European Parliament: It’s Time to Crack Down on ‘Offensive’ Speech

According to the Associated Press, the European Parliament has "granted special powers to the president to pull the plug on live broadcasts of parliamentary debate in cases of racist speech or acts and the ability to purge any offending video or audio material from the system."

The "offending" Member may also be fined up to $9,500.

This rule is frighteningly vague. "Defamatory, racist, or xenophobic language" could be interpreted by anyone in power as language with which they disagree or that they find personally offensive.

If the president of the European Parliament believes that talk of restricting immigration is xenophobic, he can pull the plug, delete the video, and fine the member who dared to offer a reasonable opinion.

This is reminiscent of a passage from George Orwell's 1984, which reads:

And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. "Who controls the past," ran the Party slogan, "controls the future; who controls the present controls the past."

[link to www.dailywire.com]