Ending the Rule of Law, One Nudge At a Time

We're almost there, courtesy of the increasing weaponisation of language, as today's example from London shows

I have little time today, hence this is but a footnote, even though the theme itself—the decay of the rule of law—has featured prominently in these pages.

Today’s example comes to us courtesy, again, of something I saw on my LinkedIn feed:

You can find the image and much more—incl. a link to get some of the last tickets for the event—over here.

What would you learn? Here we go, with my emphases added:

Transport for London (TfL) is funding hundreds of places on free training sessions to empower people to take action to prevent or reduce harm when they encounter hate crime.

This free 3 hours interactive course is led by identity-based violence prevention charity, Protection Approaches and has been developed in partnership with Britain's East and Southeast Asian Network (besea.n).

The expert-led sessions see participants guided through a series of discussions to explore how they can play a role in safely tackling identity-based harms in their community, school, or place of work.

You will learn:

• What it means to be an active bystander: trough group discussion the participants explore what being an active bystander means to them

• Standing up for victims safely: working through a series of scenarios, participants consider and learn what they can do when they encounter identity-based harms such as harassment on public transport, a racist attack in a supermarket, or a prejudiced comment from a colleague

• Proactive prevention: returning to the scenarios participants reflect on the root causes of prejudice and discrimination before discussing ways they could contribute to dismantling those root causes and to building safer, more inclusive, and just communities.

Weaponise Language, Criminalise Behaviour

While I have no idea what an ‘active bystander’ may or may not be, or how one ‘stands up for victims safely’ (for whom?), but I see the following:

The language used is police/criminal justice lingo (think: ‘active shooter’), and in these instances, being a ‘bystander’ is, well, either a best-case scenario or something that’s also criminal, as in, e.g., if one does not provide first aid or the like.

Conversely, this language intimates that there’s but one final step involved before the above ‘active bystander’ becomes a criminal by association, and it involves rendering ‘hate crimes’ a felony.

Bonus: Social Credit Scores Improve ‘If You Say Something’

It’s also a superb idea to introduce social credit scores by stealth, i.e., you get goodies ‘if you see something, say something’, like, I dunno, a monthly ticket for the London Underground or the like.

Also, if you don’t say something, i.e., elect to be an ‘inactive bystander’, you must pay twice the regular fee.

See how easy it is to render people unable to do, say, act upon something?

As a veritable bonus feature, we also get the abrogation of Equality Under the Law by ordinances, all courtesy of the behavourialist impulses of those who propose these schemes.

I don’t know if ‘they’ who propose this kind of crap actually know what they are doing, but even if they don’t, one shouldn’t overlook this monstrosity-in-the-making.

Epilogue

This is nothing ‘new’, and these are, by and large, the very same bait’n’switch ‘tactics’ employed to such a large degree during the 2020 Covid ‘lockdowns’, which were briefly lifted, albeit only if one partook in the ‘fiery, but mostly peaceful’ protests purportedly carried out to show support for ‘Black Lives Matter’.

For a telling example from Switzerland in 2020, see this essay:

The Kiss of Death for Free Speech in Central Europe