Special to WorldTribune.com, March 20, 2024

Corporate WATCH

Commentary by Joe Schaeffer  @Schaeff55

Joe Biden-appointed Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s shocking words about the First Amendment being a nuisance to government power are frightening enough on their own. But they become positively terrifying when put into a larger context of what is happening throughout the Western world today.

The progressive ruling establishment represented for the moment by installed President Biden’s administration has made no secret of its desire to cast U.S. national sovereignty aside and subsume America within a “rules-based democracy” global governance matrix. Democrat governors in multiple states have already spent years diligently paving the path for a European-style crackdown on “hate thought” that Justice Jackson firmly believes trumps the basic constitutional rights the citizens of this country took for granted as recently as a couple of decades ago.

The Federalist reports on the outrageous remarks made by a sitting United States Supreme Court justice:

During [March 18] oral arguments for Murthy v. Missouri, formerly known as Biden v. Missouri, Jackson claimed to oppose any ruling in favor of Americans’ constitutional right to free speech if it limited the government’s ability to censor that speech via Big Tech.

“My biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways in the most important time periods,” Jackson told Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga.

It’s impossible to misinterpret what Jackson was saying:

Jackson expressed skepticism at reigning in the federal government’s unconstitutional censorship pressure campaign because “some might say that the government actually has a duty to take steps to protect the citizens of this country” that goes far beyond simply posting its own speech or engaging in constitutional means of securing citizens from violence.

“You seem to be suggesting that that duty cannot manifest itself in the government encouraging or even pressuring platforms to take down harmful information,” Jackson said. “So can you help me? Because I’m really worried about that. Because you’ve got the First Amendment operating in an environment of threatening circumstances, from the government’s perspective, and you’re saying that the government can’t interact with the source of those problems.”

As Jackson was flexing her tyrannical muscles, the end result of her thought process was manifesting itself in full bloom on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. UK newspaper The Daily Mail reported March 11 of events in Scotland:

Humza Yousaf is pressing ahead with the [ruling Scottish National Party’s] ‘dangerous’ hate crime laws despite fears they attack free speech.

The First Minister has been accused of rushing through legislation without proper scrutiny after it was confirmed [that] the laws will come into force from April 1.

Critics say the ‘flawed’ legislation could lead to people being prosecuted for comments made in their own homes, and overburden a police force already facing a financial crisis.

An official release by the Scottish government on the new laws is filled with the disturbingly familiar appeals to emotionalism that so often lead to the curtailing of individual human rights:

New laws to tackle the harm caused by hatred and prejudice come into force next month.

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act will provide greater protection for victims and communities from 1 April.

It creates new stirring up of hatred offences for protected characteristics including age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, and transgender identity. These extra provisions will add to the long-standing stirring up racial hatred offences, which have been in place since 1986.

Here comes the feelings part:

A new Scottish Government public awareness raising campaign supported by Police Scotland has been launched today. The Hate Hurts campaign shows the impact of hate crime and encourages those who have witnessed or experienced a hate crime to come forward.

Statements made by government officials leave no doubt as to where all this is headed: Your personal opinions can be interpreted as criminal hate by those who simply say they feel threatened by them:

Minister for Victims & Community Safety Siobhian Brown said:

“For those impacted by hatred and prejudice, the results can be traumatic and life changing. While we respect everyone’s right to freedom of expression, nobody in our society should live in fear or be made to feel like they don’t belong, and the Scottish Government is committed to building safer communities that live free from hatred and prejudice.

“Hate crime is behaviour that is both criminal and rooted in prejudice. It can be verbal, physical, online or face-to-face. The new law will give greater protections to those who need it and helps to form the basis of understanding about the type of behaviour that is not acceptable in our society.

A skip across the English Channel to Belgium finds just how dangerous this elastic definition of criminal “hate” can be. From an Associated Press report. We’ll keep in all the loaded “far right” language to highlight the role the dominant establishment media play in promoting censorship and oppression:

A court in Belgium convicted prominent far-right activist Dries Van Langenhove to a year in prison on [March 12] for what the judge called “racist, hateful, Nazi and negationist speech” in a major ruling on how the nation deals with extremism.

Five members of the extremist group that Van Langenhove led received suspended sentences, including two who work for the far-right Flemish Interest party, which is slated to make big gains in June elections.

