Finally, the Tories have been pinned down and have made the correct announcement:
Tory plans to cut ‘surveillance’
The Conservatives have set out plans to reverse what they describe as “the rise of the surveillance state”.
They have pledged to scrap two new databases – the ID card register and ContactPoint – and strengthen powers of the Information Commissioner.
The Conservatives say they want to restore public trust in the use of personal data by the state.
Their proposals come after a series of security breaches and concern about the amount of information that is held.
The National Identity register – which underpins the ID card scheme – would be scrapped, as would the ContactPoint database, which holds details of 11m children and young people.
Other proposals include ensuring that government departments are routinely audited by the Information Commissioner, who would be required to report to Parliament.
The Tories are also planning to restrict the storage of DNA records of innocent people, after a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights.
The government has consulted on its own DNA reforms, and is due to publish the results shortly.
Home Secretary Alan Johnson said: “The cases of criminals like Kensley Larrier and Abdul Azad demonstrate that we need to retain information on the DNA database.”
Kensley Larrier is a rapist from the North of England who was convicted in 2005 on the strength of a DNA sample taken from him three years earlier when he was arrested for possession of an offensive weapon.
Abdul Azad was convicted of a rape committed in Stafford on the strength of DNA evidence taken from him a year earlier in Birmingham when he was arrested for violent disorder.
Before we get to the meat in the sandwich, Alan Johnson, the brainless ex postman is a totally clueless moron. Keeping the DNA of rapists is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT to keeping the DNA of people who HAVE NOT BEEN CONVICTED OF ANY CRIME.
What a completely idiotic pea brained DORK.
Now that we have that nastiness out of the way…
NIR – SCRAPPED
ID CARDS – SCRAPPED
ContactPoint – SCRAPPED
This is good news. The Badman recommendations will not be implementable (or at least will be far more difficult to implement) without ContactPoint… that is if the Tories do not scrap them or reverse them should they become law.
The Tories had been making noises about scrapping ID Cards for some time, but never mentioned the NIR; now they have made the connection and have pledged to junk it.
It is pretty clear that they will need to also get rid of the ‘Anti Terror Laws’ that have been routinely used for everything BUT ‘terrorism’ (like spying on parents who want to get their children into good schools).
They will ABSOLUTELY need to scrap the ISA, which everyone has now woken up to and with which everyone is quite rightly sickened.
The Tories have an unprecedented opportunity to not only seize power but to unleash the British people so that the country that was the love of millions can be restored. It will mean making a heroic effort to undo all the evil of Bliar and his criminal cabal of murderous monsters. They have made a good start. All they need is a comprehensive shopping list of things that need to be undone – like the smoking legislation – which stick in the craw of every decent person.
In the meantime, it is vitally important that everyone EVERYWHERE refuse to register with the NIR, refuse to register with the ISA and essentially, refuse to enroll with or cooperate with ANY of the fascist apparatus that Neu Liebour have put in place. This will not only make it easier to dismantle in the short term, but it will also send a very strong signal that the era of Soviet Britain is at an end. This needs to be done just in case the Tories ‘lose their bottle’ and decide that all these juicy tools of totalitarianism are just too nifty to get rid of.
Hmmmm where to start?!
All ‘no smoking’ signs – DOWN
etc etc…
After a long dark night menaced by cannibal zombies, FINALLY a sliver of light on the horizon.
Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected.
To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying. The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession.
The Bill will also eventually force private insurance companies out of business and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats and most of them will not be health care professionals. Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled.
However, as scary as all of that it, it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated. If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed.
The BBQ is at it again, uncritically repeating the state’s lies:
Paedophile checks scheme defended
This is not a system of ‘Paedophile checks’ this is a system that will cause MILLIONS of INNOCENT people to be put in a database for no good reason. To call this a ‘Paedophile Checks Scheme’ is simply not factual.
The head of a government scheme to vet adults who work with children has hit out at criticism of the initiative.
Sir Roger Singleton, chairman of the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA), said people need to “calm down” and consider the issue “rationally”.
It is Roger Singleton who should have considered this rationally in the first place. Any rational, logical person can see instantly that this ISA is a foolish and illogical proposal. The recent clutch of paedophiles caught in nurseries, all of them CRB checked, demonstrates amply that any system of vetting is a flawed concept. All of the people who have recently been caught were CRB checked; what Roger Singleton is suggesting, which is completely irrational, is that a further system of checks on top of the CRB will be able to do what the CRB cannot. It is illogical on its face. Anyone who says otherwise is irrational, and I put it to you that Roger Singleton is irrational and illogical for being a willing part in it.
