Here's a thought:
If I was sitting in the U.K. right now, I'd be afraid to post this.
I'd worry about being arrested, or at least of having actual, real-life police officers showing up at my door to 'question me,' or to bring me to a real-life police station where they'd throw me in a room with two chairs separated by a table and one wall that's just a big ol' mirror.
Before long I'm imagining a very stern-faced woman, probably five feet and two inches of buzz cut, bad attitude, permanently affixed sneer and the annoying police tendency to assume that anyone who isn't a cop is a criminal would arrive, and welp...the whole thing really, really wouldn't play out like a few thousand internet videos I might've watched purely for research purposes made me believe this was gonna play out.
Looking past the disappointment and embarrassing tentacle issues I'd be experiencing at that moment in time, I'd likely come to the painful realization that this is really happening (and of course, I'm already a buncha bad jokes in. Sigh. It's really not my fault. I'm honestly just dumb like this), we have reached the point where people can be arrested and sent to jail for...wait for it...telling jokes.
 |
| #FreeCountDankula |
I won't bother to re-hash the whole Count Dankula saga here, you can go and read up on it at any of a thousand different websites, so just go pick one that you like, or whatever, and go read up.
Long story short, a guy in the U.K. decided it would be funny if he taught his girlfriend's dog to do the Nazi Salute on command.
So he did that, and he made a wee lil' video of the dog (a pug, of course, so it's terribly cute) doin' the 'Sieg Heil' thing, as well as some other stuff - like the Pug watching Hitler speeches on a laptop...stuff like that.
Dumb stuff, basically.
Just really dumb stuff. The kinda thing any knucklehead might actually go through the effort of doing to his girlfriend. Not fer nuthin,' but Brits have been making fun of Hitler, and Nazis in general, for a very, very long time...Also not fer nuthin,' they're darned good at it, and really funny when they git goin.'
 |
| *Be forewarned - this tiny dog wants to gas all the Jews. Just lookit him - evil incarnate* |
From John Cleese goose-stepping around in Fawlty Towers, to the now-classic 'Are We The Baddies?' bit, ohmygawd the Brits spent a very, very long time just killin' the classic Hitler/Nazi stereotype for a good fifty years.
Apparently alla that has changed.
Now, in the country that bought you subways free of bikini-clad babes, you can now be arrested, prosecuted, and fined and/or potentially jailed for being a terrible, awful, hate-speech promoting, Nazi-Sympathizing, vile human being that engages in that most evil of evil acts - SATIRE.
Ok, firstly - for anyone that didn't wanna click the 'free of bikini-clad babes' link, here:
 |
| *The lovely lady is actually a vegetarian, and she talked all about her workout regimen in an interview I heard with her - it was brutal and I dare any man to try it. She was really cool and down to earth, actually. Also - following the London stupidity, this company made MILLIONS thanks to the free advertising. Nice job, lamestream media* |
Count Dankula's YouTube channel can be found HERE, and why not take a few minutes to go see what kind of fellow he is?
You might be surprised to learn that he's actually a smarter, more clever guy than you'd expect from the sorta prankster that would teach a Pug to Sieg Heil. However, as an American, I find he has that somewhat dark, 'spit-in-the-devil's-eye-and-laugh' outlook on life many Brits possess that I very, very much admire.
'An Empire upon which the sun never sets,' is one of the first things I remember learning about he U.K. when I was a larvae. I was probably watching some movie with Michael Caine being mad heroic, wearing that ever-so-dashing old-school 'Redcoat' uniform and bayoneting each and every enemy in sight...for Queen and Country, of course.
And somehow keeping a stiff upper lip the entire time...
Or maybe it was all the war stories I grew up with...
England, getting bombed to smithereens nightly, only for it's inhabitants to crawl out from under the rubble each morning and go about their daily lives like it was no big deal. They went to their jobs if they could, the milk was delivered as per usual, etc.
The Germans sat on the other side of the English Channel - about 30 kilometers or so of water no damn Nazi would ever grow the balls to try and cross.
