By Andrea Widburg
George Orwell accurately predicted in 1984 what would happen when technology was combined with leftism. The only mistake he made was that he assumed it would happen forty years sooner than it finally did. I say that because Britain’s Labour government is embarking on a huge “hate” speech crackdown (2024’s version of “misinformation”), and Elon Musk, an American citizen in America, had better watch out. Indeed, according to the police commissioner, all Americans are in his crosshairs.
I support laws making it illegal to use speech to threaten people or incite specific violence. Thus, statements such as “I’m going to kill you” or “Let’s burn down this grocery store” have always been criminalized in America, even under the First Amendment. However, in America (at least for now), statements such as “I wish he were dead,” “He is an evil man,” or even “The people need to fight this madness” are free speech that the government cannot criminalize.
What we haven’t done in America (yet) is to criminalize what one might call “thoughtcrimes.” We’re on the way there, however, because we have “hate crimes.” Hate crime charges enhance criminal penalties if the wrongdoer had anti-minority or anti-LGBTQ+ thoughts when committing the underlying crime. Thus, in America, it’s worse to kill a person because he’s black or gay than it is merely to kill the person.
This thought crime standard doesn’t work in the other direction, of course. There’s no penalty enhancement for killing a person because he’s white or heterosexual. It’s the thoughtcrime of “racism” or “homophobia” that makes the murder not just bad but really bad.
The very idea of hate crimes is unconstitutional, to my way of thinking. I’m only grateful that, so far, the government has yet made serious inroads criminalizing opinions about different types of people. (Note, though, that the feds are censoring people through their tech proxies.) I’m a free speech absolutist in this regard, I say that despite the frightening rise of antisemitism in America. What frightens me even more than antisemitism on the streets is a government that uses its police power to control what we may or may not think. Maybe it’ll oppose antisemitism now but, maybe, one day, it’ll do a U-turn and go full Nazi.
As I explained at greater length in my post about Tim Walz’s war on the First Amendment, we inherited from England our ideas about free speech. That’s why it’s somehow truly tragic that, as George Orwell predicted, England abandoned free speech when she abandoned liberty and embraced totalitarianism. And as Orwell also predicted, once the speech police had the technology to do so, they would track down anyone who committed a thoughtcrime.
Here’s the Metropolitan Police Commissioner warning that no one who incites “hate” is safe from the long arm of the law:
Police Commissioner: We will throw the full force of the law at people. And whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you.
Reporter: I want to talk to you about that because we have seen some high-profile figures whipping up the hatred you talked about it in there with the officers, in fact, about this [the civil unrest] being added to by online commentary. I mean, I’m even thinking of the likes of Elon Musk getting involved. What are you considering when it comes to dealing with people who are whipping up this kind of behavior from behind a keyboard and maybe in a different country?
Police Commissioner: Being a keyboard warrior does not make you safe from the law. You can be guilty of offenses of, of incitement, of stirring up racial hatred. There are numerous terrorist offenses regarding the sort of publishing of material. All of those offenses are in play if people are provoking hatred and violence on the streets, and we will come after those individuals, just as we will physically confront on the streets, the thugs and the yobs who are taking, who are causing the problems for Community.
So, it’s bad in England. But what’s really crazy about what the Police Commissioner said is that he intends to expand his reach beyond Britain’s borders and to attack overseas thoughtcrimes that people who aren’t British citizens commit. That is, after all, the import of his threat against Elon Musk and others who are “committing crimes from further afield online.”
Thankfully, Elon Musk is not a shrinking violent. In the face of this threat, he has suspended the entire British government for violating the X terms of service:
I’ve long been worried about the handful of conservative friends I have who live in England. Now, I’m worried about my friends in America, too. If Kamala wins, it’s all too easy to imagine her administration happily extraditing to the UK people in America who have dared to notice that the UK is rapidly turning into a hard-left, technocratic state that pays obeisance to the rising number of Muslims it’s imported.
Regarding the UK’s new citizens, I’ll leave you with two things. First, a quote from Chris Rufo from an essay he wrote about how London has changed in almost 20 years:
Since my last visit nearly two decades ago, the white British population of London has declined from 60 percent to 37 percent. Meantime, the Muslim population of London has nearly doubled, and migrants from South Asia and Africa have entrenched themselves throughout the city.
Anglos have been a minority for more than a decade. What I’ve observed in the city this week has amazed me. Women’s eyes peering through the slit of black niqabs. A procession of sub-Saharan Africans traversing Westminster Bridge, waving the flags of their homelands and demanding reparations. Street corners that could be confused for Peshawar or Islamabad. Districts in which one could pass an entire day with barely a glimpse of an Englishman. (Emphasis mine.)