The ISA has come under fire after it emerged parents who regularly give children lifts to sports or social clubs will have to undergo checks.
People who ignore the new regulations face fines of up to £5,000.
This has nothing to do with protecting children; it is a scheme whereby millions of people, should they succeed, will be forced to enter the NIR and ID Card scheme. That is its true purpose, since it is clear that the ISA cannot protect a single child.
The Home Office’s Vetting and Barring Scheme, which is designed to protect children from paedophiles, covers adults who are in regular contact with young people.
If this system was designed to protect children from paedophiles, then the design is a complete failure. Also, Roger Singleton needs to say PRECISELY HOW this system will protect children. Of course, he cannot say how because it CANNOT, just as CRB checks cannot protect anyone. CRB checks and ISA checks cannot predict the future behavior of anyone; that is why they will always fail to do what they say it should do. This is well known to both the Home Office and anyone with a single working brain cell. The true purpose of this, once again, is to act as midwife to the NIR and ID Card.
‘Public outcry’
Anyone taking part in activities involving “frequent” or “intensive” contact with children or vulnerable adults three times in a month, every month, or once overnight, must register with the ISA.
Even if the ISA could predict the behavior of people, these arbitrary rules mean that anyone having contact with children less than the requirements above will not have to be vetted. It is nonsense on stilts.
The first people who are going to run to be included in this database are people who have no criminal record of any kind and who are paedophiles. By registering with this sinister scheme, they will have the stamp of safety and certification by the state. They will then be given license to attack children at will, and since everyone has lost all common sense, they will be immediately trusted simply because the government says they are trustworthy. This is the same modus operandi that we can assume the paedophile nursery workers operate under; get CRB certified and then you can work with children unfettered. In the case of these nursery children, their victims could not even speak to say that something wrong was happening. This ISA and CRB / ‘the state knows all’ insanity is putting children at risk by creating a system whereby dangerous animals can be put with children and given trust that they have not earned.
All school governors, doctors, nurses, teachers, dentists and prison officers must also sign up.
OR they can all refuse en masse. Dentists have no need to sign up for this at all – they can simply refuse to treat children! All of the other people on that list, especially in education, already have to have CRB checks, so what is the purpose of this extra layer of false security for? It is to put them all in the NIR.
People must go through a series of checks and have their names put on a list of approved individuals. Those seeking employment would have to pay £64 for the checks – but the charge would be waived for volunteers.
Its not about the money STUPID.
Informal arrangements between parents will not be covered.
And of course, most abuse happens between people who know each other, not stranger abuse.
“ It is about ensuring that those people who have already been dismissed by their employers for inappropriate behaviour with children do not simply up sticks and move elsewhere ”
Sir Roger Singleton Independent Safeguarding Authority
This is a total lie. If someone has been dismissed for inappropriate behavior with children there should have been a prosecution, otherwise there would be no grounds for dismissal. If the person is convicted, then they are put in the criminal database and that is the end of their career when it comes to children.
If no prosecution happens, then the person is INNOCENT FULL STOP.
What this ISA does is rely on hearsay to destroy people’s reputations. It is a repugnant and highly immoral system, and the people behind it and who are promoting it share its worst aspects; they are REPUGNANT and HIGHLY IMMORAL.
Sir Roger, whose agency will run the vetting scheme, said: “We need to calm down and consider carefully and rationally what this scheme is and is not about.
It is with a completely calm and rational mind (and logical mind) that the criticisms to this have been forged. It is Roger Singleton who has reacted hysterically and irrationally to the statistically insignificant cases of abuse. To put EVERYONE in a database because of the actions of a few criminals is an irrational knee-jerk reaction, born out of hysteria and unwarranted fear.
“It is not about interfering with the sensible arrangements which parents make with each other to take their children to schools and clubs.
It is not that now, but it will be in the future, when the database is open to search by anyone over the internet for a small fee.
“It is not about subjecting a quarter of the population to intensive scrutiny of their personal lives and it is not about creating mistrust between adults and children or discouraging volunteering.”
This is a lie. The ISA will use hearsay and rumor to determine wether or not someone should be listed in their database. Even harsh words are enough to get you on their list of bad people:
The Safeguarding Authority are looking for events with ‘relevant conduct’ – awful jargon – which means they’re looking for reports of ‘abusive’ behaviour (and one can argue quite convincingly ‘politically incorrect’ behaviour), irrespective of whether or not you’ve been convicted of a crime. Been on the Jeremy Kyle show? Had an unfavourable story printed about you in the Metro? Someone written about you on the internet? Ever pissed off a social worker? Importantly, has anyone made any complaints about you to the police or the council, whether or not you went to trial?
