The CHILLING Arrests For Social Media Posts
I've Never Been This Worried: Nazis Did This Exact Thing
As flames licked the German Reichstag, a dark change loomed in the soot-stained air. Few knew it then, but the spectacle of the German parliament ablaze from an anonymous arson attack was about to usher in one of the most brutal authoritarian regimes known to man.
The Reichstag Fire became the flag that newly elected Führer Adolf Hitler exploited to justify draconian constitutional changes. Suddenly, he told the German people, "emergency legislation" was the only way to quell the Communists' burning revolt. The next day, Hitler effectively eradicated the concept of free speech with the Reichstag Fire Decree.
Something similar just happened. And I’ve never been this worried.
In a parallel future, immediately after the disgraceful attempted mosque burning in response to false claims that the stabber of children at a Taylor Swift-themed party had been Muslim, Prime Minister Keir Starmer snuck in the most chilling directives in my lifetime. "We're going to have to look more broadly at social media after this disorder," he said.
Then came the arrests.
He Obviously Isn’t Hitler, But…
Starmer took power just weeks ago, but it's safe to say (but not safe to say very much) we’ve lurched towards authority. In place of the Communists the Nazis feared, today's enemy is racist social media users. In place of a scorched parliament lies a burned mosque. The truth is that racism is rare in England today. We inhabit one of the least racist countries on the planet.
It's mad how many fell for Keir’s distraction. If you think this is anything but that, read his views before the power:
Out on the streets, they marched to Starmer’s beat, vowing to vanquish fascists, who - after decades of scheming - decided it was time for Nazis: The Sequel, starring Tommy Robinson and Douglas Murray. The only hitch is that the Far Right doesn't exist, aside from six straddlers who had to be protected by police from hordes of baying Be Kinders.
The Shift Didn't Begin With Keir
Mass immigration brought an influx of people whose cultures don't meld with our own - at such a rapid pace that there was no time for assimilation and social cohesion. Our media - run mainly by a "liberal" middle class accustomed to manipulating the poor - is losing its audience to the more authentic (though less regulated) news on social media. Hell hath no fury like a liberal elite media mogul scorned.
We now find ourselves in a petrifying place: The Guardian and The Daily Mail agree with one another—and with the very government they’re supposed to hold to account—that we should arrest people for offensive social media posts.
The Arrests
Jordan Parlour, 28, wrote on Facebook:
"Every man and their dog should be smashing [the] fuck out [of] Britannia hotel."
This is an awful. Yet, he wasn't part of some Far-Right mafia. He's just a bloke - like many others - who is tired of being gaslit by his government about mass immigration. He got 20 months.
A slew of arrests ensued.
Tyler Kay, 26, got three years and two months.
This situation is not without complexity. Most free speech advocates accept it has limits, such as defamation and inciting violence. Parlour's discourse about the dog smashing a hotel of immigrants comes close to the latter, though a more generous interpretation sees this as mere bravado and rhetoric.
After all, his post got about six likes.
A Scary Restriction of Speech
These punishments smack of a leader drunk on power. It could be worse. The man accused of setting the German Reichstag ablaze, Marinus Van der Lubbe, faced execution. I am not equating Starmer to Adolf Hitler. To do so would be absurd, just as it would be to suggest Starmer’s lust for arresting dissenters is anything but chilling.
When Starmer was elected amid the lowest voting turnout in years, people felt they weren’t heard. Now, they’re afraid to speak against mainstream hypocrisy. When terrorists murder children, the TV channels fall over themselves to label perpetrators 'lone wolves.'
Yet, a group of angry louts is painted as a grand Nazi resurgence led by Tommy Robinson and Douglas Murray, the man who warned us all that this would happen and - now that it has - shoulders the blame.
All we want to know is: what have they - let's do this properly and throw in reviled progressive feminist, gay-rights heroine J. K. Rowling - actually said that can't be debated but rather stifled and suppressed like an unmasked sneeze on a university campus?
Even as I write this, the woke creators of a grammar app I use to check mistakes ask me to "consider using more inclusive language" regarding my mention of "the poor" in an earlier paragraph. They suggest "people experiencing poverty", which has echoes of "people with wombs". Fear of causing offence creates a vacuous grey chasm; a dearth of beauty. Keir Starmer is filling it with unflinching authority.
I feel a dark change in the air.
Nothing kills creativity like the fear a misplaced word will send you to the gulag.
For the first time, a Heretics guest (one of my most fearless interviewees) called me to say…
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