[Adapted from the latest Radio Derb, now available exclusively on VDARE.com]
See earlier: Majority Deport: Canada’s Pre-Crime Hate Speech Law and Sam Melia: UK Man Convicted Of Hate Speech For Saying ”It’s OK To Be White” And ”Reject White Guilt,” Etc.
Two items here on the rapid decline of free speech in parts of the Anglosphere that do not enjoy our First Amendment.
To your mental list of Indians and Pakistanis who have risen to positions of high power in Anglosphere nations—Rishi Sunak, the U.K. Prime Minister, Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, Humza Yousaf, the First Minister of Scotland, Leo Varadkar, the Prime Minister of Ireland, and I’m sure others I have forgotten—to that mental list you can add, if he’s not already on it, Arif Virani, below, a Gujarati Muslim born in Uganda, who serves as the Attorney General and Minister of Justice for Canada, our friendly neighbor to the north.
Mr. Virani is currently championing the Online Harms Bill, a law to greatly increase penalties for so-called ”Hate Speech” online.
At that point when I’m reading a news story—I mean, the point where the phrase ”Hate Speech” shows up—I wander off down through the news story looking for their definition of ”Hate Speech.”
Aha! Got it. CTV News, March 6th:
In both its human-rights legislation and the Criminal Code, the government is now seeking to define Hate Speech as ”content that expresses detestation or vilification.”
Government says only extreme online hate speech would be probed by human rights body, Canadian Press, March 6, 2024
That article is accompanied by a picture of Virani doing a press conference, backed by, presumably, his visibly multiracial staff.
Government says only extreme online hate speech would be probed by human rights body https://t.co/21sKliuUA5
— CTV News (@CTVNews) March 6, 2024
That’s actually a toned-down definition. An earlier version of the Bill defined ”Hate Speech” as ”likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt on the basis of their race, gender, religion or other prohibited ground of discrimination.”
Seems to me that on that earlier definition you could find yourself behind bars for an off-color online joke about Jews or blacks. That would rule out about half the stuff online that I find funny; also much of the stuff that Jews and blacks find funny.
Examples:
Even with that toning-down, though, the Bill will still get you life imprisonment for ”advocating genocide,” and five years porridge for ”hate propaganda.” I couldn’t find a definition for either of those terms, but I’m betting there’s room in them for plenty of judicial mischief to further erode freedom of speech.
In my mother country, there is an organization called Patriotic Alternative, standing up for the legacy population of the country and against mass Third World immigration. I have only just heard about them so I can’t tell you much other than they have a nifty website.
Up front on that website, if you scroll down a page or two, is a big clear display of numbers.
When I looked just now it was headed with a big number: 27. Underneath that, left to right, were the numbers: 19, 13, 308, 41.
You have to read the numbers in reverse order. Patriotic Alternative did some demographic research and came up with the precise instant when white British people will fall below fifty percent of the country’s population.
It will be at some point in the year 2066. The precise point is given by those numbers, read in reverse order: 41 years, 308 days, 13 hours, 19 minutes and 27 seconds from when I glanced at the screen. Cute.
Thirty-four-year-old Samuel Melia is a regional organizer for Patriotic Alternative. As a side activity he set up a group called the Hundred Handers on the social media platform Telegram, winning himself more than 3,500 subscribers. These subscribers could download and print white nationalist stickers.
What did these stickers say? ”Reject white guilt,” ”Nationalism is nurture,” ”We will be a minority in our homeland by 2066,” and ”Diversity—designed to fail, built to replace,” and that perpetual favorite (and hate object) ”It’s OK to be white” [UK man with Hitler picture in home used sticker campaign to stir racial hatred, court told, by Robyn Vinter, Guardian, January 16, 2024].
Hateful stuff, eh?
On March 1st Mr. Melia was sentenced to two years in prison for the offense of ”Publishing or distributing material intending to stir up racial hatred,” and another two years, to run concurrently, for ”Encouraging or assisting the commission of the offence of racially aggravated criminal damage.”
I don’t know what the criminal damage was in that second charge. Since it got Mr. Melia the same two-year sentence as the first offense, ”Publishing or distributing material intending to stir up racial hatred,” I guess it didn’t involve anything very destructive.
In an Orwellian twist, the prosecution acknowledged that the stickers themselves said nothing illegal or untrue. It was Mr. Melia’s intention in printing them that was at issue. He has literally been convicted of a Thought Crime.
That’s the state of free speech in Britain today.
Both these free-speech items record the poison fruit of multiculturalism, without which legislation like Canada’s Online Harms Bill and whichever law Mr. Melia broke by printing a sticker saying ”Reject white guilt” would have no reason for existing.
”Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” said Robert Oppenheimer, quoting Hindu scripture, as he watched the first atomic explosion.
Reading stories like these about free speech I find myself murmuring: ”Now I have become multiculturalism, the destroyer of nations.”
John Derbyshire [email him] writes an incredible amount on all sorts of subjects for all kinds of outlets. (This no longer includes National Review, whose editors had some kind of tantrum and fired him.) He is the author of We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism and several other books. He has had two books published by VDARE.com com: FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT (also available in Kindle) and FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT II: ESSAYS 2013.
For years he’s been podcasting at Radio Derb, now available at VDARE.com for no charge. His writings are archived at JohnDerbyshire.com.
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