The UK police picked the wrong elderly cancer patient to badger for exercising her right to freedom of speech.
Whatever Deborah Anderson said on social media, it wasn’t harsh enough to justify clapping on the irons and hauling her away. Just a knock on the door and a polite request to Do the Right Thing. But polite in the way a mailed fist in a marshmallow glove is polite.
Anderson: “I’m a member of the Free Speech Union and I’m an American citizen.… I’ll have Elon Musk on you so quick your feet won’t touch.… You’re here because somebody got upset? Is it against the law? Am I being arrested?”
Officer: “You’re not being arrested.”
Anderson: “Then what are you doing here?”
“My plan was, if you were admitting that it was you who wrote the comment, you could just make an apology to the person.”
“I’m not apologizing to anybody. I can tell you that.”
“The alternative would be that I have to call you in for an interview.…”
Somebody complained to the police, and somehow that’s enough all by itself, regardless of the nature of the complaint, for the police of the United Kingdom to leap into nonsensical action.
Anderson then asked whether there are “no houses that have been burgled recently? No rapes, no murders?” Good question, but ineffectual. Not his task at the moment, the officer said.
At least we can be proud of one of these two interlocutors.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Illustration created with Krea and Fireflly
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2 replies on “Apology Request Denied”
The new Gestapo
And they say they can prosicute Americans in the U.S., too.
That could get *interesting*.