Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.

- George Orwell, 1984

If you've never read 1984, you need to do so now. I read the book for the first time in 1984. While Orwell's Animal Farm is an insightful and sobering parable of collectivist socio-politics. 1984 is Orwell's prescient masterpiece. The societal trends Orwell predicted in describing his dystopian London have not merely been realized in contemporary society; they have become pervasive. Ubiquitous public surveillance, government micromanagement in the lives of citizens, the militarization of police and the brutalization of private citizens at the hands of some portions of law enforcement... these are self-evident. Much more insidious, and much more potentially harmful, is the Orwellian phenomenon that is also the most subtle.

It is thoughtcrime.

Society is evolving. With each passing day, it becomes more like the thought-controlled totalitarian nightmare of Orwell's vision. What's worse, it is doing so with the consent and sanction of the very people it oppresses, for most of our citizens blithely accept the establishment of thoughtcrime as a cultural, civil, and even criminal offense.

Thoughtcrime in contemporary society began as "political correctness" and "multiculturalism." These are cultural movements that hold as their central tenets the notions that some terms, phrases, and lines of thought are intrinsically offensive and inappropriate for public discourse, and that history has traditionally been the exclusive domain of dead white European males whose injustices to all other cultures have been whitewashed (while the historical contributions of other cultures have been simultaneously omitted from the record), respectively. The scions of political correctness and multiculturalism took root in our schools and in our government, teaching our children and pushing through legislation that made it thoughtcrime to adhere to the old ways of the culturally insensitive, ethnocentric Anglos whose evil designs on power the movements were designed to foil. As these movements gained in influence and in converts, it became a cultural crime -- punishable by social censure -- to engage in politically incorrect language or ethnocentric attitudes. Thus, kicking and screaming, would those who adhered to traditional values be dragged into the brave new world advocated by political leftists (who are at the forefront of the establishment of thoughtcrime).

The movements became pervasive and their effects have been felt in all facets of contemporary life. Sexual harassment on the job was once considered to be demanding sexual favors from a coworker under threat of losing the job or opportunities for advancement. Now, one can be guilty of "sexual harassment" simply for complimenting a coworker on her appearance, hanging up a swimsuit calendar, or even looking to long (staring or "ogling") at someone. Colleges and universities, once bastions of free thought and the exchange of ideas, have become Orwellian prisons in which speech codes rule the day and students can be harassed, punished, and even expelled for using a forbidden word or advocating a politically incorrect concept in public or in a school paper. Government officials once paid lip-service to religious belief, but now all mention of religion (at least those religions popular with dead white Europeans) are being purged from the public square and any prayer or mention of one's god is considered offensive and potentially hateful.

Consider these few examples: 

• In March of 2007, a group of Republican students were charged by school officials (and face academic punishment) at San Francisco State University with "desecration" of paper mock-ups resembling Hamas and Hezbollah flags (the symbols of Middle Eastern terrorist groups). Specifically, a complaint filed by another student charged the Republican students with "attempts to incite violence and create a hostile environment" and "actions of incivility," essentially attempting to criminalize academically a political protest.



• In February of 2005, LeMoyne College in Syracuse, New York, expelled student Scott McConnell from its Masters program. His grades were good and he committed no breach of the college's rules. His only crime was writing a paper in which he advocated a return to the use of corporal punishment in American schools. McConnell was eventually forced to enroll elsewhere. 



• Last year (March, 2006), a Quaker employed as head of Reference and Instructional Services at Bromfield Library on Ohio State University's Mansfield campus was informed that, by unanimous faculty vote, he was to be investigated for "sexual harassment." His crime? He recommended (in his capacity with the library) that freshman read several conservatively themed books such as The Marketing of Evil (which, among other things, describes the cultural marketing campaign used to legitimize "gay rights" in society) and Senator Rick Santorum's It Takes a Family.



• Actor Isaiah Washington voluntarily entered rehab after he prompted howls of societal outrage for denying publicly that he called a fellow actor a "faggot." 



• The Weather Channel’s Heidi Cullen, a climatologist who hosts the program The Climate Code, said late last year that "global warming" skeptics should be stripped of their American Meteorological Society credentials for daring to question whether "global warming" is a man-made phenomenon (or that it is even occurring). Cullen is, essentially, equating global warming skeptics with Holocaust deniers. "If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change," Cullen wrote, "then maybe the AMS shouldn't give them a Seal of Approval. Clearly, the AMS doesn't agree that global warming can be blamed on cyclical weather patterns..." 



