UK Police State

[kyser_soze]

Because you are confusing actual facts with conjecture and supposition, and using that to call guilt on individual people in government.

You are yourself, a mini-big brother who already 'knows' the answers, and goes in search of evidence to support your conclusion.

 

[Roadkill]

Stop decrying my statements as evidence free and begin educating yourself on the systems of power that surround us all. Because believe it or not we`re all in the same boat.

Most people round here - especially your near-namesake Azrael, judging from his excellent posts on the latter part of this thread - have a very good understanding of the 'systems of power' that surround us. Unlike you, however, they also have their feet firmly planted in the real world and not entangled in weird flights of fancy about secret satanic elites who enjoy killing people and bond though strange rituals with owls.

Of course we're all in the same boat, but you're less likely to run aground if the lookouts keep their eyes firmly on the horizon and don't start screaming about how the captain is actually a shape-shifting albatross with a secret desire to eat the crew.

 

[Jografer]

Of course we're all in the same boat, but you're less likely to run aground if the lookouts keep their eyes firmly on the horizon and don't start screaming about how the captain is actually a shape-shifting albatross with a secret desire to eat the crew.

 

[In Bloom]

On a sidenote, can anybody think of any particular reason why Blair et al would want a police state?

As far as I can see, they've got things pretty fucking sweet, fat pay check, nice expense account, lots of nice job offers from business folks.

History shows that police states tend to emerge under extreme pressures, great social uprisings such as revolutions and civil wars. It is a sign of desparation and fear on the part of the bourgeoisie, not something they just do because they feel like it.

 

[Azrael]

Azrael - as with the Huxley thread, you seem to assume that you're talking to people who lack propaganda filters and are blind to the actions of those in power, and that none of have read ANYTHING EVER about this.

A small point, but if people could include my namesake's numerical suffix when they address him, it'd save on the confusion that's cropping up around here.

 

[tangentlama]

Meanwhile, in countries where non-violent demonstrators are shot in the head, you remain silent and say nothing, Azrael23. No offence, but the most deportation demo I read about here in Leeds had no violence, and no police violence, yet militant-antifa beat up an alleged onlooking fascist, just because 'he might have done something to stir up trouble'.

The UK a Police state, you say? Are they shooting OUR antiwar protestors?
I don't think so! Read One blow to the brain from Ha'aretz, Israel.

 

[In Bloom]

Meanwhile, in countries where non-violent demonstrators are shot in the head, you remain silent and say nothing, Azrael23. No offence, but the most deportation demo I read about here in Leeds had no violence, and no police violence, yet militant-antifa beat up an alleged onlooking fascist, just because 'he might have done something to stir up trouble'.

Meanwhile, in the real world, antifa members beat up a locally known Redwatch photographer who also happens to be a member of a violent fascist organisation.

Ooh, those howwible authowitawians

 

[TAE]

On a sidenote, can anybody think of any particular reason why Blair et al would want a police state?

That's a good question. Why does he want his ministers to have to power to create new primary legislation (with minimal commons involvement), overrule high court decisions (those judges just can't be trusted), and imprison (sorry 'housearrest') citizens without trial. A very good question indeed.

 

[Azrael]

I could make some flip comment about politicians simply gobbling up all the power they can get, but I believe it's more insidious than that. Blair et al appear to believe they are good, and any government they control is also good; therefore the only purpose such restrictions serve is to stop the government doing good.

The notion that no government, and especially no government convinced of its own virtue, can be trusted with unchecked power seems genuinely alien to them.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C.S. Lewis

 

[sparticus]

I don't doubt for a second that massive vested interests have their hands in major world events, shadowy individuals and interest groups broker deals behind closed doors and most people have no idea of what is happening. But I don't really go in for conspiricies.

You don't go in for conspiracies but......... Sure sounds like you believe in conspiracies to me, but you're afraid you will be labelled a conspiraloon

 

[Crispy]

You don't go in for conspiracies but......... Sure sounds like you believe in conspiracies to me, but you're afraid you will be labelled a conspiraloon

Yeah, but the real loons go a step further and say that they're all acting in concert.

 

[In Bloom]

I could make some flip comment about politicians simply gobbling up all the power they can get, but I believe it's more insidious than that. Blair et al appear to believe they are good, and any government they control is also good; therefore the only purpose such restrictions serve is to stop the government doing good.