It all sounds so serious. What did this dangerous extremist do? Van Langenhove is going to prison for a year because he participated in a private online forum:

The six were accused of using a chat group to exchange racist, antisemitic and other extremist comments. Ghent University and a human rights group were among the civil parties who sought and received damages.

X owner Elon Musk expressed astonishment over the sentence (once again, take note of big-box outlet Politico’s approving tone of the government’s actions in its “reporting”):

Van Langenhove, who sat in Belgium’s federal parliament from 2019-2023 as an independent member in the far-right Vlaams Belang political group, posted a sample of the racist memes shared by Schild & Vrienden members, while seeking to raise funds to pay his court-imposed fine.

Responding to Van Langenhove’s X post, Musk said: “Someone else sent this meme in a group chat and you were given a prison sentence?”

“Yes,” Van Langenhove replied, without mentioning he had also been convicted of various other charges.

And here is the money quote from a leading Belgian statist:

Belgian State Secretary for Economic Recovery and Strategic Investments Thomas Dermine responded to Musk, saying: “In Belgium, racism is not an opinion. It is a crime.”

This is exactly what they want to bring to America. The groundwork has already been extensively laid.

Washington Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee is poised to sign a law just passed by the state legislature that will create a “hate hotline” for residents to report wrongthink by their neighbors. The Seattle Times reported March 2:

Washington will establish a nonpolice hotline to assist people who have been targeted by hate crimes and bias incidents….

Senate Bill 5427, sponsored by Sen. Javier Valdez, D-Seattle, among others, directs the state Attorney General’s Office to create a hotline serving at least three Washington counties by 2025 and all counties by 2027.

Once again, appeals to emotionalism are used to justify this deeply Orwellian development:

Established as a category in Washington in 2019, hate crimes also include hate-related threats that cause a victim to reasonably fear harm. They’re felony offenses punishable by up to five years in prison.

Key point: The hotline will also be used to record “bias incidents,” which only adds another cloudy, speculative emotional layer to the overtly partisan criminal justice stew:

Proponents say a hotline is needed because many hate crimes currently go unreported to – or undocumented by – police and because police generally don’t record data on bias incidents, which are noncriminal in nature. Especially in marginalized communities, people might be afraid to contact police. Even when police are contacted, they might lack evidence to document a hate crime.

Similar hotlines have already been set up in Democrat-dominated California and Oregon.

It’s vital to understand that recording so-called bias incidents is simply another way to expand the outlawing of frowned-upon expressions of free speech. Let’s bring in the Los Angeles Police Department to bluntly explain:

In an incredibly disturbing 2017 Los Angeles Times article on “the fine line for police” between “hate crimes” and “hate incidents,” a “veteran hate crimes investigator” for the LAPD candidly voiced his belief that incorrect thoughts deserve to be flagged for pre-emptive police attention.

“People have a right to say what they want. No matter how bad it is and how hurtful it is to other people,” L.A. Sheriff’s Department Detective Chris Keeling was kind enough to acknowledge. But then he continued: “We have to know those people are out there, but what we have to fight against is allowing that person’s statement to cause us to react in a negative way.”

It’s not a crime, it’s your personal thoughts, but the police are still going to track you for them anyway.

It’s not just happening on the Left Coast.

As WorldTribune documented in 2022, Michigan Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, perhaps the most radical AG in all of America, believes harsh hate crime statutes should serve as preventive law enforcement by sternly punishing those guilty of smaller offenses based on a perceived likelihood that they will commit more serious offenses in the future given the personal beliefs they espouse.

In New York, Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul last year used the tensions caused in her state by the Gaza War to sneak in a criminal definition of “hate” that knows no bounds:

“My top priority is to protect the safety and well-being of all New Yorkers,” Hochul asserted.

“We cannot allow hate and intimidation to become normalized. As governor, I reaffirm that there is zero tolerance in New York for antisemitism, Islamophobia, or hate of any kind, and it’s critical we deploy every possible state resource to keep New Yorkers safe.”

And just what is “hate of any kind?” That all depends on how the ruling progressive establishment feels about the things you say, even if you say them in private.

Buckle up. Get ready. The table has been set. Your constitutional rights are about to be eviscerated.

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  Thought crimes are well on their way to being codified into U.S. criminal law, WorldTribune.com