Man Arrested for Facebook Post That ‘Caused Anxiety’ – mercola.com

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09/09/22

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

  • A man in the U.K. was arrested and charged after a Facebook post “caused someone anxiety.” He was offered to have the charges reduced if he paid for and completed an inclusivity course
  • It seems common sense that on a platform where 2 billion people from around the world post thoughts and ideas, there will be things you don’t agree with. Yet, it appears that common sense is not being used when police are sent to arrest you for free speech
  • The U.K.’s Online Safety Bill seeks a “breathtaking” scope of power with limited judicial or parliamentary oversight; a powerful Washington think tank applauds this effort to protect free speech by limiting speech and wants it in the U.S.
  • The U.K. calls this removal of “lawful but harmful” content, which is another step in the removal of freedoms that is supported in part by those who have been compromised through motivated reasoning and have given in to mass formation
  • The global censorship and lockstep actions taken across the globe are in part coordinated through one company using strategies initially created by the tobacco industry. It is essential to know and understand how the Great Reset is coordinated in the effort to defeat this real threat to your freedom and livelihood

In the past two years, social media platforms, mainstream media and government agencies have practiced a variety of different forms of censorship. However, as you’ll see in this video, at the end of July 2022, the British police took censorship to a whole new level when they handcuffed a man in his home for reposting a meme on Facebook that “caused someone anxiety.”

Neil Oliver from GBN News,1 made an accurate and frightening comparison between what is happening in the world today and George Orwell’s books Animal Farm and 1984. It’s almost as if Orwell wrote the handbooks that the World Economic Forum has been following to the letter. Oliver wonders:2

“As the years go by, I wonder more and more if George Orwell wasn’t actually a time traveler for real. So right has he proven to be about where decisions made and actions taken in the 20th century would lead future generations. Animal Farm is a fable about communism. He predicted the abuse of trust and the exploitation of power once the pigs have control of the farm.”

In his commentary, Oliver summarized a scene from Orwell’s book, “Animal Farm,” in which the farm animals discover that the pigs are taking all the apples and milk for themselves.

When their selfish behavior comes to light, the pigs defend themselves, saying it has been scientifically proven that only pigs require milk and apples for good health. “You do not imagine, I hope, we are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege?” one of the pigs asks in Orwell’s book. “Many of us dislike milk and apples.”

The censorship and totalitarian regime that grew in Orwell’s Animal Farm happened with the cooperation of the other barnyard animals, who later grew to regret their actions. It was only through their cooperation that the pigs took power. In the same way, the technocratic elite today are gambling that fear will be enough of an incentive to motivate the masses to do the technocrats’ will.

Technocrats are taking advantage of motivated reasoning, which is one way that people use reasoning to deceive themselves. According to Psychology Today,3 people use biased reasoning when they are “confronted by contradictory information, especially on matters that directly relate to their comfort, happiness, and mental health. Rather than reexamining a contradiction, it’s much easier to dismiss it.”

Man Arrested for Causing Anxiety

In a YouTube video featuring Darren Brady, a 51-year-old veteran4 being hauled out of his home in handcuffs for reposted something on Facebook that someone decided was offensive, Brady asks, “Why am I in cuffs for something that he said, then I said?” The British police officer answers, “Someone has been caused anxiety based on your social media post. And that is why you’re being arrested.”5

According to the commentary that follows on the video, this is “the third time he’s been really naughty. When I say really naughty, I mean he’s put something else on Facebook or Twitter.” The man hasn’t “fiddled his taxes” or killed someone. Instead, he has exercised his right to free speech in a society where free speech is apparently no longer valued. In what can only be called common sense, the commenter goes on to say:6

“I’m not sure who decides what anxiety is … because I’ve always found the best thing to do if I see something I don’t like on Facebook I scroll past. It’s gone in a second and that way you don’t have to put up with it. Because I think when you’re dealing with a platform with 2 billion people saying what they think, you’re going to find loads of stuff you’re not going to agree with.”

