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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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 Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 9:16 pm Post subject: The Quiet Death Of Freedom |
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For the full article by John Pilger Click Here
Here are a few snippets:
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| On 7 December, Maya Evans, a vegan chef aged 25, was convicted of breaching the new Serious Organised Crime and Police Act by reading aloud at the Cenotaph the names of 97 British soldiers killed in Iraq. So serious was her crime that it required 14 policemen in two vans to arrest her. She was fined and given a criminal record for the rest of her life. Freedom is dying. |
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| Eighty-year-old John Catt served with the RAF in the Second World War. Last September, he was stopped by police in Brighton for wearing an "offe! nsive" T-shirt, which suggested that Bush and Blair be tried for war crimes. He was arrested under the Terrorism Act and handcuffed, with his arms held behind his back. The official record of the arrest says the "purpose" of searching him was "terrorism" and the "grounds for intervention" were "carrying placard and T-shirt with anti-Blair info" (sic). He is awaiting trial. |
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| "Here is delayed news, just in. From 1945 to 2005, the United States attempted to overthrow 50 governments, many of them democracies, and to crush 30 popular movements fighting tyrannical regimes. In the process, 25 countries were bombed, causing the loss of several million lives and the despair of millions more." |
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In his epic acceptance of the Nobel Prize in Literature on 7 December, Harold Pinter spoke of "a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed". He asked why "the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought" of Stalinist Russia was well known in the west while American state crimes were merely "superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged".
A silence has reigned. Across the world, the extinction and suffering of countless human beings can be attributed to rampant American power, "but you wouldn't know it," said Pinter. "It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest."
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 7:09 am Post subject: |
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| ...the Blair government banned any expression of opposition within a kilometre of Parliament. |
Yet another symptom of the worrying growth in autocracy. The governments of the UK and US have been consistently preaching liberty and 'less government' while steadily increasing the power of central government. It started in the 80s and the war on terrorism has only accelerated it.
Why do we have politicians with so little respect for freedom and democracy?
This sort of thing makes me feel so helpless. What is the point of banning opposition near Parliament? It's not going to stop any terrorists. I used to think we needed a written constitution to prevent government abuses but that doesn't seem to be working in America. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 7:26 am Post subject: |
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To preserve liberty and stop government abuse of power, you must take away their power and abolish it. You must defund the government. You must take away forever the power of any government to tax incomes and property. You must take away their power to conscript slaves (whether soldiers for armies or tax slaves). You must take away the government power of eminent domain. You must end the power of government to interfere in any voluntary relationships among individuals.
The fascist socialists must give up their dreams of national health care and national service.
The communist socialists must give up their dreams of controlling or imposing their religious views on others. They must give up their dreams of controlling the reproductive choices of individuals.
All property controlled by the government including ownership of the environment must be turned over to individuals who will protect it against polluters.
Liberty is an abolute. All rights belong to the individual. The government has no rights. |
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joe_doufu
Joined: 09 May 2005
Location: Elsewhere
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 8:42 am Post subject: |
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| ontheway wrote: |
| To preserve liberty and stop government abuse of power, you must take away their power and abolish it. You must defund the government. |
Heh I know what you mean. It gives me a chuckle when the liberals say "freedom is dying" and then vote for the bigger-government, less-freedom party. Now both American parties are turning into bigger-government, less-freedom parties. I guess that's what the "progressives" mean by "progress". |
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Leslie Cheswyck
Joined: 31 May 2003
Location: University of Western Chile
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 2:22 pm Post subject: |
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The Death of British Liberty
http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/RobertLocke60118.htm
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Sadly, this is not hyperbole. A man in Britain named Nick Griffin, chairman of a small opposition party called the British National Party, is facing such a trial, to begin, January 16, 2006.
What did this man do? He said, at a private political meeting,
��Islam is an evil and wicked faith.��
Unfortunately for him, government thought police were watching, and recorded him on video tape. That��s right. Thought police. In England.
This is not a joke. It is not even China or Iran. Such things really do happen in Britain today. Let us pray they do not happen in America tomorrow, and draw the line now. |
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bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 3:36 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, the justice system in the UK is now a joke. The Police, being too lazy and incompetent to actually deal with real criminals, have become obsessed with 'hate' crimes, which often amount too little more than going against PC orthodoxy. Hence the trial of Nick Griffin for saying something nasty about a belief system, Islam. In the offending speech, he also predicted that a terrorist attack in the UK would be carried out by British born Pakistanis or asylum seekers, for which he was proved 100% correct. But apparently pointing out these facts, might stir up 'hatred', so he could be going to jail.
In the UK we already had a perfectly good set of public order and violent incitement laws. But now, it has become illegal to incite 'hate', which is a rather subjective word and open to all kinds of abuse.
More absurdly, a young student was recently arrested for a 'homophobic hate crime' for telling an officer, on duty at a demonstration, 'excuse me officer, do you realise that your horse is gay?' The horse was so distressed that the police actually arrested the guy and then attempted to take him to court, for insulting a horse! |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 3:53 pm Post subject: |
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| bigverne wrote: |
| More absurdly, a young student was recently arrested for a 'homophobic hate crime' for telling an officer, on duty at a demonstration, 'excuse me officer, do you realise that your horse is gay?' The horse was so distressed that the police actually arrested the guy and then attempted to take him to court, for insulting a horse! |
He should have just said; "Go _____ your horse."
