Among the parental aphorisms that most annoyed us as children was “give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.” It was so frustrating because we knew our parents had our number; they were absolutely right. If they let us get away with something merely stupid, we’d go full stupid in a heartbeat. Teachers know all about this part of human nature too. Never go full stupid. Like England:

Graphic: X Screenshot

Biologically male transgender officers for the British Transport Police (BTP) are now allowed to strip-search female suspects, according to a report from The Telegraph.

Guidance drawn up by the BTP, seen by the paper, reportedly states that transgender officers who identify as women can conduct strip searches of women provided that the officer has received a gender recognition certificate (GRC).

A GRC must surely remove all pleasure men get from strip-searching women. After all, it’s government approved and regulated.

The guidance, which was approved in September, states: “British Transport Police recognises the status of transgender and non-binary detainees/staff from the moment they permanently identify in that gender with or without a GRC.

“This means that even when a person has not legally changed their sex, we should continue to use the correct pronouns and recognise the person’s gender. BTP officers/staff will only search persons of the same sex as either their birth certificate or GRC.”

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Oh, but that’s far from all:

Separately, the BTP has also reportedly determined that staff can wear the “uniform in whichever gender they choose” and are allowed to use the changing rooms and showers of the gender they identify with.

It appears we were more forward thinking than we knew when we kicked the British back across the Atlantic way back when. England these days is jailing people for speech, as well as letting male cops molest women. Perhaps we ought to be reconsidering our “special relationship” with the Brits, who seem to be abandoning at shocking speed the individual liberties they bequeathed. The British have been a surveillance state, with cameras everywhere for decades, supposedly for public safety. That was several inches. That should have been a warning to the British and damned well better be a warning to us.

Why should we care about what the British are doing to their female crooks? Well, possibly because they’re arresting all manner of people who haven’t violated the laws of any civilized people, and because what they’re doing is an abject lesson about the dangers of totalitarianism. It’s always best to learn from the mistakes of others rather than dealing with the consequences of our own mistakes. We aren’t far from the citizens of innumerable countries realizing they no longer want to come to America, because it is little different than the oppressive regimes under which they live.

Imagine Donald Trump wasn’t reelected. Imagine further the House and Senate fell to Democrat/socialist/communist (D/s/c) control. Remember how hard D/s/cs have been working to eliminate the Constitution. Here’s what we would have been facing, what we could face in the future:

*No First or Second Amendment. Imprisonment without due process for speech government doesn’t like, and mass disarmament. Mao was right: political power does come from the barrel of a gun. That’s why we have the Second Amendment; that’s why D/s/cs want to abolish it.

*No electoral college.

*No voter integrity laws whatever.

*A Supreme Court doing nothing but rubber-stamping ruling party mandates.

*A Congress doing the same.

*Only federal law enforcement.

*No state’s rights; no local control.

*Only government approved “news.”

*No parental rights. Kids could abort or transition without parental knowledge or consent. Kids seized from parents with the wrong political beliefs.

*A DEI society with lengthy jail sentences for failing to use proper pronouns or demonstrate proper deference to favored victim/identity groups.

*Communist-style rule by terror and force.

*All the joys of a communist state, including political prisoners, torture, and the disappearing of anyone the state dislikes.

*Press gangs to feed the war machine.

You don’t have to imagine the rest. It’s history, and it’s happening across the world right now. Oh, come on! D/s/cs would never do all that! Wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t people who call Normal Americans “domestic terrorists,” “white supremacists,” “insurrectionists,” “nazis,” “existential threats” and worse be morally and practically justified in doing whatever was necessary to suppress such horrible, subhuman monsters? They certainly think so.

To be sure, these measures wouldn’t happen immediately, but who could have imagined they’d ever happen in England, a democracy that has turned at horrifying speed into the “our democracy” D/s/cs want to protect and expand here?

To paraphrase George Santayana, those who will not learn from even recent history are doomed to repeat it. England proves the worst is always possible when a people are willing to give government an inch.

Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.