An example of this is the fact that the European Parliament voted early in July on the urgency of Chat Control—the scanning of the private messages of citizens charged with no crime and threatening no one except the powers that be. Of course, this will be heralded as necessary access to prevent violence, to protect children, to end hate speech, and to make for a more civil society. Who is naive enough to believe that it will end with scanning or monitoring of such messages? As Rod Dreher as suggested, this is not for building an infrastructure to deal with today but the establishment of an infrastructure for tomorrow. It is always good to remember that we never surrender our freedom all at once but in small steps over time. We surrender it line by line of rhetoric and computer code and it is never to control but to protect -- a reason no reasonable person would dare to argue with but it never stops there.
You must hearken back to the case of Päivi Räsänen, the Lutheran member of parliament from Finland now convicted by a Finnish court of hate speech — for quoting the Bible, and for criticizing LGBT ideology — after being exonerated several times before. Though she was twice acquitted by the courts, the Finnish state was not satisfied and tried her a third time in order to gain the conviction they wanted. The consequences of this conviction are not limited to Finland. In fact, Päivi was prevented from flying through London’s Heathrow airport on a flight back because she’s a convicted hate criminal and that made her either dangerous or a persona non grata in the UK even for a temporary moment in an airport awaiting a connecting flight! The UK insists she is unwelcome there. This is Päivi Räsänen, an elected European lawmaker, denied travel through Heathrow Airport on orders of His Majesty’s government for daring to quote the Bible in public. The irony here is that this is done in the name of the King who is charged with defending the (Christian) faith of the Church of England.
Now who is the thought police you should rightly fear?
Update: Räsänen has filed an application to appeal her conviction to the European Court of Human Rights in July, commencing the final legal juncture of a landmark case for freedom of speech in Europe. Stay tuned.
1 comment:
You are correct that the “thought police” usually come from left wing and progressive ideologues. They even cannibaliz their own when they dare step out of line. They do not like debates, or facts which dispute their agenda. But they use free speech, or rather “abuse” free speech to get their viewpoint across, and once they have achieved recognition, do their best to nullify critics. It is classic Marxism, which permeated academia long ago. But we on the conservative side have also been accused of being “thought police” because we dare to oppose Leftist propaganda in our schools, permissive values embodied in LGBTQ books oriented toward children, and in anti-American history books formulated to redefine and deconstruct our heritage. The Left focuses on the younger generations, knowing they are more gullible and vulnerable to false teachings. I think parents have a right to ensure schools are not propaganda mills. If this is also a form of “thought police” then count me in as an advocate for truth and wisdom. The right knows much of the Left is wrong about most every issue. Their program is always against the word of God, as the left promotes its core mission of assaulting the family, motherhood, fatherhood, marriage, and gender, to name a few. They want to tell us what pronouns to use even though the grammar doesn’t fit. So let the Left have their “thought police,” and we will just strive for truth, and never ever feed the delusions of the enemies of wisdom. Soli Deo Gloria
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