First they come for the idiots
From the BBC: Men convicted of race hate crimes
I never have and never will support anything that advocates violence or any kind of criminal activity towards anyone regardless or race, religion, or even sexual orientation.
I will on the other hand fully support peoples right to spout any kind of garbage the rest of the time. That’s what a democracy is after all; the open debate of ideas both good and bad.
In the above case no one argues that these men wrote some kind of racial garbage and appear to be holocaust deniers but they are going to get real jail time simply for writing garbage.
From the BBC article:
Judge Rodney Grant told the men their material was “abusive and insulting” and had the potential to cause “grave social harm”.
Notice the word “potential”, in other words they haven’t done anything YET but just in case it’s better to throw them in jail.
For those who are even dumber than Judge Rodney Grant the biggest problem with this kind of ruling is that potentially absolutely anything can be found to cause “…potential…grave social harm” depending on how the judge is feeling that day.
The simple truth however is that without a functional time machine there is no way on earth the judge can tell what social harm or in some cases social benefit the spouting of garbage will result in.
George Orwell was simply off by a few decades, welcome to 2009, the year of Thoughtcrime.