In stage one, they’re not interested in whether or not the event happened. They simply check whether or not the reported behaviour meets the criteria they’re looking for.
So let’s see what this includes (even the list listed is listed as ‘non exhaustive’ by the way)
Any remark or comment by others that causes distress
Excessive or unwanted familiarity, shouting, swearing, name-calling.
Okay, so I’ve gone through their list of ‘relevant conduct’ and picked out the bit we’re all guilty of at one time or another. We all have our bad days, our weak moments… but sarcasm? Being disrespectful? Shouting? If you haven’t, then congratulations. For the rest of us, we need to hope the Safeguarding Authority haven’t heard about our ‘abusive’ behavior.
None of that has anything to do with ‘Paedophile Checks’ does it?
The people behind this are LYING when they say that it is not there to get into the details of your life; if they are taking records to the level of detail that is described above, it means that someone is putting on your ISA record the fact that you said any of the things above. It means that there is a file on you containing the words that you have uttered, wether in public or in private.
That counts, to any rational and sensible person, as intensive scrutiny of the personal lives of millions of people.
He added: “It is about ensuring that those people who have already been dismissed by their employers for inappropriate behaviour with children do not simply up sticks and move elsewhere in the country to continue their abuse.
Utter rubbish, as their own documents demonstrate. If someone has been dismissed because they are a paedophile, they should be prosecuted, convicted and incarcerated, not put on a database and left at large to continue to rape. Is that what this idiot is suggesting? Because that is the result of what he is saying.
“And it is about bringing an end to the need for repeated CRB checks which so many people have found irritating. ISA registration is a one-off process for a single fee.”
And this is the truly irrational part. Is Roger Singleton really saying that people who go into this ISA system will only have to be checked once? Is he REALLY THAT INSANE? Think about this scenario; your son joins a soccer club, and then joins a cricket club. The head of the soccer club will have to check you against the ISA database, and then the cricket club organizer will have to ALSO check you against the ISA database. How is the ISA in ANY WAY DIFFERENT in this respect? Will the ISA telepathically transmit the details of your good character to every organization in the country? Of course not; Roger Singleton is demonstrating the great facility to not tell the truth that New Labour are expert at. And once again, the BBC fails to pull him up on this whopper – how EXACTLY is the ISA going to end the need for repeated CRB checks? How is a SINGLE CHECK going to transfer information to different people who need to know if a person is not barred?
This is PURE BULLSHIT!
‘Insulting’
The scheme will run in England, Wales and Northern Ireland from next month, and a separate but aligned scheme is being set up in Scotland, to be introduced next year.
Separate but equal… ‘Scotland the brave’… HAHAHAHA!!!
But critics claim it is threatening civil liberties and may deter volunteers.
“ When you get this degree of public outcry, there is generally a good reason for it ”
Wes Cuell , NSPCC
Translation, “People are stupid but they are not THAT stupid”
The NSPCC’s children’s services director Wes Cuell told the Sunday Telegraph the move could stop people doing things that were “perfectly safe and normal”.
There is nothing normal about this, and the people who created it and who promote it. They are subhuman monsters, criminally minded paedophile enablers, fear-mongers, cretins and communists. They are The Cancer that is Killing Britain. Their every instinct is perverted, their solutions are bankrupt both morally and financially. They are against the family, against nature and against God. Finally the British people are waking up and saying NO; this far and NO FARTHER.
“The warning signs are now out there that this scheme will stop people doing things that are perfectly safe and normal: things that they shouldn’t be prevented from doing.
“I think we are getting a bit too close to crossing the line about what is acceptable in the court of public opinion.
That line was crossed long ago, with the idea of the NIR and the ID Card. This scheme is a direct offshoot of that corrupted and immoral thinking, and it is only now that they are trying to put it together that everyone is beginning to see what it really means.
“We don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
Who is this ‘WE’ that these morons keep talking about?!
Mr Cuell stressed that while it was important to strengthen rules to protect children from potential sex offenders, overzealous interpretation of the regulations could threaten civil liberties.
The only thing that needs to be strengthened is the length of prison term given to those who commit and are convicted of these crimes. They should all be put away for life. Or even executed. Once the small number of them are all incarcerated, the problem will disappear.
Children’s authors, including Philip Pullman and Michael Morpurgo, have complained the requirement is “insulting” and say they will stop visiting schools.
Earlier this week children’s minister Delyth Morgan said safeguarding children was the government’s priority and it was about ensuring people in a position of trust who work with children are safe to do so.
