Britain 2009 (are we in a police state?)

[e19896]

Aside from the normal crass comments there are and as expected some good thoughts here and the poll makes interesting viewing, of course this all by deflation, our own thoughts and dealings with the police.

There is one school of thought The Police kick of confrontation and some recent post to indymedia back this up:

www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/01/418797.html
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/01/419998.html
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/02/420982.html
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/02/421761.html
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/02/422077.html

I know for the person who can not be arsed to read it might seem much to seek others thoughts on this, but from my own view point one as urban explorer two as a very active anarchist, I would say we are in a very subtle form of police state, not one as we have seen in other places but none the less The Police have become more Political, of course this has always been a fact (dependent agreed on your view point) since there creation, it has been there role to protect and uphold The State.

We could throw around semantics, shout your a paranoid loon etc., but we only need to look around us to begin to understand where ae are at in Britain 2009 and like Mike Langridge I also wish I had not began to look into this, because the ugly truth of where we are is one should that be of concern for us all, no matter your political perspective.

 

[Azrael]

The Police have become more Political, of course this has always been a fact (dependent agreed on your view point) since there creation, it has been there role to protect and uphold The State.

Well they were charged with arresting gun-toting would-be revolutionaries, yes, but more often their job was to protect people and property, which benefitted everyone, but the poor most of all.

 

[ChrisFilter]

Not really, no. I regularly break quite serious laws and I barely register the police.

In fact, my experience is that they're pretty hands off. My car was broken into and they just told me to pop into some car crime walk-in thing. Lazy fuckers!

In my youth I got caught doing 105mph on the motorway, and another time in possession of 40 pills. Both times just ticked off and told not to be silly. I even got the bills back.

The police to me are just a crime ref number for insurance purposes agency.

 

[bhamgeezer]

I think we are becoming or are already a police state. It was just that before it was necessary to control with us force and threats of violence, now its easy to manipulate the way people think, the media being the main reason. The way we use language is subverted by the politically correct brigade anyway. All this labeling and sterotyping is going to be the end of us all.

I mean we are come to stage of apparent social enlightenment, yet political activism is at an all time low, people are more apathetic and powerless than ever. Occasionally the media gets on its high moral horse about something but usually this is just victimisation of some party, only very occasionally when is ousts a corrupt important person it does some good. Our sense of community only diminishes and we don't trust each other anymore. A population that is afraid is easy to bring to your will.

All the old-fashioned beliefs about civil liberties and the right of the individual to entirely determine his own destiny are dying away, the idea of the counter-terroism act would have look absurd pre-9/11. If the change from nations and empires built from force to our current capitalist system has told us anything, its far better to put people into the situation where they want what you want, than to attempt to make people do what you want with threats of punishment. Reward > Punishment.

 

[Azrael]

All the old-fashioned beliefs about civil liberties and the right of the individual to entirely determine his own destiny are dying away, the idea of the counter-terroism act would have look absurd pre-9/11.

Attacks on civil liberties are nothing new. The Prevention of Terrorism Act was passed in 1973. Governments have been interning people in Ireland for centuries (Gladstone blithely introduced what he termed "coercion", which amounted to locking people up on the say-so of the government) and as recently as the 1970s. The Defence of the Realm Act 1914 and Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939 featured terrifying powers of arbitary detention, especially the last one.

What is new are attacks on civil liberty wholly out-of-proportion to the actual threat, and downright useless in tackling the threat we face. I'd be amazed in 28 days detention without charge saved a single life, because however draconian police powers become, they can only be used when police know about terrorism, useless against surprise attacks.

The problem, I think, is that people have got used to having the state in most aspects of their lives. It's a deeply unfashionable view, but self-reliance can boost the instinct for liberty.

 

[radiohead]

we're not a proper police state.

we're becoming slowly more like one, but i mean, the cops are still unarmed in most of britain. or armed with sticks, i mean.

a better question, imo, is are we becoming state capitalist?

 

[Azrael]

Police being armed wouldn't swing it one way or the other. Police on the Continent and in every other common law country beside Ireland are armed, but the USA and Canada couldn't in the remotest stretch of the imagination be called police states. Unarmed police will save individual lives (and be unable to save others) but it's the rule of law and due process that affect society as a whole.

