Emigrating Into Fascism

Word has it that nice-girl-exposed-as-mean-girl Ellen Degeneres, whose fall from grace was as swift as Usain Bolt sprinting for gold, is moving to the UK to escape the looming hell that is Trump-47's United States. She joins a short list of celebrities who are actually, this time, keeping their promises to leave the country if the unwashed masses re-elected the Untethered Orange Id.

Oh, Ellen, if only you knew the hell you're moving into.

There is great irony in someone whose roots are stand-up comedy - a form that thrives on liberty and requires the freedom to speak - moving to a country that has wiped its ass with the Enlightenment values that gestated within its borders. A land that has abandoned any premise of free speech in favor of putting nine-year-olds in the dock for using language that nine-year-olds often use in playgrounds and other Lord-of-the-Flies locations.

Jonathan Turley details some of the insanity that has taken place across the Pond.

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.”Last year, Nicholas Brock, 52, was convicted of a thought crime in Maidenhead, Berkshire. The neo-Nazi was given a four-year sentence for what the court called his “toxic ideology” based on the contents of the home he shared with his mother in Maidenhead, Berkshire.

Readers may recall my mention of the UK police commissioner that threatened to extradite Americans for violating UK speech laws... while in America, and for the massive surveillance apparatus that makes Brits among the most watched people in the world.

The other great irony - that a lesbian would migrate to a land with a growing population of LGBTQetc intolerants. While UK's Sharia courts do not have any force of law (yet), the rapid growth of the Muslim population there (up 44% in the last decade, now 6.5% of the total UK populace, and 15% of London), and the concomitant growing resistance to assimilating to traditional British culture and values does not bode well for individual liberty going forward.

I’ve known and befriended many “westernized” Muslims across my years. No different from you and I, they live modern lives and enjoy and respect the notions of individual liberty and equal rights. They contribute to the melting-pot enhancement of our culture.

They, like the 80% of Muslims worldwide who are not “Islamist,” are not the problem.

The issue is with those who reject Western values of liberty and individualism in favor of the regressive and repressive theocratic ways of what we can loosely call radical Islam. Whether it be the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia, the mad mullahs of Iran, or their kindred spirits, that subset of the world’s second largest religion is where the problem lies, and it’s a subset that has been offshoring its ways for decades. When I see some angry activist talking head arguing that the West has problems because ‘we fail to control our women,’ I know there’s no common ground to find.

That the UK's Best-and-Brightest are cut from the same illiberal cloth just reinforces the conclusion.

If you are one to play the game and toe the line, you might take comfort in the surveillance and speech-nanny state. If you are wealthy, well-connected, well-known, and on the correct political team, you might actually enjoy a fascistic State making sure that nine-year-olds don't say "retard" and that people's inner thoughts are being policed when they are of the wrong sort. But, it's not a menu. You don't get to choose which infringements of liberty the State will pursue, and you don't get to opt out of those you don't like.

And, if you are a gay woman moving to the UK with your gay wife, I don't imagine you'll be all that thrilled with the religious zealotry of unassimilated Islam. From where I sit, I see far more chance that the UK will eventually morph into some Islamic equivalent of Margaret Atwood's Gilead than America would, despite all the Handmaid-attired panickers that have paraded around in recent weeks over here.

I think the Europe we know is ****ed. Between the moribund economic growth born of their nanny/welfare state politics, the entitlement mentality, the catastrophically low native fertility rates, the massive influx of unassimilated migrants, the abandonment of principles of individual liberty, and a governing class that sees itself as masters rather than public servants, I figure the Continent will continue its decay. The big Western economies are about to get jolted by the expectation and need to actually spend on their own defense, rather than rely on Pax Americana (something that I railed about before Trump even came on the scene, and one of the things I very much look forward to Trump-47 pushing for), which means that their welfare states will no longer be as underwritten by American taxpayers, which means that the entitlement mentality is about to get a cold bucket of water. That's not going to go over well, and that's on top of all the stresses born of the unassimilated migrant influxes I've already mentioned.

This is what Ellen is choosing over America.

Successful comics tend to be smart and insightful. But not always.