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“#arrestme”: JK Rowling Dares Scotland to Enforce Anti-Free Speech Law

We have previously discussed the growing anti-free speech movement in Scotland with the expanding criminalization of political and religious speech. The new Scottish law is a perfect nightmare for free speech, expanding the potential of a jail sentence for merely insulting language. In response, author JK Rowling has taken a stand and dared the Scottish police to come and arrest her for criticizing transgender status.

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 illustrates how these laws create a slippery slope of speech criminalization as more and more speech is banned. We previously discussed the law when it was first introduced.

The new crime covers “stirring up hatred” relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex. That crime covers insulting comments and anything reasonably “that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive.”

It is enough that a person is found to have likely understood that the comments would be abusive or insulting as opposed to intending to be abusive or insulting.

For that ill-defined crime, you can be sent to jail for seven years. Police officers are currently being given a two-hour training program to enforcing the law.

Rowling has been the target of a global campaign due to her rejection of transgender laws and policies. Many on the left have unleashed book bans and burnings. I have been critical of that campaign. Even third parties who have supported Rowling’s right to free speech have been targeted in cancel campaigns.

On April 1, Rowling posted a reference to various trans campaigners and other individuals as women. She then ended the thread with “April Fools! Only kidding. Obviously, the people mentioned in the above tweets aren’t women at all, but men, every last one of them.”

She stated “Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal.”

Even if meant as a joke, Scottish censorship laws have never been a laughing matter with comedians raising objections.

That could clearly fall within the law.  The law is so broad that it allows arbitrary enforcement. To that end, Rowling made it plain:

“I’m currently out of the country, but if what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.#arrestme.”

The law is a disgrace, but hardly new. Free speech has been in a free fall in the United Kingdom as well as other Western countries. I discuss this trend in my new book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.

The decline of free speech in the United Kingdom has long been a concern for free speech advocates. A man was convicted for sending a tweet while drunk referring to dead soldiers. Another was arrested for an anti-police t-shirt. Another was arrested for calling the Irish boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend a “leprechaun.” Yet another was arrested for singing “Kung Fu Fighting.” A teenager was arrested for protesting outside of a Scientology center with a sign calling the religion a “cult.”

We also discussed the arrest of a woman who was praying to herself near an abortion clinic. English courts have seen criminalized “toxic ideologies” as part of this crackdown on free speech.

Scotland has now pulled ahead in the race to the bottom of speech criminalization. The home of David Hume and Adam Smith is now imposing laws as stringent as those founds in Iran, Russia, and China. It is a shocking denial of a right that once defined Western Civilization. Hume once spoke from those shores to denounce those who wanted to use Natural Law to silence others.

Hume objected that morality was used to cut off opposing views, noting “I am surpriz’d to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not.”

Now it is the left that is silencing others. Equity has become the new morality used to gag others. Scotland should be a warning to everyone in the United States as we face our own anti-free speech movement. This is the rock bottom of the slippery slope of speech censorship.

88 thoughts on ““#arrestme”: JK Rowling Dares Scotland to Enforce Anti-Free Speech Law”

  2. One thing comes to mind about this new law in Scotland that goes deeper and longer than any comment on Trans people or others has to do with Scots football (Soccer to us Americans) fans. The two iconic teams in the country are the Rangers (the Protestant team) and the Celtics (the Roman Catholic team). Does wearing a scarf with the fan’s favored colors constitute “hate speech”? Does it also have a tinge of ethnic rivalry since many of the Celtic fans while living and even born in Scotland could be of Gaelic Irish heritage? Just asking. But during the course of match would not most if not all the fans in the Stadium be guilty of mild to strong hate speech since the many of usual cheers would praise or demean the religious persuasion if not the ethnic heritage of the other team’s loyal fans?

  3. “I am surpriz’d to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions . . .

    I believe you misunderstand the context. Hume was commenting on the non-intercourse act of 1809.

    1. Yes, yes, I realize he died a few decades prior. But you overlook that some thought him a prophet.

  4. When I see some data that proves calling a potato a tomato harms potatoes, I may seek some redress against misnamers, but until then any law against misnaming is virtue-signalling bullcrap and legislators that create laws based on ‘muy feel-feels’ should be in the town square stockade for embarrassing themselves, their constituents, and science.

  6. Scotland now can arrest JK Rowland.
    Look at who and what leads Scotland.
    Their goal would be arresting anyone and celebs would be high on the list.

  7. Is there anything or person more dangerous than a Liberal Woman? The history of the British Kingdom of recent is a prime example, one of the first to proffer such nonsense was Jacqui Smith when she banned Michael Savage from entry into England in 2009 (?) along with 16 others, quoting her “This is someone who has fallen into the category of fomenting hatred, of such extreme views and expressing them in such a way that it is actually likely to cause inter-community tension or even violence if that person were allowed into the country “continuing “I think it’s important that people understand the sorts of values and sorts of standards that we have here, the fact that it’s a privilege to come and the sort of things that mean you won’t be welcome in this country.”Now we have a Scottish Minister for Victims and Community Safety Siobhian Brown who said the new law would help build “safer communities that live free from hatred and prejudice”. I have not included a ton of similar nonsense from the likes of Theresa May who was Homeland Secretary before becoming the Prime Minister.