Yet, it appears that the world has lost common sense. As mentioned, the meme Brady reposted was originally posted by someone else. As reported by MRCTV, the meme was a “swastika made out of pride flags. According to British authorities, the meme ironically meant to call out the left’s fascist, free-speech-killing LGBTQ agenda.”7

In other words, according to the British authorities, while the choice of imagery was questionable, the intent was to draw attention to the similarities between the lack of free speech under the Nazi regime and the “free-speech-killing LGBTQ agenda.”

Brady’s arrest and charges were based on a 1988 law that “send[ing] or deliver[ing] letters or other articles for the purpose of causing distress or anxiety”8 is a crime. Harry Miller, from FairCop.org.uk, was also arrested and charged for obstruction when he tried to prevent the officers from arresting Brady. According to Hampshire Constabulary, the officers felt the need to use handcuffs when they were prevented from entering Brady’s home to interview him about the offense.

Brady was told the criminal charge could be downgraded if he paid for and took an educational course on inclusivity. Whatever your feelings about what Brady posted, it does not negate the fact that he has the right to free speech.

The right to free speech isn’t easy as movie president Andrew Shepherd says at the end of the movie, “The American President.” Michael Douglas, who played the president, describes one price we pay for free speech:9

“America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You’ve gotta want it bad, ’cause it’s gonna put up a fight.’ It’s gonna say, ‘You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.’”

Britain Seeks More Censorship to Remove ‘Lawful but Harmful’

March 23, 2021,10 U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders broke from party lines and spoke out against Twitter’s ban of former President Trump, saying “yesterday it was Donald Trump who was banned and tomorrow it could be somebody else who has a very different point of view.” He also noted that it is risky to have a “handful of high-tech people” controlling speech in America.11

Sanders’ point is well taken. Who determines the point of view that is “wrong” in a country that proposes to value free speech?

Britain’s Parliament is seeking to take another step toward eliminating free speech under the guise of protecting its citizens from free speech. At issue is Britain’s Online Safety Bill,12 which was introduced to Parliament in June 2022. As of this writing, it is still in the House of Commons, before being sent to the House of Lords.

Although the bill is being applauded by children’s safety campaigns,13 it has come under fire from other organizations that recognize the unprecedented censorship powers it gives to the secretary of state and the Office of Communications (Ofcom).14 The briefing paper by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) calls this an unsafe bill and outlines the broad scope of power the Online Safety Bill gives to the Secretary of State and Ofcom.

In response to the briefing paper, the Rt. Hon. Lord Frost CMG said: “There is so much wrong with this bill that it is hard to know where to start, but the report rightly highlights the fact that it will mean some speech that is legal offline will effectively be impossible online.”15 Briefly, analysis by the IEA of the powers in the Bill include:16

  • The scope of the bill is “breathtaking,” and raises significant issues for free speech, privacy and innovation.
  • The secretary of state and Ofcom will have unprecedented powers to define and limit speech, with limited parliamentary or judicial oversight.
  • The definition of harmful speech can be easily expanded through a statutory instrument, depending on the priorities of the incumbent Secretary of State.
  • The Bill’s byzantine requirements will impose large regulatory costs, particularly on startups and smaller companies, and make it riskier to host content and develop innovative services.

While it may seem that this British parliamentary argument is not pertinent to the remainder of the world, it is important to note the academics who are applauding the move, including Mark MacCarthy, from the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings Institution, a public policy organization in Washington, D.C.17

In his analysis of the Online Safety Bill, he lauded the steps the British Parliament is taking to protect free speech by limiting speech, writing, “This systems approach is a promising way to reduce noxious but legal online material while preserving free expression.” In his estimation:18

“Parliament can still modify the details of this proposal, but the general outlines are clear enough to provide guidance for policymakers struggling with similar regulatory challenges and opportunities in the United States.”

Men and Women Have Died to Defend Your Right to Free Speech

We honor the deaths of the men and women in the military who died defending the right to live freely when we continue to take up that banner and defend our right to free speech at home. Unfortunately, many people have been affected by mass formation psychosis, which is a crowd phenomenon that was identified hundreds of years ago.

