Francis Crescia is a Toronto-based writer. In the United States, at the National Holocaust Museum wall are the words written by a German pastor Martin Niemoller at the end of World War II: "First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”Across the Western world, governments are implementing draconian laws stripping their citizens of free speech. Politicians speak about the need to limit free speech for the greater good of society. They claim that misinformation and disinformation through social media are leading people astray and creating hate. In today's culture, an insult is considered hate. Hate has become a catchall phrase, especially among thin-skinned left-leaning politicians, government officials, and special interest groups. Criticize a special interest group, and their representatives will bring out the guillotine ensuring that anyone courageous enough to question their politics has their reputation ruined and is canceled. As a result, the government has stepped in to become the arbiter of truth, using the coercive power of the state to silence its citizens and tell people what they should think. When a government defines truth, it retards the development of a society’s culture, restricting the ability to challenge ideas and to figure out if new truths exist. "Whatever the Party holds to be the truth is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party, wrote George Orwell in 1984. .In theory, hate speech laws are there to protect people who face discrimination. In practice, anyone can be arrested for anything said about a protected group. In Ireland, arrests are made for any communication that can incite violence.This includes memes or images downloaded on a phone or laptop that are considered offensive. In Germany, social media companies with more than two million users have 24 hours after receiving a complaint to block or delete what is illegal content or face fines. According to the New York Times, more than 1,000 Germans faced charges for online hate since 2018, and people have experienced early morning police raids where the police enter a home and confiscate computers and personal devices.More troubling is that German hate speech laws are used against citizens who have criticized the government.In France Pavel Durov, the CEO of Telegram, a social media platform with a billion users, was arrested for violations that include "complicity in selling child pornography, drug trafficking, fraud, abetting organized transactions, and refusing to share information with investigators when required by law." In 2018, Russia pressured Telegram to remove online communities of Russian opposition activists.Pavel Durov refused and left the country. Governments are attempting to use social media platforms as a database of information to access at any time without legal justification.Britain was once a global power and the envy of the world. Today it looks like a failed state; its Labour government is so out of touch with the problems working people face, that they blame free speech for their inability to provide competent government. Through the Communications Act, some of the harshest censorship in the world has been handed out against its citizens. The Times conducted an investigation and discovered that nine people a day were being arrested for posting what was deemed offensive messages online, and in 2016 three thousand three hundred people were jailed. British speech is so controlled that celebrities like Rowan Atkinson have lambasted the government: "Free speech is my passionate belief that the second most precious thing in life is the right to express yourself freely and the most precious thing in life is food in your mouth,” he stated.Atkinson is speaking out not only for himself but for ordinary people who don’t have the resources to defend themselves. He spoke of an Oxford man arrested for calling a “police horse gay, a teenager arrested for calling the Church of Scientology a cult, and a cafe owner arrested for displaying passages from the Bible on a TV screen.” He thinks the government may be well-intentioned in its ambition to control troublemakers, but the result is an "authoritarian intolerant society." Americans are proud of their First Amendment rights, but two-thirds of Americans are afraid to state their true beliefs about politics for fear of losing their jobs. This fear is four times what it was during the height of the McCarthy era during the 1950s. The Biden administration tried to create its own Ministry of Truth and in a landmark decision, a Louisiana federal court upheld First Amendment rights to speak without being censored by the government. Judge Terry Doughty said (Missouri vs Biden,) “arguably involved the most massive attack against free speech in United States history.” The Biden-Harris administration is appealing. After nine years in power, the Trudeau Liberals have made Canada an authoritarian state.The passage of the Online Harms Act muzzles Canadians with punishments and forces collective self-censorship on its citizens. The Act empowers the Human Rights Commission to haul citizens in for a pre-trial hearing before any crime has been committed based on a complaint where a person feels a hate crime may be directed against them.The judge can put the person under house arrest or electronic surveillance without due process. As well, anyone who advocates for or promotes genocide is “liable to life imprisonment." The Trudeau government is tougher on free speech than on serial killers who are promoted from maximum to medium security, and repeat offenders are let out within 24 hours to continue with their crime spree.The country’s activist Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal from author Dr. Jordan Peterson against an order for him to undergo social media training by the College of Psychologists of Ontario as punishment for some controversial media posts. The College threatened to revoke Peterson’s license unless he went in for social media training. The result is that the 25% of Canadians who are members of professional and trade-regulated vocations, have been effectively silenced and warned not to express their opinion in public.“It is an invitation to extortion and to levying personal vendettas by threatening people with loss of their professional licenses if a complaint is made against them that something they said or wrote might offend the sensibilities of their regulatory bodies,” stated Peterson's lawyer Howard Levitt.German pastor Martin Niemoller's message was that by their silence and inaction, Germans were complicit in the Nazi imprisonment and murder of millions of people. Today citizens of the Western world are complicit in accepting what their governments are doing to them, robbing them of their ability to speak out on any controversial topic that goes against the established narrative.Free speech has gone from the West’s most cherished right to one of its worst offences with citizens jailed for protesting war, expressing their thoughts on illegal immigration. And, what one says in private is the next frontier for the thought police.Unless people wake up and stand up on behalf of freedoms democracy will become totalitarian, and its citizens will have a boot stamping on their faces — just as Orwell predicted in 1984.Francis Crescia is a Toronto-based writer.
