Thursday, April 04, 2019


Misgendering is not a crime

The British police have become the armed wing of trans activism.

Here is some free legal advice*: it is not a crime to misgender someone. I am providing this advice pro bono, as many members of the police force appear to be confused. Last week, journalist Caroline Farrow tweeted that she had been asked to attend an interview with Surrey Police following an appearance on Good Morning Britain, in which she debated the issue of sex education in schools. She tweeted that she had been reported by her opponent in the television debate, Susie Green, for referring on Twitter to Green’s daughter, who was born male, as ‘he’. Green is the head of the activist group Mermaids, which campaigns for trans rights for children.

This is not the first time Green has reported misgendering to the police. In 2018, she helped to report a schoolteacher to the police for misgendering a pupil in her class, on the basis that it was a hate crime. Trans activists have form for relying on the police in this way. In February, Kate Scottow was reportedly arrested and held for seven hours for ‘deadnaming’ transgender activist Stephanie Hayden during a debate on Twitter.

Let’s get one thing straight: there is no sensible argument that misgendering someone is actually a crime. Under Section 4A of the Public Order Act 1986 it is an offence to use insulting language against someone with the intent to cause harassment, alarm or distress. But it is not a crime in this country to say something someone simply doesn’t like. At least, not yet. The legislation is drafted widely, but not so wide as to catch opinions that some people simply find objectionable. Lots of people hold the honest and reasonable opinion that transgender women who were born biologically male should still be referred to as men. Misgendering can, and almost always is, an expression of someone’s honestly held belief. For them to use particular pronouns when referring to another person is not a crime.

These misgendering investigations have almost nothing to do with black letter law. However, there is now a legislative framework that allows the police to intervene to try to prevent any conduct, or speech, which has the potential to cause distress to anyone. By relying on the law around harassment, and the nebulous concept of ‘hate crime’, the police are becoming more involved in preventing even the possibility of offence. This is why ‘misgendering’ can lead to police intervention: because the police believe it has the potential to cause people distress. These new woke police forces are coming to see themselves as the protectors of a civilised public realm. This has translated into censorious interventions against people who may not agree with the current orthodoxy.

Trans activists appear to be using the police as the armed wing of their campaigning. The idea that activists can call on the state to enforce their particular dogma is deeply disturbing.

But this kind of censorship isn’t limited to trans issues. In February, the Christian preacher Oluwole Ilesanmi was arrested outside Southgate Tube station His arrest was captured on video and went viral. But he had committed no crime. The police drove him five miles away, before ‘de-arresting’ him and letting him go. The police said that ‘once it became apparent that he would not return… no further action was taken against him’. Acting superintendent Neil Billany later said of the arrest that Illesanmi’s preaching represented a ‘potential hate crime’. In other words, his preaching had the potential to cause harassment, alarm or distress.

Ilesanmi is just one of many Christian preachers who have had run-ins with the police for the words they use. David Lynn, a pastor from Canada, was detained outside Barking Tube station in March 2018 after a female passer-by told officers he had made homophobic comments.

This is terrifying. The new woke police forces of England and Wales are deeply authoritarian. They see it as their role to police people’s manners and opinions. They have opened up the concept of ‘potential hate crimes’ in order to stop people saying things that they find objectionable – even though the people involved have not actually broken the law. We must fight back against this draconian censorship, and limit the police’s job to actually investigating crime.

SOURCE  






West World: How Hollywood Misrepresents the Old West to Make Money & Advance Gun Control

Hollywood has a clever way of distorting our perspective on history, and a great example of this is Western film – a movie genre we've all come to love. Cattle rustlers, guns blazing, outlaws running loose, and vigilantes dishing out vengeance indiscriminately. These scenes have become more synonymous with the American Frontier than Winchester and their "Cartridge That Won the West." But these fictional tales have produced more than entertainment for over a century; they've also contributed to an ongoing, subtle push for gun control, all while making Hollywood millions.

Revisionist history books tell us that the “Wild West” was an anarchic period of time that was not conducive to human prosperity. Images of a Hobbesian nightmare – a life that is brutish and short – are ingrained in our consciousness thanks to decades of public schooling and violent images on the silver screen which are light on actual history and heavy on creative license.

However, individuals who believe in liberty and developing their critical thinking faculties should be skeptical of most mainstream narratives regarding history, especially American history. After all, these narratives by and large have been created by Hollywood, a legacy institution that has historically advanced politically correct content with the support of Washington in order to perpetuate the cultural status quo.

When the curtain of political correctness that's been draped over this particular period of history is pulled back, we see a much more nuanced picture of the American Frontier. In fact, research by historians such as Peter J. Hill, Richard Shenkman, Roger D. McGrath, Terry Anderson, and W. Eugene Holland shows that this period was rather indicative of a “not so wild, Wild West.”

For the purposes of this article, the Wild West will now be referred to as the Old West. This is by no means a pedantic distinction, but rather an acknowledgment of the fact that this time period was not “wild” by any stretch of the imagination when compared to other chaotic periods in human history. Indeed, the Old West had its fair share of challenges for American settlers. But as we’ll see below, crafty settlers found ways through ingenuity and mutual cooperation - all done with very limited state interference - to create a stable order for generations to come.