Two historical examples are the American and European witch-hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries, during which thousands of women were killed as “scapegoats of societies gone mad.”19

One of the earliest writings on mass formation, according to blogger Robert Malone,20 is an 1841 book titled, “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds,” which details “the irrational behaviors of crowds.” However, if you search for information on mass formation psychosis on Google, you won’t easily find answers to your questions as they’ve effectively been buried by Big Tech.

Outrageously, one of the “expert fact checkers”21 used by the AP to discredit Malone and mass formation psychosis is Jay Van Bavel, a New York University assistant professor of psychology and neural science who not only stated he had never heard of the phrase and could not find it in peer-reviewed literature, but also has encouraged the use of “behavioral science” to “nudge” and “motivate” people to obey the official COVID-19 narrative.

Mattias Desmet, professor of clinical psychology at the University of Ghent in Belgium, details the four conditions needed to achieve mass formation on a large scale, which includes cognitive dissonance and psychological pain — factors that often leave people desperate for change and a way to escape:22

  • Feelings of social isolation and being alone among a large number of people
  • Feelings that your life is pointless and meaningless
  • High levels of free-floating anxiety
  • High levels of free-floating frustration and aggression

People want to remove their feelings of social isolation and anxiety. Toward that end, mass formation involves obsessive focusing on a failure of the normal world or a particular event or person who becomes the focus of the attention — and the more absurd the narrative becomes, the better. Desmet explained in an interview:23

“The narrative that leads to the mass formation typically becomes more and more absurd, and the strange thing is that people don’t seem to notice this … The reason why people buy into the narrative is not, in the first place, because the narrative is correct or scientific or accurate.

The reason why people buy into the narrative is because it creates this new social bond. That’s why typically during mass formation, the people who don’t want to conform to the masses, who don’t go along with the narrative, are typically [accused of] lacking citizenship and solidarity.”

Desmet says that the more absurd the narrative and its surrounding measures become, the more successful they will be for a certain part of the population, usually about 30%, because the measures function as rituals, through which an individual shows that they are less important than the collective masses.24

How Is Censorship Being Coordinated?

I’ve written before about the Publicis Groupe,25,26 which is a global PR firm that appears to be at the center of a large network involving Big Tech, Big Pharma, the U.S. government, the World Economic Forum and global nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working in tandem to further the globalist Great Reset agenda.

In this short video, I explain the connections between many of the players who are at the center of The Great Reset and global takeover, which is designed to enslave the world. One country is no longer big enough, they must have it all. The elite are using many of the strategies initially created and developed by the tobacco industry and later honed by Monsanto.

As you might expect, when you’re trying to implement a global regime change, you need to exercise very serious control over both the media and public discussions. If you don’t, you might have a rebellion on your hands when people realize that what you’re doing is not in their best interest.

And, for that, you need some sort of centralized expert propaganda organization. Of course, you don’t want the manipulation to be glaringly obvious, so you set up a variety of NGOs, foundations, “public interest” organizations and “grassroots” groups to give the appearance of consensus between seemingly independent organizations.

Mainstream media survives from the revenue generated by advertisers. Groups like Publicis can feed stories to the media that support these advertisers. This is one way that Publicis and its clients have been able to control the narrative told by the media and across internet platforms. They have been able to virtually eliminate your ability to get the truth about many important issues.

Publicis describes itself as one of the world’s largest communications groups and as I describe in the video above, they represent large clients in Big Tech and Big Pharma. They help finance NewsGuard, which is a self-appointed fact-checking site that is helping to shut down websites with opinions that don’t fit the narrative. They are also partners with the World Economic Forum, the organization leading the global Great Reset.

I encourage you to watch this roughly 14-minute video in its entirety to gain a greater understanding of how mass formation has been coordinated across the globe. This is a key component and critical factor in defeating the threats to your freedom and livelihood.

 

Sources and References