Thought Police Legislation H.R. 1984… I mean 1966
Orwell is that you? I know the 80′s are back in style but I was hoping it wasn’t 1984 – I was wrong. In fact, maybe they should have named the bill H.R. 1984 instead of 1966!
Democrats scream bloody murder when progressive Republicans usurp the Constitution, but suddenly suffer from double standard glaucoma when their own progressives are running the show.
This is one insidious piece of legislation because it completely violates our first amendment rights. It will now be considered a FELONY, yes, a felony, to say anything offensive over email, on the Internet, through a blog, or anywhere else over the web. Any individual who may not be PC on any given day could face up to 2 years in prison.
This is pure thought/mind control and is the reason why the PC society we find ourselves in does more harm than good. Here is a section from the bill:
a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
(b) As used in this section-
(1) the term ‘communication’ means the electronic transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received;
(2) the term ‘electronic means’ means any equipment dependent on electrical power to access an information service, including email, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones, and text messages.
We all know this is unconstitutional, but hypothetically speaking, if this section of the Hate Crimes bill passes, who will be in charge of deciding whether something was offensive to an individual or not? I would make a wager that there will be an emotional distress czar appointed by Obama…unfortunately Stuart Smalley is currently working in Congress, but he’ll probably pick a liberal like Depak Chopra. If Obama does in fact pick a czar for this – your freedom of speech will be politicized. “Right wing extremist” talk, blogging, tweeting, and the like, will all be banned and we could all find ourselves in prison. Emotional distress is so vague that a simple civil argument could possibly offend someone and cause, in their eyes, distress… Like all things in America, a policy like this would be used to excess.
Wouldn’t one think that hate crimes would include every race, creed, religion, and sex? In a common sense world sure – but in DC, never. Take for example the fact that a black teen mob attacked a white family in Ohio. There was barely any mention of this in the news! I know for a fact that there are racists in every group, so why wouldn’t this be a hate crime as well? Why can’t white people be discriminated against? Heck! I was when I lived in Baltimore!
It came after a family night of celebrating America and freedom with a fireworks show at Firestone Stadium. Marshall, his family and two friends were gathered outside a friend’s home in South Akron.
Out of nowhere, the six were attacked by dozens of teenage boys, who shouted ”This is our world” and ”This is a black world” as they confronted Marshall and his family.
The Marshalls, who are white, say the crowd of teens who attacked them and two friends June 27 on Girard Street numbered close to 50. The teens were all black.
This could also be Obama’s back-door way to create an Internet czar to monitor the web, much like Russia, China, Iran, North Korea… getting the hint? Remember the fairness doctrine and net neutrality? I gaurantee that famous blogs will be taken down, conservative hashtags on twitter will give people away, and radio talk show hosts will be accussed of causing emotional distress.
I better watch myself! Here I was thinking I was an equal opportunity proponent by offending everyone – there goes my humor…
Here are the members of the House sponsoring this section of the bill:
Rep. Linda Sánchez [D, CA-39] (wrote the above section)
and 14 Co-Sponsors
* Rep. Timothy Bishop [D, NY-1]
* Rep. Bruce Braley [D, IA-1]
* Rep. Lois Capps [D, CA-23]
* Rep. William Clay [D, MO-1]
* Rep. Joe Courtney [D, CT-2]
* Rep. Danny Davis [D, IL-7]
* Rep. Raul Grijalva [D, AZ-7]
* Rep. Phil Hare [D, IL-17]
* Rep. Brian Higgins [D, NY-27]
* Rep. Marcy Kaptur [D, OH-9]
* Rep. Mark Kirk [R, IL-10] (he is not a Republican vote him out! – he voted for Cap and Trade too)
* Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard [D, CA-34]
* Rep. John Sarbanes [D, MD-3] (I would give my right arm to run against this man in Maryland)
* Rep. John Yarmuth [D, KY-3]
Hate Crimes Bill Passes House; No GOP Support Second Time Today!