So let us delve into the “not so wild, Wild West.”

The Not-So-Violent West
West World: How Hollywood Misrepresents the Old West to Make Money & Advance Gun ControlThe Old West was not a paradise by any stretch of the imagination. There existed conflict between groups, such as American settlers and Native American tribes, once they came in contact in the Great Plains and other parts of the frontier. This was natural due to the cultural differences that existed between these groups and the lack of defined property rights in those regions.

However, in more settled towns on the frontier, there was not as much violence as the Hollywood flicks would like you to believe. One of the most important texts disrupting this depiction of the Old West was W. Eugene Hollon’s Frontier Violence: Another Look. Hollon argued that “the Western frontier was a far more civilized, more peaceful, and safer place than American society is today.” Additionally, historian Richard Shenkman makes the case that the popular depictions of the Old West belong more in a movie script rather than a real-life historical account.

Shenkman noted:

“Many more people have died in Hollywood Westerns than ever died on the real Frontier.”

Dodge City has become a landmark for Western movies, but its portrayal is more fiction than reality. Shenkman also dismantled the Dodge City myth:

“In the real Dodge City, for example, there were just five killings in 1878, the most homicidal year in the little town’s Frontier history: scarcely enough to sustain a typical two-hour movie.”

Larry Schweikart of the University of Dayton also pointed out that the infamous bank robberies that captivate movie audiences were not very frequent. His research uncovered that there were fewer than a dozen bank robberies in the frontier West from 1859 to 1900. In essence, Schweikart argues that there are “more bank robberies in modern-day Dayton, Ohio, in a year than there were in the entire Old West in a decade, perhaps in the entire frontier period.”

More HERE






Tucker Carlson Slams Ungrateful Ilhan Omar: ‘Repays Her Adopted Country’ by Attacking It as ‘Hateful and Racist’

Tonight Carlson said, “She does not like Israel, but you’ve heard next to nothing about how Omar doesn’t like this country.”

In a recent Vogue Arabia interview, Omar said of living in Trump’s America, “It’s challenging. It’s an everyday assault. Every day, a part of your identity is threatened, demonized, and vilified. Trump is tapping into an ugly part of our society and freeing its ugliness.”

She also said in the interview, “When you’re a kid and you’re raised in an all-black, all- Muslim environment, nobody really talks to you about your identity. You just are. There is freedom in knowing that you are accepted as your full self. So the notion that there is a conflict with your identity in society was hard at the age of 12.”

Carlson said the following in response:

“Ilhan Omar’s country collapsed as a child. She lived for years in Kenya in that refugee camp. She may have died there without outside help. But help came, from where? From here, America. And this country didn’t just welcome Ilhan Omar to America, we paid to relocate her family and many others from a foreign continent purely for the sake of being good people, for altruism.

Because no country in history has been as generous as we are. To places we have no ties to and no obligation to, we have been kind anyway because that’s who we are. Despite her humble and foreign birth, Omar has been elected to our national law-making body. And good for her. So how does she repay her adopted country, the one that may literally have saved her life? She attacks it as hateful and racist, and for that she is applauded by the Democratic Party because they view this country as hateful and racist too.”

He added, “Maybe our immigration system should prioritize people who actually like this country and are grateful to be here. Why wouldn’t we do that?”

SOURCE  






Exclusive interview with senior Australian ex-cop about the misuse of Domestic Violence restraining orders

Bettina Arndt

Last October, Augusto Zimmermann, a law professor and former WA law reform commissioner, was asked to speak to the Police Union about his concerns about the misuse of domestic violence restraining orders. Augusto has been a brave campaigner against West Australia’s greatly expanded domestic violence laws which give enormous power to women to ruin men’s lives with false accusations.

But when the time came to give the speech, the organisers had lost courage and he was slated to talk about free speech. He still took the opportunity to talk to the police officers about domestic violence, explaining how free speech on this topic is being muzzled. Having had prior experience teaching police officers in Rio de Janeiro, Augusto was well-equipped to speak about the role of police as enforcers of rights in a community. He explained our police are currently being placed in an invidious position, denied their rightful role as protectors of the innocent and punishers of the guilty and instead, used as instruments of oppression in a corrupt system.

Tough words which clearly resonated with the boys in blue, who are doing the dirty work for the feminist-led campaign using domestic violence laws to empower women and demonise men.

I’ve made a number of videos about the abuse of domestic violence restraining orders, including an interview with Augusto last year. I’ve heard from police across the country who are uncomfortable with what is happening but are not able to speak out because they are fearful of losing their jobs.

But now, finally, we have a terrific interview with a retired NSW chief inspector who contacted me because he is horrified by where this is all heading. We have kept his identity hidden and disguised his voice to protect this brave man who is blowing the lid on this huge scandal corrupting our legal system.

Please help me promote it as widely as possible. Here’s the actual video:



And here’s a short version you can use for promotion on social media:

https://www.facebook.com/thebettinaarndt/videos/425979181545851/

Email from Bettina: bettina@bettinaarndt.com.au

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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