Francis Crescia is a Toronto-based writer. In the United States, at the National Holocaust Museum wall are the words written by a German pastor Martin Niemoller at the end of World War II: "First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”Across the Western world, governments are implementing draconian laws stripping their citizens of free speech. Politicians speak about the need to limit free speech for the greater good of society. They claim that misinformation and disinformation through social media are leading people astray and creating hate. In today's culture, an insult is considered hate. Hate has become a catchall phrase, especially among thin-skinned left-leaning politicians, government officials, and special interest groups. Criticize a special interest group, and their representatives will bring out the guillotine ensuring that anyone courageous enough to question their politics has their reputation ruined and is canceled. As a result, the government has stepped in to become the arbiter of truth, using the coercive power of the state to silence its citizens and tell people what they should think. When a government defines truth, it retards the development of a society’s culture, restricting the ability to challenge ideas and to figure out if new truths exist. "Whatever the Party holds to be the truth is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party, wrote George Orwell in 1984. .In theory, hate speech laws are there to protect people who face discrimination. In practice, anyone can be arrested for anything said about a protected group. In Ireland, arrests are made for any communication that can incite violence.This includes memes or images downloaded on a phone or laptop that are considered offensive. In Germany, social media companies with more than two million users have 24 hours after receiving a complaint to block or delete what is illegal content or face fines. According to the New York Times, more than 1,000 Germans faced charges for online hate since 2018, and people have experienced early morning police raids where the police enter a home and confiscate computers and personal devices.More troubling is that German hate speech laws are used against citizens who have criticized the government.In France Pavel Durov, the CEO of Telegram, a social media platform with a billion users, was arrested for violations that include "complicity in selling child pornography, drug trafficking, fraud, abetting organized transactions, and refusing to share information with investigators when required by law." In 2018, Russia pressured Telegram to remove online communities of Russian opposition activists.Pavel Durov refused and left the country. Governments are attempting to use social media platforms as a database of information to access at any time without legal justification.Britain was once a global power and the envy of the world. Today it looks like a failed state; its Labour government is so out of touch with the problems working people face, that they blame free speech for their inability to provide competent government. Through the Communications Act, some of the harshest censorship in the world has been handed out against its citizens. The Times conducted an investigation and discovered that nine people a day were being arrested for posting what was deemed offensive messages online, and in 2016 three thousand three hundred people were jailed. British speech is so controlled that celebrities like Rowan Atkinson have lambasted the government: "Free speech is my passionate belief that the second most precious thing in life is the right to express yourself freely and the most precious thing in life is food in your mouth,” he stated.Atkinson is speaking out not only for himself but for ordinary people who don’t have the resources to defend themselves. He spoke of an Oxford man arrested for calling a “police horse gay, a teenager arrested for calling the Church of Scientology a cult, and a cafe owner arrested for displaying passages from the Bible on a TV screen.” He thinks the government may be well-intentioned in its ambition to control troublemakers, but the result is an "authoritarian intolerant society." Americans are proud of their First Amendment rights, but two-thirds of Americans are afraid to state their true beliefs about politics for fear of losing their jobs. This fear is four times what it was during the height of the McCarthy era during the 1950s. The Biden administration tried to create its own Ministry of Truth and in a landmark decision, a Louisiana federal court upheld First Amendment rights to speak without being censored by the government. Judge Terry Doughty said (Missouri vs Biden,) “arguably involved the most massive attack against free speech in United States history.” The Biden-Harris administration is appealing. After nine years in power, the Trudeau Liberals have made Canada an authoritarian state.The passage of the Online Harms Act muzzles Canadians with punishments and forces collective self-censorship on its citizens. The Act empowers the Human Rights Commission to haul citizens in for a pre-trial hearing before any crime has been committed based on a complaint where a person feels a hate crime may be directed against them.The judge can put the person under house arrest or electronic surveillance without due process. As well, anyone who advocates for or promotes genocide is “liable to life imprisonment." The Trudeau government is tougher on free speech than on serial killers who are promoted from maximum to medium security, and repeat offenders are let out within 24 hours to continue with their crime spree.The country’s activist Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal from author Dr. Jordan Peterson against an order for him to undergo social media training by the College of Psychologists of Ontario as punishment for some controversial media posts. The College threatened to revoke Peterson’s license unless he went in for social media training. The result is that the 25% of Canadians who are members of professional and trade-regulated vocations, have been effectively silenced and warned not to express their opinion in public.“It is an invitation to extortion and to levying personal vendettas by threatening people with loss of their professional licenses if a complaint is made against them that something they said or wrote might offend the sensibilities of their regulatory bodies,” stated Peterson's lawyer Howard Levitt.German pastor Martin Niemoller's message was that by their silence and inaction, Germans were complicit in the Nazi imprisonment and murder of millions of people. Today citizens of the Western world are complicit in accepting what their governments are doing to them, robbing them of their ability to speak out on any controversial topic that goes against the established narrative.Free speech has gone from the West’s most cherished right to one of its worst offences with citizens jailed for protesting war, expressing their thoughts on illegal immigration. And, what one says in private is the next frontier for the thought police.Unless people wake up and stand up on behalf of freedoms democracy will become totalitarian, and its citizens will have a boot stamping on their faces — just as Orwell predicted in 1984.Francis Crescia is a Toronto-based writer.