She says alot of things, and once again, if it is about safeguarding children, she needs to say, in detail, how the ISA is going to do that. Of course she cannot do this, because the ISA cannot protect anyone, and neither can a CRB. These checks can only tell you what a person has been previously convicted of, and that does nothing to protect you if the criminal has never been caught.
The scheme was recommended by the Bichard report into the Soham murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman by college caretaker Ian Huntley.
And of course, the BBC fails to mention that Huntley was a known criminal who passed CRB checks. Because he passed the checks he was trusted immediately by the people who employed him. This is the fundamental error of the idea that a computer can bestow trustworthiness onto a human being.
Since roughly a third of sexual crimes are committed by people without a previous conviction, it is inevitable that some people with apparently excellent credentials but sinister intentions are going to get jobs working with children or vulnerable adults. And we will only know when it is too late.
Putting eleven million people into a database CANNOT protect children. Roger Singleton knows this, and so does Delyth ‘Mutterschwein’ Morgan. This is about getting the maximum number of people onto the NIR. This is about humiliating and conditioning the British public to accept machine mediated trust. This is about dehumanizing people, destroying the natural instincts of the British, substituting distrust and fear for every natural impulse that people normally have. This is about putting the state in the middle of every single thing that you do, no matter what it is or where it happens. This is about building a dossier on every person, where if you hold opinions that the state does not like, you are BARRED.
Kill it all with fire say I.
FURTHERMORE
Mimi Majick points out the following, “What if a parent is accused of some politically incorrect infraction of the kind the ISA say they are taking into consideration. Does this then mean that they are not fit to be in charge of their own children?“. The number of people who are politically incorrect runs to the millions. Jonathan Ross for example, has said things that fall into the ‘Demeaning, disrespectful, humiliating’ category; are his children going to be put on the at risk database because of his sense of humor? What about all the people who hold political views that are not liked by the prejudiced apparatchiks at the ISA, for example, BNP members, who whilst no one likes them, have the absolute right to believe whatever they like.
Finally, because this ISA is being mislabeled as a ‘paedophile checklist’ anyone who finds themselves on it will be mislabeled as a paedophile when in fact someone just doesn’t like the things that they say or write.
A while back we wrote a piece about Gavin Webb, who wrote about Home Education. Gavin Webb was a Liberal Democrat councillor at Stoke on Trent. He called himself a ‘Libertarian Liberal Democrat‘, which of course, makes no sense at all:
[…] Are you a Libertarian, or are you a Liberal Democrat? How can you possibly remain a member of a party that explicitly wants to eradicate the rights of people to run their families as they choose? […]
We wrote. Now, Mr Webb has dumped the Liberal Democrats and joined the Libertarian Party. This is significant because:
“Whilst we have a number of Parish and Town Councillors, Gavin is the first City Councillor that has crossed the floor to a truly Radical Party, one that wants to change the relationship between State and the Individual to the point where the State is subordinate to the will of the people, not the people subordinate to the will of the State.
And here is the full announcement:
PRESS RELEASE COUNCILLOR GAVIN WEBB OF STOKE ON TRENT CITY COUNCIL RESIGNS FROM THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS AND JOINS THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY (LPUK)
Gavin Webb, who was selected as the Liberal Democrat prospective parliamentary candidate for Burton in 2008 and elected as a Lib Dem councillor on Stoke-on-Trent City Council in 2007, has today announced that he has resigned from the Liberal Democrats.
He says: “I have made a good many friends in my fourteen years of activism in the Liberal Democrats and I hope that those friendships will continue, but regretfully I have decided to resign from the Liberal Democrats.
“The party, like the Conservative and Labour parties, has become a party of the establishment. It has unfortunately firmly wedded itself to the belief that there are primarily government solutions to the problems facing our country, and in the process, they are adopting policies that undermine our rights and freedoms as individuals.
“As far as I can see, most political parties in the UK appear to trust individuals when it comes to voting for councillors, MPs and MEPs, but once comfortably in power they are reluctant to trust individuals when it comes to them making choices about their own lives.
“There is however one political party – the Libertarian Party – that believes in giving responsibility back to individuals over their own lives and their own finances; and it is this party that I have now decided to join.
“We are on the road of authoritarianism, where government is our ruler rather than us being the ruler of our government. It is time for each and every single one of us to make a stand against government and those who feed off it, and demand the reduction of its size and scope.
“From what I’ve seen from many Lib Dem parliamentarians and councillors I don’t believe the Liberal Democrat Party has the inclination to argue for smaller government in defence of our individual rights.
