During the COVID pandemic, Michigan’s authoritarian decrees were some of the harshest in the land and now, the state’s ruling Democrats are set to make free speech a crime subject to severe penalties including prison time for the grave offense of hurting someone’s feelings.
Last week, the Michigan House passed the new legislation by a 59-50 vote, giving prosecutors sweeping new powers to prosecute “hate speech” the always vaguely defined term that has been increasingly used to punish and otherwise censor dissent and legitimate political speech in Western society that has on a global level, become unmoored from traditional values and is drifting ever faster into outright totalitarianism.
That totalitarianism has once again reared its head in the Wolverine State with the Democrat majority advancing House Bill 4474 which establishes that even “feeling threatened” is a crime that could lead to a $10,000 fine and five years behind bars.
“We know that at this time in history, extremism is on the rise. But also, our hate speech has translated into hate actions that put our most vulnerable populations at risk,” said Rep. Emily Dievendorf, a Michigan State Democrat.
(Video: YouTube/CBS Detroit)
“I’m sick of checking for hiding spots at the gay bar should a gunman open fire. I’m sick of my Chaldean constituents being murdered in their place of business. I’m sick of reading headlines about Mosques and Churches being desecrated … Michigan can be so much better, and it’s about time that we were,” said Michigan State Rep. Noah Arbit, the bill’s sponsor after Democrats exploited recent threats against an East Lansing synagogue as cover for their full frontal attack on the First Amendment.
State Rep. Steve Carra, a Republican, expressed his concern that the bill goes too far, telling CBS News Detroit, “Threats and violence and things of that nature and protecting against crime is certainly something that we absolutely should be doing in Michigan. But we shouldn’t be building that around an individual’s feelings of being frightened.”
“Scrap this bill. This is not a bill that we need for the state of Michigan,” he said.
The language about “feelings” is found in the legislation’s defining of “intimidation” as being the “willful course of conduct, involving repeated or continuing harassment of another individual that would cause a reasonable individual to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed, or molested, and that actually causes the victim to feel terrorized, frightened, or threatened.”
David Kallman, an attorney for the pro-liberty nonprofit Great Lakes Justice Center (GLJC) warned of the new law’s impact.
“Words are malleable,” he told the Epoch Times. “They can be redefined by whoever is in power.”
“Under the proposed statute, ‘intimidate and harass’ can mean whatever the victim, or the authorities, want them to mean. The focus is on how the victim feels rather than on a clearly defined criminal act. This is a ridiculously vague and subjective standard,” Kallman added.“The absence of intent makes no difference under this law. You are still guilty of the crime because the victim felt uncomfortable.”
“The bill will lead to the prosecution of conservatives, pastors, and parents attending a school board meeting for simply expressing their opposition to the liberal agenda,” he said.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer and her drunken lesbian attorney general Dana Nessel set the stage for the legislature’s crackdown with their gross abuses of power during the pandemic with draconian measures locking down the citizenry who were bullied into submission by the two Democrats and the Michigan state enforcement apparatus that they commanded.
Nessel was jubilant after the House passed the bill as business could soon be booming for her office.
Michigan will be a safer state for all our residents and visitors once these Hate Crimes bills are passed by the MI Senate and signed into law. Well done @NoahArbit! #PromiseKept https://t.co/N55SKwPuax
— Dana Nessel (@dananessel) June 20, 2023
Whitmer will certainly not hesitate to sign the new bill into law if it passes the Michigan Senate.
“We fully expect success in the Senate and all the way to the governor’s desk,” Rep. Dievendorf said.
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