Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) has introduced a bill that could make political criticism of non-white individuals by white people a federal crime.

You read that correctly.

The convoluted-- yet potentially extremely dangerous-- bill proposes that a white person who “vilifies” any non-white person, and whose words subsequently end up on social media, could themselves be guilty of committing a federal crime if those words were accessible by “persons who are predisposed to engaging in any action in furtherance of a white supremacy inspired hate crime.” Huh?

Who decides what constitutes a “white supremacy-inspired hate crime” under this proposed statute? Sheila Jackson Lee? Adam Schiffhead? If the left considers words themselves “violence” now, might saying “Sheila Jackson Lee is an ignoramus” be considered a “white supremacy-inspired hate crime” on a stand-alone basis? What constitutes “vilification” or political criticism? You can bet it will only and always fall to “progressives” to decide, with no agreed-upon limiting principle.

The proposed legislation, H.R. 61, is labeled the “Leading Against White Supremacy Act of 2023.” The LAWS Act, get it?

If someone were, unbeknownst to me, to commit a “white supremacy-inspired hate crime” against a person that I have “politically criticized” on social media (such as a post on American Thinker) at some point in the past, however justifiably, would I then have committed a federal crime myself? It appears that would be the case.

So, if I were to state that “The Squad” is to Congress as “The View” cohosts are to intelligent dialogue, or that Sheila Jackson Lee is a vile, race-baiting, authoritarian, I could be brought up on federal charges. For telling the truth. Screw the First Amendment. Yet the vile, race-baiting authoritarian—and her ilk--  can say whatever the hell they want about Donald Trump (and family), Republicans, conservatives, Christians, and “white people,” also called “honkeys,” “deplorables,” etc., in general with no repercussions? That seems fair, just, equitable, inclusive, and anti-racist, does it not?

Yet if I were to call Adam Schiff, Larry Nadler, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, Hillary and Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Chuck Schumer, Eric Swalwell, Peter Strzok, John Brennan, et al. “vile lying traitorous scum”—in other words if I were to tell the truth again —I would be O.K. under this proposed law. (Though I’d likely be savaged—or worse-- by those I just named.)

This proposed bill, were it to become law, would be used by leftists to prohibit valid political criticism of any non-white person or group-- such as Black Lives Matter or Sheila Jackson Lee-- because such criticism could leave those levying it liable to federal charges. 

Free speech? Freedom of the press? Quaint, anachronistic notions of a bygone era.

Many revile the occasional gridlock of a two-party system. Well, your time may have arrived. If this bill passes, welcome to a one-party state.

I wonder when the rest of us will feel “vilified” enough to successfully push back on this blatantly hypocritical, racist, authoritarian attack on democracy and sanity?

Image: AFGE, via Flickr (cropped) // CC BY 2.0