Bigworld, >> reevaluate our strategy of remaining in the USA <<
Based on Rickards' info (below), the UK related countries seem to be going 'full Orwell' first -- Canada, Scotland, New Zealand, Ireland. I visited Scotland back ~ 2005, and even then it was one of the most surveilled places on Earth, with a zillion CCTV cameras at every intersection. In Edinburgh I walked across a quiet street and a local guy pointed up to the cameras and said to be careful since 'they' (Big Brother) will send you a penalty / fine for not crossing correctly at an intersection. The UK is just crawling with surveillance cameras everywhere.
The main reason 1984 hasn't happened already is that the technology to implement it didn't exist. But now it does, and the CBDC will be the ultimate enforcement tool ---> total behavioral control over the population since they can just switch off your use of money. Unfortunately it's just a matter of time.
>>> When we look around at places like New Zealand and Scotland, there seems to be a bizarre competition to see which country can pass the most fascist laws and imitate George Orwell’s dystopia in Nineteen Eighty-Four in the least amount of time.
Scotland has imposed so-called hate crime laws that subject you to imprisonment for exercising free speech if it happens to offend a long list of protected parties. No actual violence or physical act is needed. If you simply say the wrong thing, you can be arrested, fined and imprisoned for “inciting hate.”
A similar law has just passed in Ireland. The Polish government wants to pass a law that makes it a crime to “defame” members of the LBGT community. Of course, the term “defame” is ill-defined and is in the eye of the beholder. Any choice of words, even if derogatory or hurtful by some standard, should be protected by free speech provisions. But in Poland, it may soon land you in jail.
I’ve never understood hate crime laws anyway (and I’m a lawyer). If you murder someone, it’s murder. If you assault someone, it’s assault. Subject to due process of law, you should go to jail if convicted or perhaps face capital punishment.
Prosecutors have to show intent, but what does “hate” have to do with it? The perpetrator may, in fact, hate the victim but that’s not the crime. The crime is assault or murder. Those crimes have been considered crimes for millennia.
Nineteen Eighty-Four Was Supposed to Be Fiction
Adding hate to the definition just blurs the line between thought and action in ways that make it easier for fascist governments to target political enemies with flimsy allegations of “hate” when no actions were involved.
The most egregious example of this trend toward thought crimes is Canada. The chief neo-fascist there is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He has proposed a law called the Online Harms Act that expands the definition of “discrimination” to include online speech “likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or group.”
<<<
---
