Two british nazis, Simon Shappard and Stephen Whittle, were charged with writing heresy. They fled to the USA, but last month were forced back to Britain, where they have each been jailed for two years and two months for publishing thought crimes: They posted on their web site that Hitler did not exterminate the Jews, but that he should have.Why are Nazis jailed but not commies? Why are these guys jailed but Fisk is still loose? After all, in recent years a lot more people have been murdered on the basis of Fisk’s ideas than on the basis of Shapard and Wittle’s ideas.
Of course, a couple of Nazis are no great loss, but I suspect the next thought crime will be that Muslims are apt to commit terror, and Christians are not, shortly followed by the thought crime that police are more interested in keeping honest citizens powerless and afraid than in getting criminals off the streets.
The problem with thought crimes is that they work like a salami slicer. The spectrum of permitted thoughts is reduced one thin slice at a time – until the only thoughts permitted are those of a tiny group of fanatical murderous extremists. The salami slicer does not work at both ends towards the middle, but always at one end towards the favored extreme. If nazis are jailed, next those that are insufficiently commie, or the wrong kind of commie, will be jailed.