The UK's non-crime hate database... freedom of speech indeed

What an Orwellian idea - have a database for "non-crime hate incidents" that do not meet any of the standards that would constitute them as crimes. This is for speech perceived as ‘motivated by a hostility’ to race, gender, or other protected categories. 

Anything and everything can fall under this category. The sarcastic question of "Are you deaf?", stating ideas about gender and trans ideologies which do not fall within the "accepted" dogma (like "trans women are not women"), any criticism of feminist ideas... you get the gist. Anything and everything someone perceives as hateful can be logged - and the police has no obligation to inform the person in question that he or she is in some sort of database. No mechanism of appeal, no way of getting removed from this database. After all, it is not a criminal database, right, so we do not have to abide those pesky rule of law stuff. Due process? Getoutta here! It is not a crime procedure so why bother?

So while technically there is free speech -good luck daring to voice any of your opinions. If you end up in a database, who is to say what the consequences would be? You need a background check for your job? Well... good luck. Your employer finds your name in a database? Well... good luck. Want to appeal or challenge the process? Well... good luck.

Not to mention the main issue here: this goes against anything and everything liberal democracies should stand for. This is literally thought policing. In the United Kingdom. Not in Soviet Russia, not in East Germany, not in North Korea. In the middle of the "Free World".

It was surprisingly easy to attack the core values of liberal democracy. All the dystopian books and movies got it wrong. You do not even need a crisis for this. You can just do it. Wannabe autocrats, take note... 

Victim blaming is fine, when it's not us

So every time you have a terror attack - 9/11 especially -, usually it's a sign of bad taste and horrible personality to suggest the country which fell victim to the attack may had something to do with why the attack was perpetrated. So the last seven-eight decades of US policies in the Middle East had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, and if you mentioned that they might, you were defiling the memory of the innocent victims, and were an America-hater, who should really just go and kill themselves silently, as they are beyond redemption. After all, claiming that the terrorists acted because of a grievance would justify their actions, right? And if we do this, then we use the lives of those innocent victims to further our agenda, right? Excusing the actions of the terrorists, that's what it is! This is not the right time to discuss these things, not while the bodies are still warm... so there will be no lessons learned. Ever.

(Which is a convenient stance because we don't need to take a look at ourselves, and it also has the added benefit of making it impossible to treat the root of the issue, hence we will always have a convenient threat we can point at when we chip away civil liberties, and bomb countries.)


The same is true with all the terror attacks that happened in Europe; saying that France's or Belgium's inability to assimilate large amount of immigrants might have something to do with what happened (they are rather be focusing on a straw men claiming the attackers were domestic born), that Germany's decision to let fresh immigrants in might have something to do with these things, that the UK's, France's actions in the Middle East and North Africa might have something to do with what happened, is an anathema. "Fringe" papers and websites (whose readership reaches into the high dozens) do discuss these connections, but "reputable" newspapers and other media outlets will never touch this topic; instead they present a whitewashed picture of ourselves, and how those scary terrorists are hating us for our freedoms.

But not when it comes to the Ruskies.

They are to be totally blamed for what happened. (Published mere days after the attack.) But, wait, the hypocrisy is not finished! After all, the Ruskies are responding with revenge (forgot about Afghanistan and Iraq yet?), and their foreign policy is repugnant... Definitely forgot about Iraq and Afghanistan, then.

The double standards are astonishing.

Addendum. Well, it didn't take long, did it? Hypocrites.

Snooper's Charter

So finally, the government has gone through with the mass surveillance bill even the Americans would admire: the so-called Snooper's Charter.

Good job, you. I wonder what would Orwell say, but let's forget about that part.

