Baltimore City's Creeping Fascism

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command"

“In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense.”

• George Orwell, 1984

Baltimore City’s break with reality is continuing apace.

New anti-discrimination legislation was signed into law recently by City Mayor Brandon Scott:

Mayor Brandon Scott and other Baltimore City officials have signed a bill that expands protections for the LGBTQIA+ community, according to the mayor's office.

Baltimore City Council Councilman Kristerfer Burnett, LGBTQ Affairs Director Londyn Smith de Richelieu and other city officials signed the bill, which is called Unlawful Practices—Discrimination Based on Characteristics or Status.

OK, that sounds great right? I mean, what could be wrong with anti-discrimination laws right?

Well….

Additionally, the bill prohibits the willful use of the incorrect name or pronouns of an individual under certain circumstances, according to the bill's language.

That’s right. If you don’t call a biological male a female, or a tree, or a six-year old girl because that’s what you identify as, you are breaking the law.

The language of the new law in multiple sections reads something similar to this:

FOR ANY EMPLOYER, EMPLOYMENT AGENCY, OR LABOR ORGANIZATION TO WILLFULLY AND REPEATEDLY USE AN INDIVIDUAL’S INCORRECT NAME OR PRONOUNS AFTER BEING CLEARLY INFORMED OF THE INDIVIDUAL’S CORRECT NAME OR PRONOUNS, UNLESS OTHERWISE REQUIRED BY LAW.

Who determines what a correct name is? Who knows. Who determines what the correct pronoun is? The individual who is being “discriminated” against.

It gets worse. Because the new law amends the Community Relations section of the City Code, those who commit such “offenses” face fines of up to $1,000, with escalating fines for “repeat offenses”.

So now, in Baltimore City, it is a legal requirement to deny reality and to deny science. It is a legal requirement to identify somebody as whatever they seem to think they are, notwithstanding the obvious contradictory evidence that tells as reasonable person otherwise.

The most maddening thing of the whole bit, other than the insults to everybody’s intelligence, is the fact that there is a section that clearly says “unless otherwise required by law.” That kind of blows up the entire charade, does it not? If there are already laws on the books that require somebody to be identified by their legal name or their scientifically accurate gender, how can somebody be held legally liable for identifying them as anything other than their legal name or their scientifically accurate gender?

Let’s call this new law what it is; it’s fascist. It is something straight out of 1984, akin to telling the people of Oceania that 2+2=5. Combined with the corporatist subsidizing of big tech, lackadaisical approach to fixing schools, and no leadership on solving crime, the creeping fascism of the Baltimore City Government is starting to become eerily apparent.

Speaking of 1984, in the appendix to the book Orwell wrote:

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible.

I challenge Mayor Brandon Scott and the Baltimore City Council to explain how this new law is any different from the fascistic nature of the regime in 1984.