From the folks across the pond who brought you Big Brother and George Orwell’s 1984 totalitarian surveillance state comes the latest innovation in government overreach. Except, this time, it’s not fiction.
The United States of America was founded in 1776 by English immigrants, by and large, from the United Kingdom. With them, they brought British traditions of civil society, free speech, mercantilism, and a legal tradition dating back to the Magna Carta that – along with the influences of John Locke and his writings on life, liberty and property; Montesquieu’s theory of checks and balances; and a grounding in ancient Greek philosophy – informed America’s founding document, the U.S. Constitution, which preserves our unique freedoms to this very day.
Despite our many shared similarities and ties with our British brethren, including a common language and a close military-intelligence partnership, there remain differences between our two societies beyond the words we use to describe a pair of sneakers or french fries (trainers and chips, respectively).
For freedom-loving people everywhere, the actions of the British government during the pandemic have been disconcerting at best and frequently horrifying. Many people assume that the British, who are are comparatively similar to us, enjoy the same civil liberty protections as we do in America. THIS IS FALSE. The British do not enjoy the same civil freedoms as Americans, namely they have no First Amendment speech protections and activists can be brutally punished for speech acts that don’t comport with the whims of government. In 2012, a 20-year-old man named Matthew Woods was jailed over an “offensive” comment he posted to Facebook.
Woods was charged by British police under section 127 of the U.K. Communications Act 2003, which found that his message was “grossly offensive” or “of an indecent, obscene or menacing character.” He was arrested “for his own safety.”
If such were the law of the land in America, half the country would be in jail. Particularly chilling and ominous is the British police’s justification for for arresting Woods, arresting him “for his own safety.” NO THANKS!
(Sounds like something the Democrats would do, no?)
Well the British government is at is again, and this time they’ve really outdone themselves. Because of the COVID-19 panic-demic, Great Britannica’s Authoritarian Nanny State instincts are kicking into overdrive. Police officers will be investigating Christmas gatherings and “enter homes and break up Christmas dinners if families break lockdown rules.”
I’ve give you a minute to pick your jaw up off the floor.
As the West Midlands police chief, David Jamieson, told The Telegraph newspaper: “If we think there’s large groups of people gathering where they shouldn’t be, then police will have to intervene. If, again, there’s flagrant breaking of the rules, then the police would have to enforce.”
Of course, it’s quite easy to flagrantly break the rules when the rules are a moving target made up every morning by a government minister who reports to a windowless cubicle every day.
Thankfully, the British people are fighting back and standing up to their oppressive government. It seems that even the government brown shirts recognize this: “We’re sitting on a time bomb here. We’re getting very near the stage where you could see a considerable explosion of frustration and energy. Things are very on the edge in a lot of communities, and it wouldn’t take very much to spark off unrest, riots, damage,” said Jamieson.
Anyone with half a brain could tell you that if you want guaranteed riots, the surefire solution is to start by raiding families’ Christmas gatherings. Imagine British police in full battle rattle knocking down a door and dragging grandma out in handcuffs for hosting too many of her grandchildren. As the kids say, it’s about the get real.
Thankfully, in the U.S., along with the First Amendment, we also have the Second Amendment. The 2nd defends the 1st, and now Christmas gatherings, too, apparently. Anyone attempting to break up a family yuletide will have a lot of ho-ho-holes in them.