I'd love to see an unarmed constabulary, but the trade-off is fearsome laws against seriously assaulting the police officers, which the current elite have no interest in enacting.

 

[radiohead]

you're right, it doesn't make any fundamental difference.

 

[frogwoman]

the bandying around of the phrase 'police state' is a bit insulting to those that actually have lived under a police state or still do.

do we have a more repressive police and legislation than before, yes, imo.

are we living under the Stasi or similar (whatever its political hue), no.

this.

 

[jimadore]

The police are been used as bully boys and strike breakers.

 

[bluestreak]

Yes, I think we are. But politicians are clever. It's not like in V For Vendetta or 1984, they want us passive, well fed and entertained. But the powers are the same. They can do anything they like.

 

[Azrael]

They can do anything they like.

Which "they"? Right now the police can't even charge a suspect without the say-so of the CPS, and that can take months!

 

[frogwoman]

There's definitely a more authoritarian drift imo, people are more scared of the police and government than they would have been five or ten years ago. However, Britain is a long way from being a "police state" and people who say it is without qualifying it or adding anything to the discussion except vague paranoia just make themselves look like clowns.

 

[bluestreak]

Which "they"? Right now the police can't even charge a suspect without the say-so of the CPS, and that can take months!

Oh, well in that case I must have imagined most of the new laws passed in the last decade.

Whatever separation of powers that does exist are merely checks. If it becomes necessary the CPS will be revised. Charging suspects isn't necessary to break up demonstrations or quell criticism though, is it?

 

[frogwoman]

There is very little separation of powers in Britain if at all, if anything that's one thing the US system does better than ours. A lot better.

 

[bluestreak]

So are we making a distinction between a police state and an authoritarian state where effective protest and criticism from outside the mainstream is barred?

 

[bluestreak]

There is very little separation of powers in Britain if at all, if anything that's one thing the US system does better than ours. A lot better.

I know.

Fat lot of good it does the Seps.

 

[frogwoman]

I know.

Fat lot of good it does the Seps.

Innit ...

 

[yield]

Incompetent authoritarian government does not equal a police state.

Anyone feeling scared to post here lately? Worried their loved ones will get hurt because of your political beliefs?

 

[bluestreak]

So a police state is different to a place where you can bitch and moan as much as you like as long as you don't do anything about it?

 

[Stoat Boy]

Incompetent authoritarian government does not equal a police state.

Anyone feeling scared to post here lately? Worried their loved ones will get hurt because of your political beliefs?

Depends. With some of my views I would not be allowed to work for many big companies and Government. Now you could say that this is a positive thing but I do see it as rather sinister and a form of 'thought policing'.

 

[yield]

So a police state is different to a place where you can bitch and moan as much as you like as long as you don't do anything about it?

Yes. This is so much hot air. The establishment couldn't care less. Majority of people here, myself included, do very little to undermine the state. And you know it.

Last I checked they were rounding up only a few of the muslims and sending them to Cuba. They've even let some of them home.

Depends. With some of my views I would not be allowed to work for many big companies and Government. Now you could say that this is a positive thing but I do see it as rather sinister and a form of 'thought policing'.

Surely you're joking?

 

[audiotech]

Depends. With some of my views I would not be allowed to work for many big companies and Government.

Al Qaeda?

 

[TomPaine]

Interesting debate.

I don't think we are in a police state yet, however we are nearing one. Although I would say the police state we are approaching is far subtler then say what South American countries went through i.e. people being disapeared.

To me it seems that this has been a product of:

1.) Deliberate Nu-Lab legislation
2.) Knee jerk reactionary legisaltion, which is then abused
3.) Profit driven schemes as a by product of the above

The fact is Nu-Lab have enacted thousands of laws over the past 12 years some with very serious consequencies. The police have now been given targets to hit, thus meaning going for the easy targets is better for the figures. I'm sure many of you have seen the "Undercover copper" documentary and other that are similar.

The "Taking Liberties" docu also highlighted some very information regarding everything from ID cards (and the badgering of the academics who opposed them) through to the police using Terrorism legislation to make lif easier for them.

The expansion of local government with numerous ridiculous bodies such as the RDAs has seen the number of petty beaurocrats increase and the amount of jobsworth legislation increase along side it.

