The Director of Public Prosecutions, the achingly politically correct Alison Saunders, has announced that in future ‘online hate crimes’ will be treated as seriously as if they are real life crimes. This announcement, as well as being a threat to Britons right to opine on controversial subjects that some ‘protected groups’ may find ‘offensive’, is also likely to end up as a sort of liars’ charter.
It will become a liars’ charter precisely because ‘hate crime’ legislation treats an alleged ‘victim’s’ perception of an action or words spoken or written by others as ‘evidence’, even though such subjective feelings-based claims by alleged complainants are very difficult to test in a court. It is all too easy for those with ideological, religious or other axes to grind to claim that the words someone said were ‘hurtful’ or ‘offensive’ or caused them ‘fear’, even when this is not the case. A person, especially one with a political agenda, could use these new guidelines to try to shut up or punish critics, merely by claiming dishonestly that some harsh words, or even some photoshopped image meme, was ‘hate crime’ if the alleged ‘victim’ said it was. This means for example that someone like Diane Abbott, a person who by her own public utterances has shown herself to be a racist, race-obsessed, hypocritical, incompetent, could have critics who show her in a meme as a talking hippo gaoled for significant lengths of time.
MP Diane Abbot depicted as a racist, hypocritical, incompetent Hippo with no idea of what numbers mean.
This would also have a chilling effect on Britain’s already battered culture of freedom of speech, a culture that previous generations fought and sometimes died to protect. However, there are worse, far worse people than Diane Abbott out there who are likely to take advantage of these new guidelines. There are Islamist groups for example, who will use these new rules enthusiastically, to attack and intimidate critics who have the temerity to point out to the world the dangers of extremist Islam and those who make excuses for it and facilitate it.
As a former full time court reporter, I saw many people give evidence and a lot of that evidence was, as far as I can ascertain, highly truthful. I have also seen some appalling lies being told by defendants and witnesses. Some people will lie to the court, that is patently obvious, this is why evidence that is given in court, in an adversarial system like that of Britain, is tested, for example by cross examination. With evidence that concerns what a person who witnessed or alleges that they saw or heard, there is the possibility of finding other evidence that either corroborates or challenges the witness’s account. When a case is based around something as subjective as an individual’s ‘feelings’ or their ‘perception’ of an incident or a written passage, then there is no chance of finding evidence that either backs up or challenges the alleged victim or the witness’s claims. I’ve seen some seriously egregious cases in the past where individuals whom I know to be aggressive or troublesome or combative, enter the witness box and dishonestly paint themselves as being shrinking wallflowers, who are one step away from the fainting couch.
There are a great many dangers to a society in having feelings-based legislation. One is that it creates a timid, frightened to offend and intellectually slothful populace, which does and says nothing that could ‘offend’ a member of a protected group or those which ‘hate crime’ law says have ‘protected characteristics’. It means that as a society we do not challenge or ask awkward questions of those who really should not be exempt from having questions asked about their belief systems or their lifestyles or their actions. We could even see the situation where someone like Ben Shapiro would, if he visited the United Kingdom, be at risk of arrest because some activist from the Trans ‘community’ found his view that transgenderism is a mental illness ‘offensive’ and thereby contrary to ‘hate speech’ laws. This is not a good way for a society that fought for freedom to have to live.
Another reason that feelings-based legislation is a danger is the increased likelihood of miscarriages of justice. For example: It would be relatively easy for me as a Jew and as a member of a minority who is covered by ‘hate speech’ and ‘hate crime’ laws, to falsely claim that any crime directed at me is one of anti-Semitism. If, say, I got rolled on my way back from the pub by some local muggers, I could ensure additional police resources for my case by claiming falsely that the attackers shouted ‘dirty Jew’ or some other anti-Semitic words whilst attacking me. This false claim would ensure that if this case came to court and a conviction was obtained, then not only has the conviction been got by a form of dishonesty that is very difficult to test in court, but the unjustly convicted defendants would get a far harsher sentence than that which would be given for a normal mugging.
