Who in the Western world is being charged with, convicted of, and punished for “thought crimes”? Be specific, please.

jesse_dot_id 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Well currently, it's people being denied entry or re-entry to the United States due to the content of their social media accounts. Also, people getting door-knocked by the FBI for making posts on Reddit.

Historically, there won't be trials for this when it gets worse, so there won't be anyone charged or convicted. They will eventually just be murdered by a secret police force.

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otterley an hour ago | parent [-]

You’re not being criminally charged and convicted of a thought crime in this situation. You’re just not welcome to join the party. Big difference. Foreigners have no right to enter the USA other than by what the law permits.

Now, I don’t necessarily agree that we should be denying visas to people based on reasonable disagreements with US policy—after all, existing citizens are entitled to share those same opinions! But “crime” means something, and that’s not what this is.

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dboreham an hour ago | parent [-]

Uh what? Where's all that "freedom" we heard about for the last 80 years?

	▲	otterley an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Marketing, largely. But indeed Americans are free to think and write as they please without criminal consequences. They certainly have more protections than the British do (especially around defamation).

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rileymat2 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It is a bit different than what we are discussing, but intent plays a huge role in Western justice. The same physical action can lead to vastly different outcomes.

A high profile interesting example of this is the assassination attempt on Brett Kavanaugh. If you look at the details none of the actions would have been an attempt if not for the intent.

It is an interesting thought experiment as to how many actions you have to take for a crime that you don’t commit to be charged as an attempt or more broadly as conspiracy and at what point people are allowed to change their mind. We see this in terrorism cases pretty frequently.

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	▲	otterley 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> The same physical action can lead to vastly different outcomes. Well, yeah, that’s kind of obvious once you realize that tools can be used for multiple purposes. A hammer can be used to pound both nails (legal) and smash a person’s head in (not). But the notion that “thought crimes” where people are being punished merely for their feelings and where no act in furtherance of the outcome has taken place is just baloney. At least in the West.