A leader who dropped eternally awesome quotes like The Beatles would drop hits not so many years later.
A country with an incredible history, and a stalwart ally to my own country.
If ever the world-wide poop really did hit the proverbial fan, I've always firmly believed the U.K. and U.S. would stand shoulder-to-shoulder and fight it off.
And we'd look good doing it, I figger - our two countries always seem to be in alignment on pretty much everything that matters.
 |
| *These feelings go back a long way, it seems* |
One of the reasons this straight up 'silencing of a citizen' is happening is because, well...straight up, the U.K. does not have a First Amendment.
They have a handful of what's known as 'Articles,' like Articles 9 and 10, which protect freedom of Thought and freedom of Expression respectively, in a broad sense. However, as one would fully expect from documents of such a nature, their wording is just vague enough to basically fall into the whole 'It Is What We Say It Is At Any Given Moment' category.
Governmental types have a gift for sculpting words, to say the least...
 |
| *You couldn't get another pile or two on there? It's looking a little light. Someone might actually finish reading it before they're asked to vote on it. Dammit, go get my Trapper Keeper...* |
You know why the First Amendment is the First Amendment?
Cuz it's the most important one.
The beauty of having freedom of speech is that basically, every human reveals who they are within a handful of sentences, and the merits of their proposals and ideas can be honestly evaluated and then accepted or discarded as is necessary.
So go ahead - find a soapbox and preach, friend.
Just know that when you're done speaking, you might find yourself dodging thrown fruit from a hostile audience. That's the chance you take when you start talking. In many ways, speech is sorta self -policed via the common unspoken agreement that holds civilization together.
*shrug*
It works pretty well, but that doesn't stop the odd knucklehead from coming along and spouting off a buncha stupid stuff. Recently here in the USA, Louis Farrakhan gave quite a lengthy speech where he claimed that the Jews invented Marijuana to turn Black Men into women...or somesuch...
 |
| *It's okay, cuz we know he's an idiot. After a while, you just listen and laugh, just like with Alex Jones and 'gay frogs.'* |
Dear lord...what would you get if you combined Farrakhan with Alex Jones?
How funny would that be?
Y'see - people with dumb ideas are funny. We all know this, I'd like to think...
However, when one looks at the internet, hate seems so frequent and random, even. I recently had to give up reading a comment thread about the videogame Far Cry 5. It filled up with the dumbest, most racist kind of hate so fast it surprised me, and I consider myself an internet veteran.
So...where do we begin snatching people up and putting them in jail? Where's the line that hasta be crossed?
Do we start with the likes of Louis Farrakhan here in the USA, or do we grab that Tommy Robinson character from the U.K. and put them both away?
What good does that do, if any?
Count Dankula had like, 3 subscribers before his lil' video caught the wrong person's attention. Now?
Well, as usual - nice job, gub'ment. That video you didn't want anyone to see has been seen millions of times, and the guy you didn't wanna give a platform to suddenly has a platform.
Quick - better call Google, so they can call YouTube and demonetize all his videos...and while we're at it, make sure to shut down any Patreon kinda thing he has goin' on...
Sigh.
The truth is - this kinda thing is becoming sorta common on both sides of the pond.
People with the wrong kinda ideologies are being quietly shut down on the big Social Media sites, from Facebook to Twitter to a random Google internet search.
 |
| *Fun Experiment - do a Google search for 'number of deaths in 2017 from terrorist attacks,' and see how many pages of nonsense you hafta dig through to get a straight answer* |
Still, this is the first time someone might actually go to jail for some simple internet 'shitposter' nonsense.
For wrongthink.
This is definitely an important moment - a big, western government seeing what it can get away with. Making an example of someone.
Nothing good can come of this. Mark my words.
Nothing good can come of this at all.
It only gets worse from here.
I haz sad. Great sad.
Until next time, folks - Have a very Xenos day!
- SinSynn
No comments:
Post a Comment