Yes, but they would say that wouldn't they?

What do you expect Blair to do? Stand up in the middle of PMs question time and say "Well, yes, I'm wholely self-interested, utterly devoid of loyalty and generally rather slimey, but it's not like any of you are much better, is it?" Not the stuff of great leaders, is it?

 

[Azrael]

Erm, yes, they would, and do, say that. But by all accounts, Blair actually believes in his own munificence. Hence the CS Lewis quote.

Believe me, I wish the PM was pretending!

 

[In Bloom]

Erm, yes, they would, and do, say that. But by all accounts, Blair actually believes in his own munificence.

What do you base this on? I mean, what makes Blair any different to the long procession of Prime Ministers who constantly throw up their hands and say "I'm only in this for the good of the people, you know" whenever it hits the fan?

 

[Azrael]

What do you base this on? I mean, what makes Blair any different to the long procession of Prime Ministers who constantly throw up their hands and say "I'm only in this for the good of the people, you know" whenever it hits the fan?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/04/29/do2901.xml

"Attempting to explain the allies' failure to find WMD in Iraq, Mr Blair said: "I only know what I believe." In other words, he knew that there were WMD in Iraq, simply because he believed it. In my book, this is a form of madness."

I believe Simon Jenkins and the marvellous Alan Watkins are among the columnists who report Blair can't, technically, lie, as he has the ability to believe whatever he's saying with complete sincerity. Another two, including an MP, have assured me of it in private conversation at a university society. (I'm not asking you to take hearsay as evidence, merely explaining why I believe it.) Similar rumours don't circle around other politicians.

Maybe Mr Blair is fooling everyone, but if he is, he's doing a damn good job of it. (To be fair, he must be able to do a damn good job of something.)

 

[detective-boy]

I believe Simon Jenkins and the marvellous Alan Watkins are among the columnists who report Blair can't, technically, lie, as he has the ability to believe whatever he's saying with complete sincerity.

Of course he has. He's a fucking lawyer ... that's what they do ... believe and spout with apparent sincerity whatever they're being paid to believe and spout.

They are moral prostitutes.

 

[Azrael]

No, at worst, they give the appearance of believing what they're saying. Blair, apparently, genuinely believes, in his own mind, that what he's saying is the truth. Lawyers play a sophisticated game of Devil's Advocate. (Which I think they're perfectly entitled, nay, required to do in an adversarial legal system, but that's a seperate issue.) They don't genuinely believe that 20-time convicted smack addict is the salt of the earth, but they're doing what they're paid for and giving him the best defence possible. Let's not forget Mr Blair failed as a barrister.

Might look the same, but they ain't.

 

[In Bloom]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/04/29/do2901.xml

"Attempting to explain the allies' failure to find WMD in Iraq, Mr Blair said: "I only know what I believe." In other words, he knew that there were WMD in Iraq, simply because he believed it. In my book, this is a form of madness."

Far be it from me to question the psychiatric training that all newspaper columnists recieve, but just because Tom Utley says it, doesn't make it so.

"I only know what I believe" doesn't mean "I know X to be true because I believe it to be true".

 

[detective-boy]

No, at worst, they give the appearance of believing what they're saying.

Not all of them - some genuinely believe it even when it is the 20 times convicted smack head ..

 

[Azrael]

Your post seemed to give the impression that believing whatever line you're spinning the judge/jury to be the truth was part and parcel of being a lawyer. If you're saying that some lawyers think like that, I'm not disagreeing. Apparently they're called "true believers" and are a bit of a joke amongst their "bretheren".

 

[Azrael]

Far be it from me to question the psychiatric training that all newspaper columnists recieve, but just because Tom Utley says it, doesn't make it so.

"I only know what I believe" doesn't mean "I know X to be true because I believe it to be true".

Yeah, and I didn't claim it as an indisputable fact, merely the theory I belive best fits the current evidence. (Especially Blair's bizzare effort to force 90 days detention without charge through. Police sources later admitted they simply produced 90 days as an initial bargaining position and were amazed when Blair treated it as an article of faith.)

As I said, if he does turn out to have decieved everyone, including those closest to him, I'll be impressed by him for the first time ever.

 

[Dr Jon]

On a sidenote, can anybody think of any particular reason why Blair et al would want a police state?

To stop things getting too uncomfortable for his puppeteers as oil runs out and global warming accelerates, both with catastrophic consequences for agriculture and industry -> economic & societal collapse?