What I'm really curious about is the muted response from the EU and Western powers. You would expect a general outcry, based on what happens whenever a newspaper goes bust in Hungary (never mind it was seriously in debt), or the government flaunts some shady surveillance bill idea, but no. While these things are obvious signs of dictatorship and totalitarianism in Hungary, clearly it's not the case in the UK. No general condemnation, no fiery speeches about Western values (sorry, Values). So to recap: the UK enacts a bill that would make any Stazi leader wet his pants, and nobody bats an eye. It's fine. Some left-leaning newspapers write some alarmist articles, but in general the political landscape (and the media) does not give a shit. Not one little bit of shit. No calls to impose sanctions for breaching EU's fundamental values, or exclude the UK from the EU (I know, I know, but it is a symbolic gesture, OK? You're not leaving, we're throwing you out because, guess what, you are shitting on the fundamental values we hold dear). This is quite telling about the whole issue of hypocrisy, doesn't it? The tone is similarly muted from the Hungarian Left; somehow there are no hysterical cries of totalitarian take-over of the most admired democracy... they are fine with this; the "West" is still the idol to look up to. Sure. Let's ignore the worrying signs that things are seriously going wrong everywhere. And if you don't think the UK is in danger of losing personal rights and freedoms, think about these issues:

1. Spying on MPs
2. Forward Intelligence Team
3. Special Demonstration Squad

and let's not forget about surveillance of peaceful groups, to the extend of undercover officers having families with the subjects of surveillance. Good job doing this democracy-thingy. And even the Germans are doing it: as usual, they prefer to do it so that they can be seen as clear.

What we see here is a general trend moving towards a totalitarian surveillance state in the Western World, but of course it's only a problem when a shitty little country is trying to emulate the big brothers (the term used in more than one meaning here, in case you miss the reference). Nobody wants to point out that the emperor has no clothes; perhaps the supposedly free press is not so free after all. (Who would have thought? They must be free, since about 70% is owned by one individual...)

US, Russia, war crimes and the infantile double standards that no one seems to notice

This is a real interesting phenomenon. The US and its Western allies are free to invade, bomb, assassinate, torture, fund and support "moderate rebels" (who turn out to be founding members of Al Quaida, ISIS, etc.), use civilians as human shields, target hospitals, target funerals and weddings, support bloodthirsty dictators and regimes, and starve an entire country to death (you know what the fuck is going on in Yemen? Well, a Leningrad Siege on a country scale, that's what), yet no one seems to care.

Russia, on the other hand cannot do anything without being condemned as worse than Nazi Germany. Literally. Even politicians who suggest that what the Russians are doing is not much different from what any other "great" power is doing get abused quite a lot. If you read the newspapers (which are essentially propaganda tools; gone are the days of journalism), you'll read that it's all Russia's fault. The new world war is beginning.

And yet the elephant is quite large in the room: the US and the UK has been responsible for countless bombings, regime changes, invasions, wars, and so on and so forth. Russia in comparison is lagging behind in this race; even  the most often brought up case -up to the Ukrainian land-grabt that is-, the war in Georgia seems to be pretty much supporting the Russian narrative. (It was more than hilarious how fast Western voices stopped criticising the war in Chechnya after 9/11...) And yet- when the US and its allies cause "collateral damage" by hitting civilians in a large scale (or just small scale by drones), it's fine. When they kidnap people to torture them, it's fine. When they ignite regional wars by supporting "moderate" rebels, it's fine. The very same people who are committing these acts, or keeping silent about them are up in arms when the Russians dare to support their own little puppet, and stabilize his country. Right now they are the only force in Syria that tries to quell the civil war, while the US and its allies is happily founding ISIS and other moderates. (And by moderates I mean people who like to behead others, and use kids to execute their POWs. You know; the nice kind the US has always liked to support.)

And everyone just ignores this; they behave if someone farted in the room, and pretend that they did not notice it. Are they aware that the very same policies are responsible for the migrant crisis and the increased terrorist activity in Europe? Nobody cares even when the chickens are coming home to roost. They just ignore it and keep spewing even more nonsense; like blaming Putin for the very same problems. Incredible. It's very rare when spokepersons are forced to confront this double standard, and the results are incredibly telling. How the fuck can anyone take these politicians, journalists seriously if their basic moral core is compromised so much they can only function as a bunch of partisan puppets for "their team"?

Peter Griffiths and the weird twist of events in the UK

So this respectable gentleman said the following in the '60s:  "if you want a nigger for your neighbor, vote labour".

The whole campaign for Brexit is essentially hinging on the hatred and suspicion against immigrants (or expats as I like to call us, as the British living in Spain are called).

This got me thinking: we got to the stage where I, as a white male from Central Europe, became the "nigger".

I feel strangely accomplished.