No no, spend three months in an untraceable maze of ICE holding facilities, then to jail, then deported to a 'shithole' country that you didn't come from in the first place.
My social media is full of rants about the ongoing trend of bringing fascism to the US and the authoritarian and repressive tendencies of the current president.
You are suppressing free speech of fascists by doing that. Your speech might make them feel bad and free speech is defined by your willingness to defend fascists.
As an enemy to free speech, you wont be allowed in.
Considering that fascism is the de facto political ideology of the administration and the people who elected it, being against it would definitively be seen as "Anti-American" which seems to be something that is about to become illegal, and probably labeled as "terrorism" in the near future. See https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/coun...
Edit: Ah, and of course, I forgot the most obvious pointer; being against fascism in the US literally labels you as a "domestic terrorist" for some reason, although the US traditionally been against fascism up until this point. What, why and how people are accepting the whole "If you're against fascists, you're a terrorist" charade will probably forever be a mystery to me. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/desi...
All the cases of people being turned away at the border over social media posts that I have seen reported were about illegal work. I am afraid even the CBP agents might not be bored enough to read some rando's political screeds. But it's impossible to tell for sure as your admission is solely the matter for the officer who would be handling your arrival.
What does this link have to do with what I wrote? There is not even the word "border" mentioned in the article. This article talks about canceled visas, not people denied entry at the border.
You think the same government that will kick people out of the country for saying something they don’t agree with will let people in the country for saying something they don’t agree with?
Canceling a visa does not kick anyone out of the country as far as I know.
And the article says their visas were revoked for celebrating death of Americans, it surely is "something they don't agree with" but your implication that it happens for anything they don't agree with is poorly thought through. Unless you really think celebrating someone's death is a regular thing normal people do, in that case you probably are a psychopath.
>Besides, why would you want to come if you don’t like it here?
There's a difference between saying that you disagree with the way that a country is being run, and wanting to be violent or pursue criminal activity against that country or its people.
What you're missing is that the former should be legal in any democracy (and is in the UK), and the latter shouldn't be legal anywhere (and isn't in the UK).
You're claiming the UK lacks "freedom of speech" because it doesn't allow people to incite violence online, while saying the USA has free speech, despite it seemingly rejecting visitors for legal political speech.
'You're claiming the UK lacks "freedom of speech" because it doesn't allow people to incite violence online, while saying the USA has free speech, despite it seemingly rejecting visitors for legal political speech.'
Voicing support for the group Palestine Action has been met with quite harsh responses in the UK, even though that group is arguably non-violent in that its criminal actions are directed towards property with the aim of slowing actual violence.
There are other similar developments in UK state policy.
The accused person claims to have panicked due to how the police were interfering. If I understand the article correctly the cop was off work for three months due to the injury.
> You're claiming the UK lacks "freedom of speech" because it doesn't allow people to incite violence online, while saying the USA has free speech, despite it seemingly rejecting visitors for legal political speech.
Free speech means the country must tolerate what citizens say; it does not mean the country can't exercise its discretion over its borders to bar entry to foreigners who say things citizens don't like.
To the contrary, it's pro-democratic. In a healthy democracy, people should be able to vote to create the kind of society they want. That includes being able to exclude, through their government, outsiders who don't share their values.
Is it not chilling if government can proscribe the things that you say for other people, as if your position is one the government can directly oppose and call illegitimate?
I suspect those who find it chilling also perceive a weak distinction between citizens and visitors. For people who see that difference as foundational, differing treatment of those two groups is not chilling.
That's certainly a stance you can take, but it's not one I'd expect to see from a US administration that's repeatedly (including from the president less than 48 hours ago) got on its high horse to criticise what it perceives as a government crackdown on freedom of speech in European countries.
When the US criticizes Europe for free speech and political suppression, you can be sure they're complaining because the criminalization of literal Naziism harms Trump's allies.
> Besides, why would you want to come if you don’t like it here?
Family, work, others in the group who enjoy it, the level of enjoyment might still be above the level of frustration, wanting to help, emergencies, etc. I could think of many reasons one would want to go to a country even though you disagree with ~50% the population + current leaders.
I've been in North Korea as an example, but I'd never claim to support the ideas and politics of their leader(s).
Reductionism is the sign of a lack of nuance, I speak badly of the USA but still would like to attend a friend's wedding if they choose to have it there. It doesn't mean I don't have contempt for how the country is being run, or how its society is quite flawed, saying those things don't make me an enemy of the state nor do I hate and dislike every single person and thing from there.
This lack of nuance is exactly one of the major flaws of American society, it's either team red or blue, in-group or out-group, black-and-white thinking is rather childish...
Sure, be one-sided if that's how you want to live you life. The rest of us will continue with nuance, and talk to people we disagree about, and favor freedom of expression above conformity. But again, you do you, I'm not asking you to change your opinion, just understand that many value other values.
