Post by steevo on Aug 5, 2007 22:03:46 GMT
Here's a very disturbing article from the Oberver:
The whole article is worth reading. There's a lot of good and bad comments too, but here's 1 that really got me:
I am responsible. I think. I care. I hold myself back from all sorts of desires and wishes which are impulsive, brought on by the clamour and disturbance of this corrupt over-materialistic world we live in, separated from nature and in intense competition with each other. We live in a sick society which is not going to cure itself. Like small children, we need forcibly calming down, we need to be held to account, we need to 'learn'.
You may find this deeply disturbing as a view. But then, I'm not romantic about our so-called 'liberties' as Henry Porter is. I'm not a sentimentalist about old-style 'freedoms'.
An elderly lady called a BBC Wales radio phone-in programme on which I was a guest last week to say that she wouldn't mind in the slightest if she was stopped and ordered to submit to a DNA test when her dog fouled the pavement. 'Everyone should give their DNA to the police,' she said before the discussion was cut short.
There wasn't time to talk about the sinister absurdity of sanctioning a law that compels old ladies to offer up a mouth swab, whether they want to or not. No time to state that the Home Office and police are engaged on a programme to introduce mass DNA testing by stealth. No time to wonder at the complete absence of parliamentary debate on this crucial issue of liberty. No time to ask whether we can truly trust the police; or to consider what the relatively new science of genetics may be used for in the future; or to wonder at the alarming disappearance of the liberal reflex in British political life.
The show ended and we were on to the news and traffic updates. People were more worried about a lorry blocking the M4. There were supermarkets to visit, jobs to be done, planes to be caught. But before we all shut up shop for the holidays, it is worth underlining one sentence that needs to be written in neon across every town centre: Britain is on the way to becoming a police state.
There wasn't time to talk about the sinister absurdity of sanctioning a law that compels old ladies to offer up a mouth swab, whether they want to or not. No time to state that the Home Office and police are engaged on a programme to introduce mass DNA testing by stealth. No time to wonder at the complete absence of parliamentary debate on this crucial issue of liberty. No time to ask whether we can truly trust the police; or to consider what the relatively new science of genetics may be used for in the future; or to wonder at the alarming disappearance of the liberal reflex in British political life.
The show ended and we were on to the news and traffic updates. People were more worried about a lorry blocking the M4. There were supermarkets to visit, jobs to be done, planes to be caught. But before we all shut up shop for the holidays, it is worth underlining one sentence that needs to be written in neon across every town centre: Britain is on the way to becoming a police state.
The whole article is worth reading. There's a lot of good and bad comments too, but here's 1 that really got me:
I am responsible. I think. I care. I hold myself back from all sorts of desires and wishes which are impulsive, brought on by the clamour and disturbance of this corrupt over-materialistic world we live in, separated from nature and in intense competition with each other. We live in a sick society which is not going to cure itself. Like small children, we need forcibly calming down, we need to be held to account, we need to 'learn'.
You may find this deeply disturbing as a view. But then, I'm not romantic about our so-called 'liberties' as Henry Porter is. I'm not a sentimentalist about old-style 'freedoms'.