I was talking to a colleague the other day, who reckons that the real motive behind the current veil issue, is that the veil makes it impossible for "cctv" cameras & facial recognition systems to ID people and track their movements. He told me he read somewhere that facial recognition surveillance will be combined with automated weapon systems to "terminate" known terrorists, etc.
Just think what fun we'll have then...


With stuff like that, nobody needs to be chipped. Big brother is watching you!

 

[TAE]

That'll teach them hoodies!

 

[Ned Pointsman]

Last July, Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said that another terrorist attack in London was inevitable. "I think there will be further attacks" he explained, "in fact I know there will be further attacks". (1)

His surety may be puzzling at first, but for those who believe that the attacks of 9/11 and 7/7 were 'Reichstag Fire' style events, essentially self-inflicted wounds designed to generate public outcry and allow the pursuit of political goals that would have otherwise been impossible to find widespread support for, his comments may be assessed in a much more troubling light. (2)

Last week, Commissioner Blair, speaking at a closed private meeting, reiterated his claims about future attacks and suggested that the British people should "brace themselves for a truly appalling act of terror". (3) According to details leaked by an shocked insider who was present at the meeting, Blair suggested that following this act of terorrism, "people would be talking quite openly about internment", also giving the impression that he would be leading the pro-internment lobby.

This helps put the puzzling front-page stories from the mainstream British media over the past few days into context. Frenzied rhetoric -- criticizing Muslim policemen, Muslim cabbies, and Muslim dress, to describe just a few of the stories circulating -- has served to raise anti-Muslim feeling among the public to such levels that MP George Galloway describes as "almost a pre-pogrom atmosphere". (4)
<editor: enormous cut and paste snipped>

http://www.icssa.org/uk_internment.html

 

[In Bloom]

Yeah, and I didn't claim it as an indisputable fact, merely the theory I belive best fits the current evidence. (Especially Blair's bizzare effort to force 90 days detention without charge through. Police sources later admitted they simply produced 90 days as an initial bargaining position and were amazed when Blair treated it as an article of faith.)

Demanding something bigger (like 90 days) makes it easier to get a smaller "compromise" (like 28 days), I don't see why it's so unlikely that couldn't be what Blair was doing here.

As I said, if he does turn out to have decieved everyone, including those closest to him, I'll be impressed by him for the first time ever.

When you say "those closest to him" do you mean people who used to be allies of his and then had a falling out with him? Can you not see why they might have an ulterior motive for trying to portray Blair as a sociopathic megalomaniac?

 

[Azrael]

Demanding something bigger (like 90 days) makes it easier to get a smaller "compromise" (like 28 days), I don't see why it's so unlikely that couldn't be what Blair was doing here.

Erm, yeah, but he already had that without going through with the rediculous vote and fatally (we can but hope) damaging his authority. It's very likely he actually lost ground by doing so; 60 days was close to getting widespread support before Blair went postal. (Including a dotty closed-meeting of the parliamentary party that apparently reached Dear Leader depths of meglomanical delusion.)

When you say "those closest to him" do you mean people who used to be allies of his and then had a falling out with him? Can you not see why they might have an ulterior motive for trying to portray Blair as a sociopathic megalomaniac?

Among annon. leaks by those yet to jump ship, those who were never on the ship, & even a psychiatrist. The theory fits his public actions perfectly; a cool, caluculating amoral opportunist wouldn't have got himself into half the balls ups Blair's managed. (Iraq and its aftermath would, at the least, have been handled very differently.)

 

[EddyBlack]

Where all this appears to be heading

I think that this Henry Porter article ties together a lot of the concerns. Definitely one for the file:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1129827.ece

The ‘terror laws’ are an attempt at reducing our freedom. Bit by bit, inch by inch. Always in the name of protecting us.

The government clearly terrorizes the people. Terror threats are continually hyped to assist the government. The number of baseless ‘plots’ and their always convenient timing, stretches credulity to believe that they are anything other than an exercise in control by fear, or terrorism.

The Magna Carta is the basis of our freedom. Habeas Corpus, the right to a trial is the keystone of freedom. Of course the government is constantly attacking it. We have lost it for a month. Now Gordon Brown wants us to lose it for three months. I don’t doubt this will increase at a not too distant date to an indefinite period.