    There is also many such nonsensical statements and actions by the political leftist women in this great Country the United States of America, all trying to limit what can be said regardless of rights outlined in our founding documents.

    I part with a with an idiom (words, saying, phrase symbolic rather than literal).
    “He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool; shun him.
    he who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is a child; teach him.
    he who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep; wake him.
    He who knows, and knows that he knows, is wise; follow him”.

  9. I have no doubt that President Biden and his staff are absolutely ecstatic with this new Scottish law and are fueling up Air Force One to make an urgent run to meet with First Minister Yousaf to get some pointers.

  10. Every so often comes along something that should remind us of why we rebelled against England. Free speech is just one, there are others. If you really want to know what they are, just read the U.S. Constitution. Until this generation, the Queen’s writs were still used in Canada. We may speak a common language but that’s about it for the similarities with our UK cousins. Some of our colonial laws still on the books derive from English common law but it’s the laws that differ like the one in Scotland that pique our interest now and then. Turley returns the favor of folks like William Pitt the Elder (1708-1778) who took the side of the American colonies in the 1770s. When warrants were not needed in the colonies, Pitt famously said that in the case of a poor man’s house whose shutters are worn, the wind and rain may enter, but the king of England may not enter, save but with a warrant! That thinking eventually became our Fourth Amendment. The team that beat the Washington Nationals yesterday is named after the city named for William Pitt the Elder.

    1. good history lesson. Thanks for sharing.

      In other free speech news, “MIT Free Speech Alliance” is hosting the MD PhD academic from Stanford, Dr Jay Bhattacharya, who co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration. His MIT presentation is entitled “The Government Threat to Free Speech and Public Health”. He is also listed as a plaintiff in the lawsuit filed against Biden’s Administration for censoring him and others on social media, i.e. “The freedom of speech in the United States now faces one of its greatest assaults by federal government officials in the Nation’s history”. SCOTUS should be ruling soon on that lawsuit.

      Chances of Dr Jay’s MIT Lecture being cancelled by Democrats? We are about to find out

      https://members.mitfreespeech.org/Calendar/moreinfo.php?org_id=MIT&eventid=135412

      Jay Bhattacharya: The Government Threat to Free Speech and Public Health

      Date/Time
      4/4/2024
      5:00 PM – 6:30 PM Eastern

      Event Type(s)
      MIT Free Speech Alliance Event
      Partner & Ally Organization Event

      1. Estovir,
        Will be interesting to see if they can get his engagement canceled and under what BS will they come up with.

        OT, Thought you might find this interesting or even considered lending your expertise, Welcome to Free Press Health
        “A new series for people who don’t want plastic in their water or bugs on their plate.”
        https://www.thefp.com/p/nellie-bowles-welcome-to-free-press-health

        1. Thanks UpstateFarmer. My field is blowing up but in a good way. Academic researchers are pushing back and the whining by govt types and/or govt lackeys is spectacular.

  11. Transgenders are the new saints of the alt-left. No one dare criticize them, no expense must be spared in glorifying them, everyone wants their child to be one.

  12. There has to be a good joke here. The authorities are going to arrest a protected class because she does not agree there is an another protected class? I almost can putty the police because there is a law to uphold, but if they follow through, they probably will face a major backlash. If they do not arrest her, then the law becomes a laughingstock.

    I love the word reasonable. The problem is that it never defined. What I find reasonable others will not, so what is reasonable?

    History has a long view and this too shall pass. I hope those that push this now realize they can end up lumped in with Oliver Cromwell. Now that is an insult.

      1. mistressadams said: “To which protected class does Ms. Rowling belong?”

        She is bilingual 🙂

        1. Even if she’s (correctly, IMO) opposed to the erasure of women we see happening right in front of our eyes in the name of *actual* patriarchy, J.K. has absolutely got b*lls of solid steel. 👍🏼

    1. Except for Down’s Syndrome, XXY,
      and a bunch of other potential variations…

      1. Down’s syndrome is trisomy-21. It has nothing to do with sex chromosomes.

      2. Potential and real are not the same.

        Nor is this some civil rights crusade about the tiny number of people who are not XX or XY.

        The core issue and the embarrassment of the scottish law and the other nonsense of the left is the idiocy of trying to claim that
        people are entitled to be protected from criticism for even bogus reasons much less for pretending to be SS when they are XY.

        Almost no one is saying you are not free to make whatever choices you wish – stupid or wise.

