his newspaper would publish. If it is not fit to print a letter calling upon those who come here to be able to live under our laws, to be basically sane and free of criminal or terrorist ties, we have censorship, not a shyness about “hate speech”. Nothing in my letter even alluded to the ability of immigrants to support themselves. It was all about our laws and protecting our citizens. If I don’t have the right to express this idea in my hometown newspaper, we have censorship.

There are a lot of issues swirling around today which provoke an opinion which never would have 30 years ago. If you believe that sun activity and elements beyond our control are the reason for climate change on the earth, even to the point of calling up prehistoric physical evidence such as bones and fossils of creatures who lived in tropical swamps that are found in today’s coldest, driest climate zones, you are on dangerous turf. You are a “denier”. If you believe, as we have known for the entirety of human history, that there are exactly two sexes – male and female – you are some kind of cys-normative troglodyte. Never mind that you are correct in your belief. If you think it improper to expose pre-schoolers to drag queens on story day, if you think it’s wrong for “trans women” (biological males) to participate competitively in women’s sports, you are “trans phobic”. If you say that marriage is between one man and one woman, or you object to arranging flowers, taking photographs or decorating a cake for a “gay” wedding you are “homophobic”. If you believe that children should not be trans-gendered at the whim of an adult, or that schools, social services and psychiatrists should not be complicit in such abominations, you are definitely out of line. If you think that Christians and Jews should not be hunted down or massacred by Islamic extremists, or if you point out where the Qu’ran calls upon its followers to commit hostile acts against “infidels” or you simply point out recent acts of violence on the part of Muslims against others, you are an “Islamophobe”. If you advocate normal control of our national borders you are a hateful xenophobe and a racist. If you caution against regulations providing for the establishment of Islam or against laws or regulations against criticism of such acts or regulations, you are also an “Islamophobe”. In fact “Islamophobe” is a handy catch-all for just about anything that is not pro-Islam. If you don’t like it and say so, you are committing “hate speech”. We are moving from censorship toward criminalization of speech and thought. Where once our letters might have been rejected by the newspaper, or our ads by the television station, we could one day find ourselves arrested and prosecuted.

I don’t believe in “hate speech” or in “hate crimes”. The only way to properly prosecute criminals is for an actual crime, unadorned with the adjective “hate”. All crimes are hateful. If you punch someone and give him a black eye because he’s the wrong color or the wrong religion, the crime is the assault, not the motive, regardless of the victim. It is the same crime as if you punched the person because you thought he was insulting your wife. A crime is a crime. Our whole justice system is based on the idea that you are guilty only of what you do, not of what you are thinking or would like to do. When we talk about “hate crimes” what we are really doing is talking about policing thought. And as we begin to label things people say as “hate speech” we begin a dangerous process of shaping people’s ability to think objectively or critically. We might vehemently disagree with what someone says. It might be irrational and full of hate, but unless it is calling on someone to commit a crime or threatening to harm someone, that speech must be protected. That is the whole purpose of our First Amendment.

Lately that basic right has been called into question. All that is needed is for some reporter to ask a soft-minded college student a leading question (“do you think hate speech is hurtful? Should it be banned?”) and you can basically elicit from said soft-minded kid the opinion that, yes, hate speech really ought to be shut down. It’s only a half-step away from this to censorship. We are past that stage where this is only a threat. It is a full-on reality. Speakers who dare to express a different view are banned, shouted down or otherwise silenced by not only students, but especially by the campus “authorities”. Ben Shapiro is one such case, Michael Knowles is another. These people are regularly booed, banned and assaulted by mindless, robotic “students” and their puppeteers.

Well, you may think, this is a problem on campus, but they’re always wacky there. It is a fact that recent polling in Arizona shows a whopping 57% of them think that speech should be “restricted” if it “offends” someone and 60% believe that being “inclusive” or “welcoming” to a “diverse group” is more important than freedom of speech, and 70% believed that those who express “hurtful or offensive viewpoints” should be excluded from extracurricular activities, while 37% believed that shouting down speakers was acceptable and 10% even believed that stopping a speech they don’t agree with or don’t want to give a hearing justifies violence. No one should feel optimism for our future with this attitude on our college campuses. These people will, within a year or two, be moving into jobs where they will eventually attain a position in which they can enforce these ideas on others. They are our future.

Britain is also our future. They are there ahead of us. If you want a close look at what this is and what it means, take a look at the case of Fahrenheit211. This story, courtesy of Jihad Watch, begins with an agonizing siege of a man’s house in the UK. There is a link to the story behind it – please read it. You need to know what this man’s “crime” was, or his “alleged crime”. Although the attack on this man’s home is shown in its entirety and takes a good deal of time, it is worth it to watch. It is filmed by the person’s security cameras. Imagine, as you watch, that these are your security cameras and this is your door.

You will begin to wonder if this is so recent after all – it looks remarkably similar to the old Soviet system, the one which punished Solzhenitsyn and other courageous truth tellers. This, however, is Britain. Criticism is strictly a one-way street there. It is now a criminal offense to ask questions about how public money is used, whether the police and government are acting adequately against a scandalous abuse of a whole generation of young girls, maybe about whether Britain should get out of the EU or remain. You might wish to take a different view from Greta Thunberg. Anything you might think or say or write or repeat to others which is not strictly in line with the official position and the dictates of the authorities, is subject to this kind of police action.

There is an organization in the UK called “Tell Mama”. Its purpose is to serve as a complaint bureau for Muslims who perceive they have been slighted or offended by anyone or anything in the UK. This agency tag-teams with the police under Sadiq Kahn, and goes to work persecuting the alleged “offender”, potentially costing him his job, his home, his credit, his freedom - and all on his dime. We’ve seen this with Tommy Robinson, but he is so famous for being abused by the system that he is almost invisible to us by now. But he is not alone. And those who would “restrict” our free speech here for the dubious benefit of “inclusiveness” or “welcoming of diverse groups” is heading toward this inevitable distopic destination. If we listen to them, if we listen to their masters or those politicians who are egging them on, we are taking once-free America into the twilight zone of Soviet Britain.

Everything we hold dear counts on us facing down this threat to our First Amendment. We need to let those in government know where we stand, four-square behind our Constitution and the rights it guarantees us. If you doubt the awesome power of this status quo to brainwash a population, think of this: words such as “cys-normative”, “Islamophobic”, “transphobic”, etc., did not exist in the vocabulary until about 10 years or less ago - most of them not old enough to buy a case of beer. They have wormed their way into our consciousness so completely that we subconsciously run our thoughts by them for approval before we speak. When you know something and are afraid to say it you are effectively muzzled. If you dare not even think it, you have surrendered your intellectual autonomy and have become little more than a state-operated robot.

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