Of course, America, with the Military Comissions Act, has conceded the power to the state of having the right to decide who is or isn’t a citizen. The result is that these non citizens do not have the right of Habeas Corpus.

America, the bastion of freedom is dying. This is bad news for us all.

So where do I believe we are heading?

I.D cards and the surveillance state would change our lives greatly, costing us our privacy and freedom. The state becomes our master.

I think when the ID cards are handed out from 2008, we become serfs. Even if we don’t feel big changes in our quality of life, we will have passed a watershed when we must carry an authorization card to buy, sell, work, leave the country, vote, make a bank transaction, go to a nightclub/ bar, see a doctor, and I imagine at certain times, to walk down the street.

Failiure to comply with the ID card system leaves us without the ability to do these things. Furthermore, we will be actively punished for not enrolling into the system, (fines imprisonment)

Another part of the picture is surveillance. We already have lost the right to privacy. As the technology develops, the spying of the state will become more acute. Surely they won’t watch all of us all of the time. But, if the state uses its power to read your e-mails using ‘key-word’ software to look for the words ‘police state’, and finds it doesn’t like your views, it may pay much more attention to you. Many people will reject this as absurd, but it is already the reality that they have this power.

Who knows what the folks down in GCHQ are saying about us?

Henry Porter articulated some of the laws which curtail our freedoms. This brings us to the legislative attack on freedom.

If you comply with the state, you will probably not feel these losses too keenly.
It is when you have issue with the state, and wish to make your voice heard, and try to take lawful action that you will feel this loss of freedom.
Many will reject this. Just try and voice your displeasure with government at their home on Whitehall. You will be arrested. To disagree with the state is to become an outlaw.

And the tyranny continues to build. The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act is a power grab by the inner party. Ministers have increased their power to change legislation undemocratically. We must rely on the ‘cabinet’ to exercise this new power… sensibly.

So we continue on this path, freedom sinking, state power growing. ID cards on the horizon…

Meanwhile the same group of terrorists (for so they are), destroy nations abroad.

In Parliament and the media, they just continue with this ‘old school tie’, ‘good old boy’ relationship, ignoring the elephant in the room that is the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq.
How then can we expect to win this fight to preserve our freedom if we do not first bring our leaders to account for destroying other nations and peoples?

When even our rights to peaceful protest are being stripped away, the question remains what as individuals can we do about it?

Remove Blair, Brown, Straw, Hoon, and anybody else in government who was actively negligent in forming the strategy and seeking parliamentary backing to invade Iraq and Afghanistan.
Oppose ID cards and foster awareness of the growing tyranny of our governors.

These are two sides of the same coin, freedom and solidarity.

 

[weltweit]

Sorry I am not going to read the thread.

Yes we are moving, sleepwalking towards a police state, partly because we are scared of crime, of terrorism, of hoodies, of whatever ..

But also because technology is so enticing for those in power, for those who are in charge of *PROTECTING US FROM OURSELVES*:

the dna database, Biometric ID Cards, networked CCTV with facial recognition, motorway CCTV with numberplate recognition, Internet usage monitoring, it is all so easy to walk slowly toward the future that Orwell predicted ..

.. so hard to stand in the way of progress .. when we are afraid of each other .. will we come to be afraid of the state ? possibly .. quite possibly .. especially if we stand in it's way

 

[fela fan]

This thread deserves to be an ongoing one that never disappears from the first page. Just look at this from the guardian today:


Mr Reid said he wanted to give police the immediate power to close down premises being used for drunken parties, raves, brothels or other persistent antisocial activity, and to "move away from the traditional view that justice has to involve going to court".


He what??? To move away from the traditional view of needing courts to mete out justice?

Hey tell you what, screw magna carta, screw centuries of tradition and safeguards for the people against power abuse and fucking lock up anyone that doesn't do what those in charge of the state say they should.

"Hey britons, this is your home secretary speaking. We're gonna do away with courts. From now on i will be the arbiter of justice. What ya gonna do about it eh?? Stop me, hah hah, never."

I will never stop saying this, but britain is in the grip of madness. Simply even thinking this, never mind saying it, never mind proposing it... it is mad.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1948056,00.html

 

[fela fan]

Antisocial owners could be made homeless
Justice should be swift, says home secretary


!!!!! Go on you noisy git, get out of your house, go sleep on the streets and never come back again.

What kind of person is this reid man?? To me he sounds truly insane.