Thoughtcrime, American Style

Senator Elizabeth Warren is flirting with the concept of thoughtcrime. “As President of the United States, my Justice Department would go after white nationalists with full prosecution,” she tweeted on March 18.

Later, at a town hall meeting, she conceded that “white nationalists” would actually have to commit crimes before they could be hit with “full prosecution,” but she seemed to regret that requirement. She called “white supremacists” a threat “like any other terrorist group.”

Are we on our way to making it illegal to express certain opinions? Our law enforcement efforts suggest this. Hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens remain in this country despite deportation orders. Meanwhile, police investigate flyers posted by white advocates.

In Brighton, New York, police arrested an activist for violating a town ordinance when he posted Identity Evropa flyers on public property. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle noted that the flyers “did not feature any direct calls for violence or hate speech,” but nonetheless “community leaders felt threatened by the presence of the fliers in public places.”

Brighton Police Chief Mark Henderson claimed the flyers’ content did not prompt the investigation. Really? Police went to the trouble of taking fingerprints from adhesive tape in order to identify and arrest the activist. “I’ve had murder cases that were not investigated as thoroughly,” said the activist’s attorney. He points out that no one would get in trouble for posting a “lost dog” notice, and argues that arresting the activist is selective prosecution based on speech and therefore a violation of the First Amendment. The press has doxed the activist, which is additional punishment for thoughtcrime.

In Durham, North Carolina, police were called in to investigate more Identity Evropa stickers, which they claimed were “associated with a neo-Nazi group.” Police at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst also went into action; the Daily Hampshire Gazette wrote that Identity Evropa stickers and fliers were from a “white-nationalist hate group.”

Chicago police are also investigating “stickers promoting a white nationalist group.” The group, the American Identity Movement, is the successor organization to Identity Evropa and is even milder. Somehow, in a city where police solved fewer than one in six homicides in the first half of 2018, officers have time to investigate an inoffensive, patriotic, pro-white stickers. One imagines any charges would stick, unlike those against hate hoaxer Jussie Smollett.

The Trump Administration’s Justice Department is selectively prosecuting civic nationalist groups and ignoring antifa. This does not stop Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from accusing the president of permitting white supremacist violence.

White supremacists committed the largest # of extremist killings in 2017.

What the President is saying here: “if you engage in violent acts of white supremacy, I will look the other way.”

Understand that this is deliberate. This is why we can’t afford to sit on the sidelines. https://t.co/yUwUXzhBoE

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 18, 2019

Miss Ocasio-Cortez quote-tweets the Southern Poverty Law Center’s claim that “white nationalist hate groups” are increasing. Of course, the SPLC is sole arbiter of what is a “hate group,” and it includes many peaceful, patriotic organizations. The SPLC also counts each chapter of every organization separately, thus inflating the count.

The congresswoman’s source for “extremist killings” is probably the Anti-Defamation League’s “Murder and Extremism” report for 2017. The ADL examined 34 total “extremist-related murders,” of which 20 were said to be “related to right-wing extremism.” One death is too many, yet this is a relatively small number — it’s fewer than two weeks worth of murders for Chicago that year.

Some of what is billed as “right-wing extremism” isn’t. Family or personal disputes — not ideology — were behind many of these murders, and sometimes “right-wingers” are the victims. In one case, family members and a Ku Klux Klan member killed a Klan leader. In another, a former Atomwaffen Division member converted to Islam and shot two of his “neo-Nazi” roommates. This was called “right-wing violence,” not “Islamic extremist” violence. The 2018 report has similar problems, which is why Times of Israel writer Dan Frienreich called it a “complete fraud.”

Reporters often claim President Trump is leading to an age of hate crimes: “Trump’s Era of Hate,” in Jennifer Rubin’s words. This is speculation. The supposed rise in the FBI’s count of hate crimes probably reflects an increase in the number of cities that send in reports — not an increase in incidents — and the lackadaisical, inconsistent way “hate crime” data are compiled means that the FBI’s reports are utterly untrustworthy.

At the same time, many so-called hate crimes are hoaxes. The new book Hate Crime Hoax documents no fewer than 409 cases the media tried to sell before quietly dropping them when the truth came out. The Jussie Smollet case was different only because it was such big news, the media couldn’t just walk away from it when it turned out to be a hoax. The media’s moral panic about “white nationalism” and the violence it supposedly inspires continues undaunted.

In 1988, New York Judge Sol Wachtler said said that “if a district attorney wanted, a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.” This is no longer a joke.  We are not yet at the point at which white advocacy can be banned outright, but an abusive government could subject dissidents to the kinds of never-ending investigations that have plagued President Donald Trump and his family. White advocates aren’t the ones who should apologize for violence in this country. Americans have nothing to fear from white advocates. Instead, they should fear anyone who want to strip us of our rights in the nation we created.