Hate crimes is another convoluted phrase put on legislation that actually tramples on the first amendment. Hate crime legislation may have started off with great intentions but it has turned into the PC police and the thought police coming to your door if you say something that can be considered the least bit offensive. Groups are segregated and tagged, rather than treating people as individuals, they treat them as groups and minorities. Certain groups are allowed to be protected from hate crimes, but what about veterans who were recently called susceptible to extremism or John Kerry, who called the military uneducated. Do Mormons or Christians get included in the hate crime bill? I didn’t see any outrage over Mormon temples being vandalized last November or Evangelical churches interrupted and pages of bibles being torn out. How about speech such as Janeane Garofalo’s calling conservatives rednecks and bigots? I’m sure that white men will not be included in this bill – what if someone is murdered because he is white or because he is conservative? I’m sure those aren’t protected groups.
Eventually we will get to a point where we are much like Europe and all the conservative or independent thinkers who want to speak out against Sharia Law or radical Islam are arrested for hate speech and hate crimes, but Muslims can have violent protests and scream that the West will be destroyed…
The term of “crime” has become more and more convoluted over time because it can be anything from physical harm to mental anguish, and everything in between, which is why we have so many frivolous lawsuits these days. Any and all crime is motivated by hate, why wouldn’t all crimes be prosecuted the same? Treat all crimes as what they are and stop trying to place more labels on everything. The last time I checked, there hadn’t been tons of hate crimes reported over the last number of years, besides the one or two cases that got a huge amount of media attention and then became the ultimate example and the only thing that anyone remembers…
The House of Representatives just passed HR 1913 — The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 — on a vote of 234-190. The bill, which Obama has urged Congress to pass, would extend federal hate crimes laws to cover sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability, as well as race, color, religion, national origin, and sexual orientation.
Not a single Republican voted in favor. 15 Democrats voted against.
Granted this is a bill that focuses on crimes, but it really starts to make you nervous the closer we get to political correctness compliance and control. No longer will you be allowed to have individual, independent thought or opinions. It reminds me of the movie, Demolition Man where Sylvester Stallone is brought back into a futuristic world where everything is politically correct, elite, and clean, but nobody has any means to defend themselves when a “bad guy” crops up. Sylvester Stallone’s character gets fined every time he swears or says anything offensive… This is how idiotic it is getting.
If they are going to pass this piece of legislation I hope they realize the slippery slope it will cause. I can argue that I am sexually oriented towards animals, or that nobody should judge me based on being a polygamist. Transvestites, hermaphrodites, cross-dressers, those whom are asexual, alcoholics, drug addicts, mental patients, those who celebrate Festivus must be recognized or believe in he Flying Spaghetti Monster as their deity (they do exist), and pedophiles will all be protected. Of course many of these groups shouldn’t be discriminated against, but ultimately the PC culture is getting ridiculous and we just need to call a crime a crime, nothing more and nothing less.
BTW, I am vertically challenged – are little people included in this hate crime legislation? Randy Newman wrote a song about hating short people – I’m offended somebody call the WAAAAMBULANCE!
Here is further explanation:
• The main danger is that under U.S. Criminal Statutes, “bodily injury” in the hate crimes bill can be defined by judges or authorities in many legal jurisdictions to include psychological and mental/emotional distress. Theoretically, a gay person or organization seeking to chill freedom of expression about their lifestyle could deliberately attend a church service or listen to a religious broadcast on, say, Romans 1, then go to a psychiatrist and claim they were depressed based on what they heard. That could give them grounds for a federal lawsuit. Even if they lost, the headlines and legal hassle spent by a church or ministry would serve to silence others from giving the whole counsel of God. The proposed hate crimes bill is about more than physical violence; it can be used as a hate speech law, as similar laws in Canada and Europe have been used.
• The above reality is more than theory. While the great majority of gay people are not part of a vast conspiracy to silence Christians, a wealthy and radicalized minority of pro-gay organizations are, and are on record as endorsing this agenda. Further, it’s already a reality in Europe and Canada. Major broadcast ministries in the U.S. must self-censor increasingly “off-limits” assertions about traditional families, criticism of sexual sin, and even terms such as “born again” (in the U.K.) that imply salvation is found only in Christ.
• Members of the House trying to protect religious free speech tried to attach an amendment in committee that would protect religious speech that was not directly advocating violence against anyone. This common sense amendment was rejected by the majority.
• NRB is definitely not a hysterical “right wing” group. They never want to come off as “crying wolf.” If they are this concerned, that’s a huge red flag.