        But just as you are free to criticise others because they are republican or white or jewish, others are free to criticise you because you call yourself a women when you are a man.

        This is unconstrained stupidity.

        This is literally demanding that each of us is entitled to total control of what others say about us.

        Or more accurately that SOME of us – those selected in some bizarre lottery by the left have the right to control everything others might say about them, but the rest of us do not.

        It should not take more than two brain cells to understand how badly this ends.

      3. David, your pedantic exception proves the TRUTH, XX or XY

        There are requirements for the classification of ‘mammal’ The duck billed platypus violates the “gives live Birth”. requirement. That exception actually validates the existing requirements.

    2. The man-dressed-in-women’s-clothes, whose comments were on FOX News in support of Biden’s desecration of Good Friday and Easter Sunday, sounded like … a man! He is a man; he just doesn’t dress like men dress. One need only to close one’s eyes and listen.

  15. “that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive.”
    Woke leftists are not reasonable in the first place.
    Amazing progressives in EU countries look more and more like 1930s Germany.

  16. Remember the German People were good people taken over by Fascists….Globalists are THERE!

  17. So I have to BELIEVE other people’s Insanity?
    Trans people are INSANE! I can test their DNA…and tell their gender.
    I go to JAIL if I believe the DNA TEST over their LIES?

      1. Fantasy is just a polite way to say fetish.

        This started a long time ago, when people were gas lighted into giving protection to the fetish of, same genders sating their sexual fantasies.
        Do as you please. I’m good with your fetish, as long as the children can’t see, and you don’t spook the horses, you be you.

  18. Globalists are backed by China…to destroy the WEST
    Globalists are filled with Psychos whose SELF HATRED is OBVIOUS!

  19. Perhaps, since she has such name recognition, this will enlighten some of the brainwashed as to just where this global cabal is directing us. As long as significant numbers of people are continuously distracted by video, insipid movies/TV and foul academics who have lost total contact with the natural human species, we will not escape this as those same drones will march where ever their screens direct them. Oh, and don’t forget the free foods that are increasing the profits of big pharma.

      1. mistressadams said: “Most, if not all, of the actors who played Rowling’s characters on film take the exact opposite view from hers.”

        You could strike the reference to Rowling from that statement and I have little doubt that it remains true: “Most actors take the exact opposite view from hers.”

        Beyond reminding us of what I believe to be the obvious fact that actors tend to have a tenuous connection to reality that may likely be related to their vocation, what is the point of your comment, other than a possible gratuitous swipe at Rowling?

        1. I took it as a reassuring fact that if the entertainment mob is against her, she must be correct.

          1. whimsicalmama said: “I took it as a reassuring fact that if the entertainment mob is against her, she must be correct.”

            It could be taken as an implication that there is a contradiction between what Rowling espouses publicly and the content of her novels. I do prefer your interpretation, however.

      2. So what is the significance of such a fact, mistessadams? Who cares what nonsense they might say in support of this awful legislation?

        1. You should care since the majority of the brainwashed prog/left sheeple take their marching orders from the likes of these “actors” rather than researching and educating themselves and they influence so much of the younger generations (in the wrong way I might add).

      3. Yes, and when I found out (although I should have guessed it already) it took away my interest in watching that series. I’ve seen it once, it was good, but now that I know who and what the cast and director support I will watch something else.

        1. whimsicalmama said: “now that I know who and what the cast and director support I will watch something else.”

          I firmly subscribe to the power of boycott, but I also try to avoid limiting myself for little or no gain. I decided some time ago, for example, that I won’t base what entertainment I consume on the politics of the creative people involved in the production. For one reason, their politics typically have negligible or no effect on the end result. For another, since I do not go to movie or stage theatres, by the time I do see something on streaming TV, virtually all of the financial exchanges have already taken place, and my refusal to watch would have an inconsequential effect. About the only exception I make to that is live music performances when the lyrics repeatedly constitute an explicit political statement which I very much oppose. YMMV

      4. And they are free to do so – what is WRONG with the scottish law is that Govenrment FORCE can not be used solely on the basis of free expression to punish ONE view.

      5. It is also true that a large minority of people are suffering from a large number of delusions.

        When a person says they are Jesus Christ – we view that as a delusion and a sign of mental disorder.

        Yet, here we have the law telling us all that refusing to buy into the delusion of a man who thinks they are a woman is a crime ?

        You are free to beleive whatever you want about yourself.
        You are NOT any more free to demand that others beleive you are a woman when you are a man, than you are to demand that we beleive you are jesus christ.

  20. The Scottish people need to saturate their media with free speech. Paralyze the idiots who think censorship is OK. Back with protest and money anyone the illegitimate regime attacks.

    1. I agree, but even if there were enough non-progressive media outlets, you will need to surmount the very effective brainwashing and distractions of the general population to get them to reverse their course and evict their current government – I doubt that this will happen via the TV/media.

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