Matt Taibbi is right. He observes that the UK has become a censorship state, commenting: “The arrest of Graham Linehan for his tweets is one of many examples that show the country should not be treated as a free one.” He’s right, of course. The British government has been tightening the screws on free speech for decades, but it’s reached a new level of awful now.
It’s not just tweets. People are being punished for peacefully marching, for petitioning the government, and even for displaying the British flag.
It’s not that much better elsewhere. France prosecuted its leading opposition figure, and Germany is doing its best to outlaw the main opposition party. (And the suspicious deaths of that party’s candidates just before an election aren’t inspiring confidence either.)
These nations are supposed to be democracies. Yet while “democracy” may not mean that the people get an unmediated fulfillment of every wish, it should at least mean that things that are heavily opposed by the populace don’t happen. And yet:
This isn’t new. This is the Pew Global Attitudes Survey from 2007. A recent YouGov poll in Europe shows something stronger.
53% of Australians think immigration is too high.
One would expect, in light of longstanding public opposition to mass immigration — particularly by low-skilled third worlders — that politicians would eschew such a policy. In fact, they’ve gone pedal to the metal on it. And they’ve basically acknowledged the depth of the opposition by going to such extraordinary lengths to suppress not only the opposition ,but even the expression of opposing views, or even of traditional patriotism.
This is the very sort of thing that democratic institutions are supposed to prevent. But they’ve proven unequal to the task except — just barely — in the United States. But why?
One answer is our ruling class monoculture. The political classes not only of the United States, but of pretty much every Western nation, have been all-in in favor of immigration and have basically colluded to ignore what the “white trash” — to use British Labour politician Dennis Jones’s term for the working-class girls who were victims of the Pakistani rape gangs — thinks about things. Having decided, conveniently, that anyone opposed to their agenda is racist and evil, they’ve found it easy to ignore the public’s reluctance to be robbed and raped.
This instinct toward claiming a progressive mantle in dismissing the opposition isn’t just found in English-speaking countries.
Talking about the yellow-vest movement, French geographer Christophe Guilluy observes: “Immediately, the protesters were denounced as xenophobes, anti-Semites and homophobes. The elites present themselves as anti-fascist and anti-racist, but this is merely a way of defending their class interests. It is the only argument they can muster to defend their status, but it is not working anymore.”
No, but they haven’t quite given it up yet.
Closely linked to the ruling class monoculture, of course, is control of the media. This isn’t solely obtained through class sympathies. As we’ve learned, much of what was sold as either spontaneous opinion or as the product of thoughtful independent organizations turned out to just be left-wing astroturf paid for, more often than not, with laundered USAID money.
The loud subsidized voices, coupled with censorship, made the debate one-sided. With the USAID money vanished, and with Elon Musk’s purchase of X and rededication of it as a global free-speech organ, the old approach isn’t working as well, though its proponents haven’t given it up. Yet.
But even if there’s a win here, and I think there will be, that’s not enough. There need to be lessons taught — generational ones — that will keep future ruling classes from trying this again any time soon. Those might range from firing squads to Truth And Reconciliation Commissions, but I think it will take more than ordinary electoral defeat, however crushing. I invite suggestions in the comments.
That’s true not only in England and in Europe, but here in the United States. It’s not enough to beat them. The wannabe totalitarian state needs to be extirpated root and branch, with all key infrastructure destroyed and with everyone involved wishing (and probably pretending) that they never had been.
It’s easy (in America) to become complacent, but this isn’t anywhere near over. The attitude among the old ruling class is “wait a couple of years and we’ll be back in charge.” Nope. Make the rubble bounce.
I invite your suggestions for reforms in the comments.
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Professor, the way I see it is like you said, we have to make the rubble bounce. Indictments and convictions, and lots of them. Let the legal system and discovery put some sunshine on the misdeeds of our supposed moral betters, and then see how the people react. As has been demonstrated by the losses of millions of registered Democrats, the prevailing winds are at our backs, and now is the first chance in a long time to make effective change.
Indict Fauci, Birx, Schiff, and the rest of those who inflicted lie after lie on the American people. Primary any Republican who even somewhat sides with them or asks for moderation. If any Republicans get collected in the indictments, so be it. They should have known better than to side with the uniparty over the people.
Scorched. Earth.
That's what the Democrats were angling to do if Biden or Harris had won, and they had retained Congress. Make it impossible for them to try again for a few decades. The right pieces are in place with a president and a group of cabinet members that are unapologetically America first. Let's truly put America first and cut out the cancers that exist ruthlessly and surgically.
Then again, maybe I'm reading too many of Schlicter's books.
As I remarked over on Taibbi's site, part of Britain's problem is that fully 25% of its population lives in a *single* metropolitan area, and they have no Electoral College to moderate its control. (That this metro area is also the seat of government makes it all the worse.)