The totalitarian Nurse Ratched-type nannies who run Australia are currently sending an Australian citizen to prison for up to a year because he performed a forbidden hand gesture in public, which is now illegal.
Related: Australia Codifies ‘Misinformation’ Ban in Anti-Free Speech Law
To add insult to injury, the hanging judge called the sentence a “modest term of imprisonment” — as if there were anything moderate or temperate about sending people to prison in a nominally liberal democracy for doing this or that with their arms that the state doesn’t approve of.
Via ABC News (emphasis added):
“A self-described Nazi will become the first person in Australia sentenced to prison for performing an outlawed Nazi salute when a magistrate sets his term next month.
Magistrate Brett Sonnet told Jacob Hersant on Wednesday he will be sentenced to a “relatively modest term of imprisonment” at his next court appearance. “It will not be a severe term of imprisonment, but I have not determined the length,” Sonnet said.
Sonnet initially intended for Hersant to be taken into custody on Wednesday until his sentence was set on Oct. 23…
Hersant gave the salute and praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in front of news media cameras outside the Victoria County Court on Oct. 27, 2023. Hersant had just avoided a prison sentence on a conviction for causing violent disorder.
He gave the gesture six days after the Victoria state government made the Nazi salute illegal. The Federal Parliament passed legislation in December that outlawed nationwide performing the Nazi salute in public or to publicly display, or trade in, Nazi hate symbols.”
The delicious irony of the whole affair is that, had the governing authorities not tossed this man in prison for nonviolent speech, engendering righteous popular sympathy and indignation in the process, this gentleman would have gone on saluting Hitler in obscurity. For the fringe ideologue who genuinely cares primarily about advancing his cause, state persecution of this egregious degree is a godsend.
Via Britannica (emphasis added):
“Streisand effect, phenomenon in which an attempt to censor, hide, or otherwise draw attention away from something only serves to attract more attention to it. The name derives from American singer and actress Barbra Streisand’s lawsuit against a photographer in 2003, which drew attention to the photo she was suing to have taken off the Internet…
Scholars have noted that censorship often backfires when the public perceives an attempt by a powerful person or organization to repress free speech. It can incite public outrage, especially if the story involves an underdog. Moreover, attempted censorship can spur curiosity. The banning of books and websites, for instance, often drives further interest in them. People tend to want to judge for themselves what is objectionable about something that has been singled out for suppression.”
The ultimate takeaway here, though, is that the good people of Australia, at least in the near- to mid-term, are totally fucked (and have been since at least the onset of COVID totalitarianism) barring some kind of major popular revolt, and the rest of the West isn’t far behind.
Related: YouTube Adopts WHO ‘Medical Misinformation’ Censorship Regime
Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.
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