• In March, 2007, the United States 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that public employers "are permitted to curtail employee speech as long as their 'legitimate administrative interests' outweigh the employee's interest in freedom of speech." Specifically, the phrase "Natural Family, Marriage and Family Values" posted in a meeting notice on a City of Oakland bulletin board was found by the City (as affirmed by the 9th Circuit Court) to be "homophobic" and to constitute "sexual-orientation-based harassment." 



• Again in March, a New Jersey Superior court judge equated all homeschooling to child abuse, decrying the state's lack of control over home-schooled children on the grounds that such children could be harmed by their parents without the State's oversight. "In today's threatening world," said Judge Thomas Zampino, "where we seek to protect children from abuse, not just physical, but also educational abuse, how can we not monitor the educational welfare of all our children?"



• In Vancouver, Washington, a group of high school students was suspended for holding a prayer group in the student commons. (In March of 2007, they were told they could register as a school group and be provided with a classroom for these activities.) 



• Within the last year, The View's Rosie O'Donnell accused television personality Kelly Ripa of homophobia, accused Miss USA owner Donald Trump of immorality and hypocrisy, and accused the producers of American Idol of racism and "weightism." In all cases, the accused parties felt compelled to address these irresponsible allegations in the media. In each case, O'Donnell engaged in her slander without any proof whatsoever of her assertions; she simply decided that she knew what these people were thinking and called them out for their behavior on these grounds. 



• In 2005, a Pentecostal pastor in Sweden was acquitted by Sweden's high court. The crime for which he was tried was "inciting hatred against homosexuals," an accusation made after a 2003 sermon in which he characterized homosexuality as "a deep cancerous tumor on all of society." 



• In late 2002, Senator Trent Lott effectively ended his political career when he praised 100-year-old Senator Strom Thurmond at the latter's 100th birthday party. "When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him," he is reported to have said. "We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years, either." For these words, Lott was accused of racism (Thurmond ran on a segregationist platform during the presidential election in question). He apologized repeatedly, but was damaged political goods from that point on. 



• In 2001, a college Republican group distributed posters in support of the war in Afghanistan. the group's members were harassed on campus and told their posters were "hate flyers." 

Legally, the first of the "hate crime" legislation gave political correctness and multiculturalism the force of law. Now, the government is not merely supposed to concern itself for punishing you for what you've done. No, now we presume that it is possible to know what you were thinking when you committed a crime, and to punish you more severely for thinking incorrect thoughts while engaged in your crime. It is not enough to prosecute you for assault or vandalism, for example; now we must further punish you if your victim was one of a number of protected socio-political and/or ethnic pressure groups (and thus a member of a specially protected class). While prosecution under "hate crime" legislation is notably rare (if not absent entirely) for crimes committed by ethnic minorities whose victims are white, any and all crime commited by white men and women against persons of color or those who are members of other pressure groups (such as homosexuals) usually becomes national news and prompts calls for further indoctrination -- excuse me, sensitivity and anger-management training -- in our government and educational institutions.

There was a time when, to commit an offense, one had to commit an offense. That is, one had to affirmatively commit some action that could be seen, objectively, to constitute infringement on another's sovereignty, a violation of another's rights. To intimidate someone, you had to threaten them in so many words. To sexually harass someone, you had to make explicit demands. To offend someone... well, you could offend them in all the ways you can offend them now (though there are more ways to offend people today), but if you did offend them, there wasn't much more they could do than be offended. These days, to offend anyone for any reason, no matter how hypersensitive their sensibilities, is to risk becoming a pariah, losing one's job, and being verbally and even physically harassed and threatened -- all under the aegis of the righteous indignation of the politically correct, whose motives are alleged to be pure and whose watchword is, laughably enough, tolerance!

There was a time when ignorant, prejudiced people threw around the term "nigger." There was a time when vulgar schoolchildren threw around taunts like "faggot" and "queer." Now, the epithet "nigger" is the unspeakable "n-word." Now the insult "faggot" is the hateful epithet "the f-word" (supplanting the venerable fuck). Now, any insult of any kind is equated to the worst of racial epithets (the "n-word"), and this in turn -- using a word -- is equated to burning crosses on people's lawns or even to participating in lynch mobs.