Although it is flattering for those of us who are covered by ‘hate crime’ laws to have the State take such an interest in our safety, such laws go against the idea that justice shall be done. It creates the sort of classes of untouchables for whom the legal system is always favourable, which goes against the instructions in the Torah itself to have honest and unbiased justice systems. ‘Hate crime’ laws are inherently unjust and therefore go against Biblical notions of justice, because they divide people into those who the law will protect and those who the law will not. These laws also make justice and the administration and dispensing of it subject to the whims and enthusiasms of the political classes, such as the protection from criticism of those who claim to be a mythical third gender and demand, not merely ask, that you collude with their delusion. ‘Hate crime’ laws give such people a stick to bully those who disagree. These laws also have great capability to be applied unevenly and create a double standard. The likelihood of Islamic preachers being arrested for spouting seditious incitement or calling for the enslavement of women is under these beefed up ‘hate speech’ laws is pretty remote. It is more likely that those individuals and groups who call out Islamic sedition and Islamic misogyny are the ones who are likely to be targeted.
A good indication that these new guidelines are going to be used to intimidate critics of various liberal / left causes and the followers of the ideology of Islam is the fact that the Crown Prosecution Service, Britain’s state prosecutor, has been retweeting approving comments from the disgraced ‘anti Islamophobia’ monitor Tell Mama. Tell Mama, for those who don’t know, was founded back in 2012/2013 by Fiyaz ‘Taqiyyatron’ Mughal and this group has a history of lying about the number and type of anti-Islam ‘hate crimes’. They were heavily censured by public and press for lying about the amount of ‘backlash’ against Muslims following the Islamic murder of Fusileer Lee Rigby in 2013, which earned them and their founder the epithet of ‘mendacious grievance mongering taqiyya artists’. In one other notable case, Tell Mama left another provably fake attack story up on their website for over a year before it was taken down following a worldwide internet campaign. The presence of this group cheering on these new guidelines should be seen as an indication that the CPS are primarily concerned with attacking people’s natural born right to speak according to their consciences, especially when their conscience tells them to ask awkward questions about the ideology created by ‘Paedo Mo’ in the 7th century.
Tell Mama’s Fiyaz Mughal depicted as a Dalek spouting ‘Islamophobia’ bullshit and demanding public money
These guidelines will further entrench in the minds of the public the attitude that the police and prosecuting authorities are not interested in dealing with real crime of the sort that really does damage people’s lives and communities. They show that the police and the justice system is far more concerned about protecting various deluded ‘snowflakes’ from opinions that they find disagreeable and clamping down on negative comments about Islam than they are about real crimes that do genuine harm such as burglary, street crime, sex crime etc.
If you wanted to design a policy that would lose police officers and law officers what little respect they have left, then these new guidelines are how you would do it. A growing number of Britons already suspect that the police, especially senior officers, along with other agencies, are more interested in pandering to loud and potentially violent religious or political groups. This new CPS guidance will do nothing to stop this slide in confidence on the part of the public in the impartiality and the probity of either the police or the Crown Prosecution Service. This new guidance shows how vitally necessary it is for Britons to fight for laws that enshrine free speech as part of British life and to resist and mock this blatant attempt to silence those whose views go against that of the liberal elite. This announcement by the CPS shows just why Britain needs its own equivalent of America’s ‘First Amendment’ because without it all manner of whiners and charlatans can take possession of our legal system and force their views and their wills onto others.
Links
Original Breitbart story about new toughened online ‘hate speech’ guidance
Ben Shapiro on Transgenderism
http://www.dailywire.com/news/13354/ben-shapiro-debunks-transgenderism-and-pro-hank-berrien
Leviticus 19:15 on the idea of fair justice, something that the new ‘hate speech’ and ‘hate crime’ guidelines destroy by driving a coach and horses through it.
http://biblehub.com/leviticus/19-15.htm
Andrew Gilligan of the Daily Telegraph breaks story about Tell Mama lying about number of anti Muslim attacks
Tell Mama leave fake ‘Islamophobic’ attack story up for a year
Tell Mama take down fake ‘Islamophobic’ story after internet campaign to get them to remove the false story
