It’s already time for a follow-up on the U.K. thought police and their sweeping enforcement actions against the personal opinions of people expressed on the internet. When last we left the British constabulary, the Humberside Police Department was interrogating a citizen for “liking” posts on Twitter critical of transgender persons. The officer involved told Harry Miller he needed to “check my thinking” as he created a file on the “hate incident.”
It is crucial to emphasize that this police enthusiasm for monitoring and recording so-called “hate incidents” has already reached the United States. The Los Angeles Police Department strongly believes that keeping track of citizens’ private acts that are in no way illegal serves as a pre-emptive tool in fighting “hate crimes.”
But, of course, there is a fine and incredibly arbitrary line between “incident” and “crime” when the activity involved is judged solely on the perceptions and feelings of the perpetually aggrieved. A 38-year-old mother in Hertfordshire has discovered this to her dismay.
Locked Up
While on Twitter, Kate Scottow referred to a man who considers himself to be a woman as a male. For this vile deed, she was arrested, booked, fingerprinted, and locked up in jail for seven hours. Hertfordshire police have confirmed the arrest, saying, “we take all reports of malicious communication seriously,” the Daily Mail reports.
Meanwhile, in Suffolk, the wrongthink bloodhounds managed to successfully track down a 74-year-old woman who runs a blog. Margaret Nelson is a feminist who does not believe in the transgender myth. Sharing those feelings online earned her police attention. She told The Spectator newspaper:
‘’The officer said she wanted to talk to me about some of the things I’d written on Twitter and my blog. She said that some of the things that I’d written could have upset or offended transgender people. So could I please stop writing things like that and perhaps I could remove those posts and tweets?'”
A police officer draped in the trappings of authority called a private citizen to tell her to stop giving her personal opinions on the internet. Suffolk police first tweeted out a smarmy reply when Nelson went public with the conversation, saying the call was made “to raise awareness of the complaints” made against her by upset transgenders. Eventually, the Suffolk police apologized, rather coldly saying, “[w]e accept we made a misjudgement in following up a complaint regarding the blog.”
Policing Progress
Many Brits are rightly outraged by the wasted man hours (did I just commit a hate crime with that wording?) involved in chasing down 74-year-old women in cyberspace. The U.K.’s Office for National Statistics released data in January showing that violent crime in England and Wales rose 14% in the year ending September 2018. As this spike in murderous mayhem occurred, police officials were recording “incidents” deemed unpleasant by people who think they are trapped in the wrong body.
Though the impact on authentic crime fighting is certainly an important and tragic further consequence, the higher truth remains that the actions of U.K. police would be grossly unacceptable even if all crime in England had been solved. Police officers are taking it upon themselves to decide what is and what is not proper opinion and enforcing that standard. The Wiltshire Police Department on its official website has “[u]psetting online comments, for example on Facebook or Twitter” under its listings of hate crimes. Not incidents but actual crimes.
The South Yorkshire Police Department, in a tweet, openly says “offensive or insulting comments, online, in person or in writing” must be reported and “will not be tolerated.”
In addition to reporting hate crime, please report non-crime hate incidents, which can include things like offensive or insulting comments, online, in person or in writing. Hate will not be tolerated in South Yorkshire. Report it and put a stop to it #HateHurtsSY pic.twitter.com/p2xf6OLoQZ
— South Yorkshire Police (@syptweet) September 9, 2018
The Suffolk Police Department, on its website, states that activity that is not a problem among most citizens can in fact be criminal when one of the special aggrieved groups comes into play. “Full recognition is given to the fact that individual incidents, which may appear minor in nature to some, are far more serious when part of a pattern of behaviour directed at members of a minority group,” the department writes. This is nothing short of a direct acknowledgment of a double standard when it comes to police enforcement.
Those who may anticipate an eventual climb-down by U.K. police as the folly of this situation becomes more evident should ponder what progressivism is truly about. At its core is a fervid religious-like belief that the future must constantly be marked by change. Change is progress, and to go back on something novel is to betray the ever-progressive future. The U.K. police and the new authoritarians who want to push us into that sad world cannot pull away from any step forward. There is no going back, and they will incarcerate you if you try.
