Kung Fu Fighting is now illegal?

In a move that will have karaoke bar owners everywhere shivering in fear and tears of potential lost profits, evidently it's now illegal to sing that old stand-by, "Kung Fu Fighting", in public.

Or at least that's the case in Britain, depending on who happens to be walking by.

Yes, that strange country with mixed-up laws is at it again.

According to the Daily Mail (h/t: Hot Air), pub singer Simon Ledger was arrested for singing the legendary kitschy song, "Kung Fu Fighting." Ledger regularly plays the song, originally by disco favourite Carl Douglas, and has never had any trouble.

But not this time.

Apparently, two Chinese people were walking outside the pub where Ledger was singing, and they were offended by it.

They later reported him to police, and he was arrested on suspicion of "racially aggravated harassment."

The police later called him while he was eating at a Chinese restaurant (there's irony!) and set up a meeting, where they promptly arrested him.

Even the police officers were a bit iffy on this, but they did what the law says they have to do.

Is this nuts, or what?

"A Hampshire police spokesman last night said a 32-year-old man of Chinese origin had claimed he was subjected to racial abuse.

He added: 'If a victim believes that an alleged crime is racially aggravated, the police will treat it seriously. Investigations into this incident are continuing.'"

Apparently, this need to take everything that may even potentially be considered racial seriously means that they can't employ common sense.

This is almost worse than the Zero Tolerance policies that I wrote about a while back. These policies make it so that authorities don't even have to think. Instead, they can just quote the "letter of the law" and go about their merry way, meanwhile making life hell for the rest of the sane people on the planet.

(Keep in mind that I'm not talking about the police officers here, since they have to do their duty. Instead, I mean the fact that this wasn't thrown out as soon as it was heard by any kind of magistrate)

Where does this end?

According to the BBC, Ledger was released because there "wasn't enough evidence" to conclude that he had racial motivations in singing the song. That could have been cleared up in 10 minutes, not in forcing Ledger to go to the police station.

But don't discount the chilling effect. How many karaoke bars might remove this from the playlist because of the even remote possibility that something similar may happen?

Remove it because it's a horrible (though, admittedly, kinda fun) song. Not because it's racist.

When everything becomes racist, then the word really loses its meaning.

We're heading down that slope.

Really fast.