I think Nu-Lab have created something of a beast which if left unchecked will grow. It seems logical to me, as people will take the easy route. Why bother to nick a burgler, when you have a target to hit, when you can nick 4 ten year olds for pinching chewing gum.
Why bother to have police on the streets, when you can stick up a load of CCTV and pay somebody two thrids the wage to watch it.
Why bother to have the police issue local FOI requests, when the ACPO can increase the price to 70 make some wedge out of it etc.

 

[CyberRose]

Police state my arse!

In this country we have probably the most vicious and outspoken press in the entire world, and the hell of a lot of what they write is criticisms and accusations against the government (a lot of the time pure speculation to boot). Everyone can pretty much say what they want even if it's horse shit and untrue (see half the posts in this forum!!!) and face no consequences with very few exceptions (which is pretty much limited to libel, and even then that is supposed to protect peoples' liberties). People can protest at anything they want and pretty much when they want (unless you're from the far right in which case the kind of idiots that claim we live in a police state will make damn sure they aren't afforded the same freedoms they are). Unfortunately, you can't throw bricks at the Israeli embassy, charge at police, run wild in somebody's field destroying all their crops or terrorise old women who happen to have an animal scientist for a child.

I think accusations that Britain is a police state tend to come from the protest movement who contain too many egos who, frustrated at how insignificant their opinions and actions are, make themselves believe that any new legislation is actually intended for them and not for, say, terrorists or criminals. I think a lot of these people are desperately trying to live some kind of fantasy. They want to be part of the Vietnam era protest movement. They want to be part of the leftist movements of Europe that showed so much passion during that time. But we're English and boring and we don't do things like that. I think these people want Britain to be a police state so they can live out their dreams of being some kind of Che Guevara fighting for the people (might explain why they never protest over "real" issues and instead stick to defending anyone but their fellow nationals).

Everybody knows what a police state is (Nazi Germany, USSR, most Arab countries), but if people think the UK is a police state, or that we're somehow on the road to living in one, then you are incredibly wrong

 

[TomPaine]

that we're somehow on the road to living in one, then you are incredibly wrong

Why, because you say so?

I would say the evidence points to the opposite, however as I said above I don't believe this is all by design, but rather the by product of various legislation, profitering and such like.
I also believe it to be subtler then any of the fascist regimes primarily because it isn't being driven by an ideological goal.

However to ignore some of the very obvious and mountaing mis-use of power that effects all sections of society, not just activists, is really in my opinion being very blind to what is going on around us.

 

[CyberRose]

Why, because you say so?

That and the fact we aren't anything like a police state, or near anything like one

However to ignore some of the very obvious and mountaing mis-use of power that effects all sections of society, not just activists, is really in my opinion being very blind to what is going on around us.

Affects all sections of society or applies to all sections of society?

 

[TomPaine]

That and the fact we aren't anything like a police state, or near anything like one

Once again I didn't say I believe we are in a police state, however I would say all the signs are in place we are moving in that direction.

Affects all sections of society or applies to all sections of society?

I would say both. Plenty of examples of petty beaurocracy that has been put into place that can have criminal charges as well as civil punishments. This has grown year on year and Labour have done nothing to reverse it and infact have either turned a blind eye or encouraged it.
Plenty of examples of anti-Terrorism legislation being used against the non-politcal as well as the political.
Plenty of examples of the by-product of Labours target driven culture having a massive negative effect on the public due to the way the police are handling meeting targets.

Selective restriction of freedom of speech which of course is the start of a slippery slope. Selective restriction of freedom to travel once again the start of a slippery slope.

Labour have simply built upon what the Tory establishment did, except they have given free reign to the private sector to snoop and pry into peoples lives in a way that just wasn't possible under the previous Tory government thanks to technological advances.

 

[CyberRose]

I don't want plenty of examples! I want figures! Show me the numbers!

 

[CyberRose]

Once again I didn't say I believe we are in a police state, however I would say all the signs are in place we are moving in that direction.

Well compared to the rights citizens (or subjects should I say) had under Queen Victoria I think we're moving in completely the opposite direction of a police state (despite, iirc, some joker on here claiming that era was the pinnacle of British freedoms!)