Do We Really Want “Thought Police?”
June 21, 2014
In the 1940s, novelist George Orwell penned a chilling, futuristic novel entitled Nineteen Eighty-Four. Having observed the expansion of oppressive, totalitarian governments during his lifetime, Orwell projected a future society in which individual freedoms would be forfeited to full control by the state. One of the features of the totalitarian government was a force of people charged with assuring that anyone expressing ideas contrary to the official positions would be silenced. He coined the term, “Thought Police,” to describe this organization.
Policing the thoughts of the population has long been a prime totalitarian principle. In Nazi Germany, the thought police were called the Gestapo. In Tsarist Russia, they were the dreaded Okharanka. In Stalin’s Soviet Union, the NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) policed thought. Militaristic Japan of the 1930s and 1940s, the Tokubetsu Koto Keisatsu suppressed improper thought. In Communist East Germany, the STASI (Ministry of State Security) dealt with contrary thinkers. In Mussolini’s Fascist Italy, the function fell to the OVRA.
Improper thought could result in severe penalties for the offenders. In Japan, the state’s initial response was “re-education.” In Italy, huge quantities of castor oil might be poured down their throats. In the Soviet Union and Tsarist Russia, relocation to Siberia or a bullet in the back of the brain were common remedies. In Nazi Germany, thought offenses might range from confinement in a labor camp to being hung with piano wire from a meat hook.
When I first heard the term, “political correctness” in the 1970s, a chill ran up my spine. As you may have gathered from my writings, I am a history buff. Having lived seven decades and eight years on this earth, I have personally observed a pretty wide swath of history. The very idea that opinions contrary to popular consensus should be condemned and suppressed is anathema to everything I believe about individual freedom and liberty.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution clearly states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech (emphasis added), or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution further states that, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated?” Is anything so central to a person than their very own ideas and opinions?
To me, the idea that the populous should be coerced into conforming to some conventional wisdom determined by the political elites is clearly a totalitarian concept. To those who would argue that the purposes of “political correctness” are themselves laudable, I would answer that, “the ends justify the means,” is also a totalitarian concept. Read Arthur Koestler’s classic condemnation of totalitarianism, Darkness at Noon, which concludes, “the ends have become the means, and darkness has come over the land.”
The Constitution guarantees freedom of speech. There is no constitutional protection of freedom from being offended. Not very long ago, we celebrated the concept of “competition in the marketplace of ideas” in this country. This is not a right-wing concept. When Hillary Clinton was First Lady, she chided college students for shouting down speakers with whom they did not agree. Freedom of speech court decisions have actually cited the quotation once attributed to the French philosopher, Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it…”
Most people are offended by something. I have written about being offended by excess profanity in today’s speech, but I wouldn’t support a law against it. Like former Virginia Senator Jim Webb, I am offended by the epithet, “redneck.” We are both of Scots-Irish ancestry. The term, “redneck,” originally meant Scots-Irish Protestant supporters of William of Orange in his wars against the Stuart Pretenders. Both Protestant and Catholic militias fought in these wars. The Protestants wore red bandanas to distinguish them from the Catholic militias. The term soon became applied to all Scots-Irish. It was not meant to be disparaging. But neither Senator Webb nor I urge the banning of the word from the language.
One further thing that offends me is that defenders of “political correctness” tend to belittle and ridicule those who disagree with them. Their attitude seems to be, if you don’t agree, you are obviously stupid, uneducated, ignorant, or just plain deluded. In adopting such an attitude, they attempt to make their ideas look good by questioning their adversary’s qualifications to even have an opinion. To me, such attitudes are not worthy of respect.
To those who might not agree with what I think, I say, “Argue your case and try to convince me that I am wrong.” Compete in the “marketplace of ideas.” Don’t condemn me or belittle me because I don’t happen to agree with you.
We do not need “Thought Police!”
The Thought Police
Special Higher Police (Tokubetsu Koto Keisatsu), often shortened to Tokko was a police force established in 1911 in Japan, specifically to investigate and control political groups and ideologies deemed to be a threat to public order. Its main function was as a civilian counterpart to the military’s Kempeitai and Tokkeitai, and it can be considered roughly equivalent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States in terms of combining both criminal investigation and counter-espionage functions. It has been less charitably compared to the Nazi Gestapo secret police. The Tokko was also known as the “Peace Police” (Chian Keisatsu), or more notoriously by the term “Thought Police” (Shiso Keisatsu), a phrase later used in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.
The High Treason Incident of 1910 was the stimulus for the establishment of the Tokko under the aegis of the Home Ministry. With the Russian Revolution, unrest at home due to the Rice Riots of 1918, increase in strikes and labor unrest from the labor movement, and Samil Uprising in Korea, the Tokko was greatly expanded under the administration of Hara Takashi, and subsequent prime ministers. The Tokko was charged with suppressing “dangerous thoughts” that could endanger the state. It was primarily concerned with anarchism, communism, socialism, and the growing foreign population within Japan, but its scope gradually increased to include religious groups, pacifists, student activists, liberals, and ultrarightists.
After the passage of the Peace Preservation Law of 1925, the power of the Tokko was expanded tremendously, and it expanded to include branches in every Japanese prefecture, major city, and overseas locations with a large Japanese population (including Shanghai, London and Berlin). In the late 1920s and 1930s, the Tokko launched a sustained campaign to destroy the Japanese Communist Party with several waves of mass arrests of known members, sympathizers and suspected sympathizers (March 15 incident).
The Tokko was composed of six departments (Special Police Work, Foreign Surveillance, Koreans in Japan, Labor Relations, Censorship, Arbitration). In 1927, a sub-bureau was added, the Thought Section of the Criminal Affairs Bureau, to deal with the study and suppression of subversive ideologies. The Tokko made use of both uniformed and non-uniformed officers, along with a large network of informants. These informants were often undercover officers infiltrating suspect organizations and acting as agents provocateur, or voluntary informants from Tonarigumi neighborhood associations. Counter-espionage activities also included monitoring external telephone and radio communications inside or outside Japan and nearest areas.
By 1936, the Tokko had arrested 59,013 people, of whom 5000 had been brought to trial; about half of those received prison sentences. Prisoners were forced to write accounts of how they had become involved with “dangerous ideologies,” rewriting these essays until their interrogators were happy with the work. These works then were used to prove their criminal involvement. The Tokko was abolished in October 1945 by the Allied Occupation authorities. This directly led to prince Naruhiko Higashikuni’s resignation as prime minister.
Is TOKKO basically our NSA?
