Thought Crimes
Last month in Volunteer Thought Police we reprinted an open letter about the Denver Three getting kicked out of one of the president’s “Town Hall” meetings. In the letter, Leslie Weise asks “…does this mean that the administration is authorizing volunteer thought police to preempt free speech….?”
What’s the implication there, Leslie? Professional thought police are ok, but volunteers are not? We have volunteer border guards (the “Minutemen,”) so why not volunteer thought police? We could call them the “Minute Brains,” or perhaps “mentalantes.” We may not have settled on a name for them yet, but the Thought Police are all around us, professional and volunteer both.
Yes, Virginia, there are genuine “thought crimes” on the books in all 50 states, and more are signed into law every week. So far nobody is calling it “thoughtcrime,” and we have yet to see any law enforcement officials described as “thought police,” but it a simple fact that thought crime laws are already in the books, and they are enforced.
Consider– any time you have two or more “versions” of a crime that are differentiated by what the perpetrator was thinking before, during, or after commission of the crime, you have a thought crime. If you see words describing a mental process in connection with a law, you have a thought crime.
It is illegal to “loiter” in most public parts of most cities. But then there is “loitering with intent.” If the arresting officer opines that it was the loiterer’s intention to commit some other crime, it’s a thought crime.
Premeditation is a thought crime. If you murder someone, they are just as dead no matter what you were thinking at the time. But if you thought about it ahead of time, it’s a different and more serious crime. A thought crime.
More recently, anything that is described as a “hate crime” is, ipso facto, a thought crime.. That one is deliciously ironic, because it is the Left that is defining and legislating “hate crimes,” and they of all people should be wary of a government that is prepared to prosecute you for what you think.
You can also be prosecuted for not thinking. The terms “careless,” “reckless,” and “negligent” come immediately to mind.
In “1984,” George Orwell predicted a world of “cultural conditioning” in which antisocial or anti-government thoughts were crimes for which one could be arrested and punished. It was a particularly bleak view of the future, based in the realities of post-WWII Europe, particularly Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe, and building on the work of Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin (who seldom gets the credit he deserves).
When the actual year 1984 came and went we all patted ourselves on our backs and said “Orwell was wrong.” Twenty years later we can see that he got the date wrong, because he overestimated the availability of the necessary technology. That technology is readily available today, and we are living in a surveillance society where Big Brother can watch every move we make.
We continue to sacrifice privacy for a perceived increase in security, and are approaching a point where a law enforcement official can stop you on the street and demand to see “your papers.” That same official can go to your library and demand to see a list of the books you have read.
“But it’s not that simple,” says our government. “We need these tools to fight Terrorism. We’re here to help you. And if you give up some of your personal freedoms it will be easier for us to spread Freedom and Liberty in the rest of the world.” Yeah, right. If you disagree, then you must Hate America and Jesus. You are guilty of thoughtcrime, and it is only a matter of time before the thought police come for you in the middle of the night.
–SG
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