Or is that an arrestable offense in a free country? |
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memorabilis
Joined: 19 Jan 2006
Location: Seoul, Korea
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:47 am Post subject: |
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| Leslie Cheswyck wrote: |
The Death of British Liberty
http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/RobertLocke60118.htm
| Quote: |
Sadly, this is not hyperbole. A man in Britain named Nick Griffin, chairman of a small opposition party called the British National Party, is facing such a trial, to begin, January 16, 2006.
What did this man do? He said, at a private political meeting,
��Islam is an evil and wicked faith.��
Unfortunately for him, government thought police were watching, and recorded him on video tape. That��s right. Thought police. In England.
This is not a joke. It is not even China or Iran. Such things really do happen in Britain today. Let us pray they do not happen in America tomorrow, and draw the line now. |
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Griffin is the chairman of the fascist (and I use this in the real sense of the word, not the cavalier way it was used above) British National Party. You could also call it the Nazi party. They advocate white supremacist views. You don't think the gov't should be watching what's going on with them? I do. |
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memorabilis
Joined: 19 Jan 2006
Location: Seoul, Korea
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:54 am Post subject: |
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| ontheway wrote: |
To preserve liberty and stop government abuse of power, you must take away their power and abolish it. You must defund the government. You must take away forever the power of any government to tax incomes and property. You must take away their power to conscript slaves (whether soldiers for armies or tax slaves). You must take away the government power of eminent domain. You must end the power of government to interfere in any voluntary relationships among individuals.
The fascist socialists must give up their dreams of national health care and national service.
The communist socialists must give up their dreams of controlling or imposing their religious views on others. They must give up their dreams of controlling the reproductive choices of individuals.
All property controlled by the government including ownership of the environment must be turned over to individuals who will protect it against polluters.
Liberty is an abolute. All rights belong to the individual. The government has no rights. |
If you have that wide an interpretation of socialism, then 99.9% of the world is a socialist. The human being is a social animal. It must have interaction to survive. In order to do that, there must be rules. With your attitude, there wouldn't be any private medicine, let alone public medicare. We live on the shoulders of the generations that came before us and on the social institutions that they built that made their advances possible.
Your "all rights belong to the individual" crap would have everyone living in caves, with no electricity, medicine, or anything, terrified that at any second a bigger caveman would smash in your door and eat you. |
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bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 11:17 am Post subject: |
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| Griffin is the chairman of the fascist (and I use this in the real sense of the word, not the cavalier way it was used above) British National Party. You could also call it the Nazi party. They advocate white supremacist views. |
All of these are totally irrelevant in regards to whether Griffin should be charged with the very vague crime of 'inciting hatred' for saying negative things about a belief system and for commenting on the racist killings of whites. In the free market of ideas that is democracy we must accept that people will sometimes say things which are offensive or unpalatable. |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:24 pm Post subject: |
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| joe_doufu wrote: |
| ontheway wrote: |
| To preserve liberty and stop government abuse of power, you must take away their power and abolish it. You must defund the government. |
Heh I know what you mean. It gives me a chuckle when the liberals say "freedom is dying" and then vote for the bigger-government, less-freedom party. Now both American parties are turning into bigger-government, less-freedom parties. I guess that's what the "progressives" mean by "progress". |
Yes, your generation seems to have that whole 'less government' line firmly wedged down your collective throat and you walk around regurgitating it as if you honestly believe it's your own original insight. Don't you know that that's the government line?
I admire the right. They preach less government right to your face while expanding government power even before your very eyes. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 6:04 am Post subject: |
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| It is true that the human being is a social animal and that most human beings require interaction to survive. That is exactly what I meant by the voluntary relationships among individuals. We do not, however, need government. On the contrary. Goverment is a leach that needs human sheep to survive. It destroys progress, wealth, health and the environment. The government is the creator and engine of poverty, pollution, intolerance and war. Dozens of Nobel prize winners in several fields have written about this. It is the basis of the Science of Liberty now being taught at a handful of Universities. |
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Gorgias
Joined: 27 Aug 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 7:50 am Post subject: |
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| "a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed" |
Tapestry doesn't sound very tasty... What about: "A vast pizza-pie of lies, upon which we feed," or "A vast tapestry of lies, upon which we weave." |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 9:19 am Post subject: |
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| bigverne wrote: |
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| Griffin is the chairman of the fascist (and I use this in the real sense of the word, not the cavalier way it was used above) British National Party. You could also call it the Nazi party. They advocate white supremacist views. |
All of these are totally irrelevant in regards to whether Griffin should be charged with the very vague crime of 'inciting hatred' for saying negative things about a belief system and for commenting on the racist killings of whites.. |
You do so much benefit to your cause of inciting and prepetuating religious bigotry and hate against muslims when you continually defend and excuse avowed and very obvious racist thugs. Please continue in this trend, at all costs ... one of these days you'll realize how efficiently you are chewing your own foot off with this tendency to defend, even show approval and respect for some of the most monstrous haters in our own culture.
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| In the free market of ideas that is democracy we must accept that people will sometimes say things which are offensive or unpalatable |
You have given us a lot of practice at this yourself, bigverne. Unpalatable is a mild word. You've put me off my lunch on several occasions, and with luck you might help get back into those 34-waist slacks I bought a while in a wild fit of optimism that I'd ever again slim down enough to fit a belt buckle around them.
Party on, Garth. |
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