As the myriad ways in which one can commit thoughtcrime is ratcheted up, the standards against which these offenses are judged become more mercurial and even viciously unfair. Now, one need not even use words that are offensive. All that is required is for some member of a special interest group to accuse you of speaking in code, of hiding your crime of hate behind words intended to mask your feelings. Now, the politically correct Thought Police presume to tell you not just what you said, but what you meant to say, and they will punish you for what they claim you thought if they cannot nail you for what you actually said. Just as criminals in the dystopian SciFi film Minority Report are arrested before they commit crimes the government's psychics claim they will commit, our society's thought criminals are now being tried and convicted in the court of public opinion for what they meant to do or say rather than what actually happened.

To commit throughtcrime is to make anyone else uncomfortable for any reason. You cannot control another person's feelings, and one's feelings are not tools of cognition -- but those politicians, lawyers, activists, and agitators ramming political correctness and multiculturalism down our throats care only about their feelings. Specifically, they believe they have the right never to be offended, never to feel bad for any reason. If you make these people feel bad, you are not simply in disagreement with them; you have committed an offense against them.

I've experienced this myself at a previous job. Not once, but twice, I was reported to Human Resources by an unnamed coworker (whose identity I was never allowed to know). This person had seen me use a small pocketknife to open a box of paper and reported me to HR for "making her feel uncomfortable." This was done without my knowledge and without my participation; I was violating no policy (and I was not the only worker in the office with a pocket knife). My crime was making her feel bad through no direct action of my own. The simple fact that I was not politically correct, by her delicate and hoplophobic standards, constituted an offense for which my job was threatened.

Worse, when you disagree with those who are politically correct, when you hold an opinion in opposition to the arbitrary and often capricious guidelines they have instituted by socio-political bullying and judicial fiat, you don't merely upset them; you enrage them. This is because those who insist on political correctness are fundamentally insecure people. When you believe you should never feel bad for any reason, that you have a protected right never to feel bad, you live in fear and trepidation at the prospect of being upset, of having your delicate sensibilities offended. When a free-thinking individual dares to disagree with your politically correct dogma, he or she denies you affirmation of your beliefs. To deny someone this affirmation was once simply to disagree with him. Now, disagreeing with those who are politically correct is the commission of an explicit offense. Denying affirmation and validation to the scions of politically correctness denies them what they believe to be their right and their entitlement. It is thus a form of theft, a manner and a matter of affront.

It is thoughtcrime.

The establishment of thoughtcrime is exclusively a function of the political left. This is because, to be a leftist, one must relinquish all ties to reality. The leftist's wishful thinking supplants any realistic appreciation for the world as it is. The leftist's feelings supersede any logical analysis of the causes and effects of societal phenomena. The leftist's desire to control his fellow human being's behavior in an effort to prevent anyone from feeling bad in any way at any time overrides any rational impulse to hold people accountable for their actions and to force individuals to develop the emotional and intellectual fortitude to cope with ideas and opinions they dislike.

Because leftism requires the individual to suspend thought, free and critical thinking becomes a threat. This threat cannot be tolerated by the Thought Police, it must be stamped out as the crime against leftist demagoguery that it is. Thoughtcrime, therefore, is integral to the success and necessary to the further encroachment of leftist political and economic thought. As long as thoughtcrime continues to be crime -- and as punishments for thoughtcrime become more severe even as the potential list of thoughtcrimes grows ever longer -- libertarians, conservatives, and classical liberals will lose ground to the leftists who seek to establish Orwellian and totalitarian control over their fellow human beings. In the world of the leftists, all animals are equal -- but some animals are definitely more equal than others. This is intolerable in what is supposed to be a free society.

Thoughtcrime and its establishment are relevant to this publication because martialism and the mindset of self-defense are quickly becoming classified as thoughtcrimes in popular culture.  The ideology of leftism is ascendant and has been for some time, as evidenced by ever-stricter "gun control" laws and the increasing likelihood of facing jail time as punishment for acts of legitimate self-defense.  This is the society we live in.  This is the bleak future we face.  We cannot afford to stand by and let it happen.  We must speak out about it.  We must be willing to offend.  We must brave charges of thoughtcrime and continue to stand behind the philosophy of martialism.