Britain Goes Down the Drain

I feel bad for our British friends, but the political situation in England is a warning to freedom-loving Americans.

Say what you want about the slow-moving American justice system with its liberal judges who too often let criminals out with little or no bail, but we still have the right to be tried by a jury of our peers. England’s government has moved to eliminate that right, despite it being enshrined in 800 years of precedent. Now an appointed (not elected) judge can lock you away, even if your “crime” was saying something that offended someone.

A man in the UK has been jailed for posting a selfie of himself shooting a gun while visiting the U.S. Apparently, this image somehow “stirs up hatred” or is considered “grossly offensive” and is therefor criminal.

We thought it was bad having Facebook and Twitter ban people for posting things about the pandemic that the government didn’t agree with, but in Britain they don’t ban you, they lock you up. Better not insult someone or get in an online argument, or it’s off to the slammer with you.

The UK is looking more and more like China every day, with social credit scores determining a bloke’s future. They just announced that England is rolling out facial recognition cameras across the country, not just the major cities. The data will be fed into large AI systems, which will no doubt slap a fine on you for jaywalking or spitting on the sidewalk. It’s 1984 all over again, with Big Brother watching your every move.

These are just a few examples of the erosion of democratic principles that is occurring across Europe.

The Thought Police

In the United States, we have “hate crimes.” For example, if you kill someone by running over them with your car, it can be vehicular homicide or manslaughter. If you ran them over because they are a specific minority, then a hate crime can be added to the charges, making the penalties far worse.

In the UK, they have taken the idea of hate compounding a crime a degree further and now have “Non-Crime Hate Incidents” (NCHI). In this case, there is no underlying crime; the “hate” itself is illegal. Treating a minority with hostility or prejudice can be considered a NCHI. You don’t even have to have acted hostile on purpose. If the minority somehow perceives that you slighted them, it can be considered an NCHI. They can now report you for being mean, or perhaps for being in a bad mood and having the bad luck to take it out on someone who is a minority, even when no crime has been committed.

You are not alone if you notice similarities between the current state of affairs in Great Britain and the dystopian society Oceania in George Orwell’s book 1984. In 1984, the Thought Police punished Thoughtcrime, meaning ideas or thoughts in one’s mind that were never expressed. In present-day England, you can be arrested for posts that offend someone else, stir up hatred, or actions that insult a minority, even if this was not your intent. No wonder some politicians refer to it as “Big Brother Britain.”

There are also cases where UK police act preemptively because someone might commit a crime, such as arresting protesters before a protest begins. Apparently, just thinking about committing a crime is now illegal.

Following their Footsteps

The danger we must be on the alert for is the chance that these policies will get a foothold in the United States and instead of a community note on Twitter, cops will show up and slap you in handcuffs for posting something someone else deemed offensive.

We may have free (or at least free-er) speech here, but that doesn’t mean the Brits will honor it. If an American posts something that violates British “standards,” will they have to fear arrest if they ever visit the UK? Who knows? European governments have fined U.S. social media platforms hundreds of millions of dollars for alleged infractions.

Nothing makes you appreciate your freedom like seeing someone far less free. I’m not saying things are perfect here, only that they are better than in many other “civilized” parts of the world. But we have to work to ensure we retain our freedoms.

The Bill of Rights

All American citizens should be grateful to our founding fathers for insisting the Bill of Rights was included in the Constitution. The British actions reported above would violate the following amendments:

• Our First Amendment prevents laws “abridging the freedom of speech,” and the right of peaceable assembly, among other things.
• The Second Amendment, which grants the people the right “to keep and bear Arms.”
• Our Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. It also gives you the right to privacy, something that the UK’s ability to read private messages violates.
• The Fifth Amendment’s due process clause would invalidate many of the UK’s laws that label posts “grossly offensive.” Since “offensive” is subjective and varies from person to person, such a law would therefore be unconstitutional.
• The Sixth and Seventh Amendments, which grant the “right to an impartial jury” for criminal cases and “the right of trial by jury” in civil matters, respectively.

The UK government’s surveillance and monitoring of its populace for thoughtcrime would not be possible in the U.S. because it would violate up to six of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights.

Of course, the Bill of Rights applies only to the government. That means private industry can surveil you and then provide data to the government. (Think Ring cameras and Flock license plate tracking cameras.) It also means private properties can ban guns on their premises and decide what is or isn’t obscene.

It is a slippery slope. We are not sliding down it as fast as Big Brother Britain, but there are plenty of politicians and police departments in the U.S. who would love to have the authoritarian powers available in the UK. We need to work against them in every election.

Supreme Court

We should also be grateful to the current Supreme Court, which is largely made up of justices who prefer to interpret the constitution as it was intended rather than re-interpreting it as some might wish it to read or to view it through a woke lens. It is the combination of the U.S. Constitution and the Supreme Court’s willingness to adhere to a strict interpretation of what our founders meant that keeps the U.S. from sinking as deep into the same liberal morass that has afflicted the British and parts of the EU.

For example, in the 2018 case Carpenter v United States, the majority concluded people have a reasonable expectation of privacy even when in public. This means the government cannot use surveillance to track your every move—something the cameras and AI in London can do—without first obtaining a warrant.

In 2007, the SCOTUS held that speech cannot be banned simply because it is hateful or offensive. Based on a 1969 precedent, speech cannot be punished unless it is inciting imminent lawless action and is likely to produce such actions. That is why Americans can still get into a flame war on social media.

It is likely that the UK’s invasive laws and surveillance state stem from the government’s intention to keep its citizens safe. Let’s remember two things: one, surveillance cannot stop a crime, only help identify who committed it; and two, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.