> A vast majority of people aren’t happy about what’s going on.
What makes you say that? Granted, I'm just an outside observer trying to see what's going on, but since the majority isn't protesting as far as I can tell, it doesn't seem like the majority doesn't care too much currently. Probably most people are in a dire enough situation that they cannot afford to protest, and are busy enough trying to figure out how to re-organize their living situation.
> A vast majority of people aren’t happy about what’s going on.
Because Trump hasn't gotten prices to pre-Biden levels like he promised, not because of what he's doing at the border. Trump has a 49% approval rating on immigration, 50% on "returning America to its values," and 51% on "fighting crime in America's cities." https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/HHP... (page 9).
51% of the country, including 32% of democrats, support "us[ing] the National Guard and active-duty military to police American cities and stop crime and disorder." (Page 23)
Yeah, turns out the government taking a strong-arm approach to managing private industry and enforcing cultural cohesion is not necessarily a bad thing.
Half things people criticize the current administration for enforcing wouldn't fly in China either (and more), but the real and final blackpill is we really should be copying them in more ways than one.
And we don't even have things like hidden police officers stalking influencers that conveniently drop by to check on them when they show something problematic on stream. (See: Hasan's recent trip to China, where officers surrounded him to check his phone within 30 seconds of him showing a Xi Jinping meme to his stream)
Everything that a certain population of the US correlated with the color Blue dislikes is considered hate speech by them, so things become impractical. Thankfully there are fewer and fewer snowflakes.
I mean, a quick search of all of these people, and you can find something which absolutely warranted police investigation. That's the police doing what they're meant to do — investigate and ensure public safety.
- Jon Richelieu-Booth was investigated for stalking and making threats. The gun photo was not part of the police investigation.
- Jordan Parlour was charged for suggesting attacking hotels housing asylum seekers.
- Bernadette Spofforth was investigated for distributing misinformation with the intent to incite violence.
- Lucy Connolly for exactly what you say, inciting violence
- Norbert Gyurcsik had and was selling terrorist materials. (Just because you pair something illegal in a melody doesn't change its content...)
(With the exception of Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levine, which was an unlawful arrest and they were had restitution for it.)
> - Jon Richelieu-Booth for posting a picture of himself with a gun in the US
A quick search suggests that the photo with the gun wasn't the sole cause of the arrest, given there were stalking allegations "involving serious alarm or distress" from someone he had a conflict with, where the gun was one part of what caused the complainint to (claim to) feel threatened. Police may well have overreacted due to the gun post, but your framing leaves out rather relevant details.
> - Jordan Parlour for Facebook posts that were deemed ‘hateful.’
Appears to have incited violence by advocating an attack on a hotel, something he pleaded guilty to.
> - Bernadette Spofforth for a post with a “mild inaccuracy”
Was arrested for posting a fake name for an attacker, but released and faced no further action.
Calling potentially putting a target on the back of someone innocent by connecting them to a violent crime a "mild inaccuracy" is at best wildly misleading.
> Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levine
These people did get a wrongful arrest payout, but the claim was most certainly not just raising concerns in a private parent's WhatsApp group. The claims including harassment, and causing a nuisance on the school premises. The claim was still wrong, and the payout reflects that the police should not have been so quick to believe the allegations before making an arrest. But your claim is still hyperbole.
> - Lucy Connolly, for a post calling for mass deportation and to set fire to hotels housing immigrants
At least in this one you admitted the arrest was over incitement to violence.
> - Norbert Gyurcsik, for having “extreme right wing music”
No, for buying and distributing albums whose lyrics breach terrorism legislation and intended to incite racial hatred.
I have plenty of issues with UK terror legislation, which I believe is being abused to shut down legitimate speech at times, but framing this the way you did is again wildly misleading and hyperbolic.
But even if none of your claims were wildly misleading, none of them support your initial claim:
> You are allowed to say it. Unlike UK, you won’t be arrested. But you won’t be allowed in.
... about a comment referring to criticism of the government.
None of the cases above were relevant to that. Most of them are relating to classes of speech that are not protected in the US either.
This is hysterical. What actions is it you imagine the UK government would have taken to disadvantage me in secret because of what I've said about them that have been so inconsequential that I haven't noticed them?
1: I'm guessing it's mostly in blue states?
2: I think there's a real desire to sort of go hard on eliminating globalization in all ways. "America is for Americans" and all that. I think the ideology trumps economics considerations.
There's no right to entry at US borders; you can be arbitrarily refused (or much worse) for any subjective suspicion.
(And you are misled by assumptions of privilege, any readers who think this could never happen to you. Your social non-conformity (rejection of social media) is quirky and geeky and completely harmless; and surely the nice government man will understand this).