Scotland's Hate Crime and Public Order Act 2021 came into effect on April 1st 2024. Given how egregiously it violates the principles of free expression and limited government, it seems especially apt that it came into effect on April Fool's Day, like a cruel joke. While the 2021 Act keeps in place significant aspects of Scotland's hate crime laws, such as the offence of incitement to hatred based on race and ethnicity, and the category of offences "aggravated by prejudice" against disability, race, and a range of other protected characteristics, it introduces a number of important innovations that bring the act into a head-on collision with the ethos of a free and open society, at least as that ethos has been widely understood up to very recently in the West.
Nice summary! I don't understand how people end up (or start out!) believing that they can legislate morality. The idea that you can change people's thoughts by writing a law. Do they not see that this doesn't work? Do they not see the unintended consequences? Or do they just not care?
Nice summary! I don't understand how people end up (or start out!) believing that they can legislate morality. The idea that you can change people's thoughts by writing a law. Do they not see that this doesn't work? Do they not see the unintended consequences? Or do they just not care?