“Though there are some good classical liberal and libertarian types in the party, with whom I hope to continue to have a good relationship, their voices are crowded out by people who believe it perfectly okay to dictate to people how they should live their lives. I don’t wish any longer to be a part of that.
There is another vital tactical reason for cleaving to pure principle. It is true that day-to-day social and political events are the resultants of many pressures, the often unsatisfactory outcome of the push-and-pull of conflicting ideologies and interests. But if only for that reason, it is all the more important for the libertarian to keep upping the ante. The call for a two percent tax reduction may achieve only the slight moderation of a projected tax increase; a call for a drastic tax cut may indeed achieve a substantial reduction. And, over the years, it is precisely the strategic role of the “extremist” to keep pushing the matrix of day-to-day action further and further in his direction. The socialists have been particularly adept at this strategy. If we look at the socialist program advanced sixty, or even thirty years ago, it will be evident that measures considered dangerously socialistic a generation or two ago are now considered an indispensable part of the “mainstream” of the American heritage. In this way, the day-to-day compromises of supposedly “practical” politics get pulled inexorably in the collectivist direction. There is no reason why the libertarian cannot accomplish the same result. In fact, one of the reasons that the conservative opposition to collectivism has been so weak is that conservatism, by its very nature, offers not a consistent political philosophy but only a “practical” defense of the existing status quo, enshrined as embodiments of the American “tradition.” Yet, as statism grows and accretes, it becomes, by definition, increasingly entrenched and therefore “traditional”; conservatism can then find no intellectual weapons to accomplish its overthrow.
Cleaving to principle means something more than holding high and not contradicting the ultimate libertarian ideal. It also means striving to achieve that ultimate goal as rapidly as is physically possible. In short, the libertarian must never advocate or prefer a gradual, as opposed to an immediate and rapid, approach to his goal. For by doing so, he undercuts the overriding importance of his own goals and principles. And if he himself values his own goals so lightly, how highly will others value them?
In short, to really pursue the goal of liberty, the libertarian must desire it attained by the most effective and speediest means available. It was in this spirit that the classical liberal Leonard E. Read, advocating immediate and total abolition of price and wage controls after World War II, declared in a speech, “If there were a button on this rostrum, the pressing of which would release all wage and price controls instantaneously, I would put my finger on it and push!”2
The libertarian, then, should be a person who would push the button, if it existed, for the instantaneous abolition of all invasions of liberty. Of course, he knows, too, that such a magic button does not exist, but his fundamental preference colors and shapes his entire strategic perspective.
There are people out there who ‘do not like Libertarians’. For certain, Mr Webb will encounter these people. What needs to be done is that the proper name needs to be given to them when they are discussed or confronted; they are VIOLENT PEOPLE.
Collectivists are VIOLENT PEOPLE who advocate using VIOLENCE on others so that their philosophy is followed. No doubt these not so insightful people will strongly deny they are violent, but the fact remains the same; behind every one of their policies lies the threat of violence that will be done to those who do not obey.
That is the reality behind the well meaning ideas and eloquent words of these people; brutal, immoral and unjustifiable VIOLENCE.
Good news for health freedom lovers and doubters about the Swine Flu pseudopandemic
30 years after compulsory vaccination became US Law:
US Court issues an injunction to stop it and to hold the the government and drug companies responsible for reactions.
A Preliminary Injunction to stop mandatory vaccinations has been issued in the United States District Court of New Jersey. This comes after a federal lawsuit opposing forced vaccines was filed in that court by Tim Vawter, pro se attorney, on July 31st with the federal government as defendant. When the judge signs the Preliminary Injunction, it will stop the federal government from forcing anyone in any state to take flu vaccine against their will. It will also prevent a state or local government from forcibly vaccinating anyone, and forbid any person who is not vaccinated from being denied any services or constitutional rights. Vawter’s filings included a Complaint, and several pages of evidentiary Exhibits.
Vawter’s legal papers have been written not only for filing in federal court, but additionally so they can be looked at by activists around the world for ideas on filing lawsuits in their own countries to help stop forced vaccinations. Vawter believes that as the truth of the dangers of flu vaccines continues to become known, banning the forced use of them will eventually succeed on a worldwide basis. He cautions people to avoid fear and keep themselves focused on the task of blocking forced vaccination.
Preliminary Injunction will immediately halt mandatory vaccinations in the U.S.
The Court, having heard the Motion for Preliminary Injunction and read the papers in its support, states in the Preliminary Injunction that it appears the federal government has engaged in some amount of negligence with regards to failure to properly investigate the safety of the flu vaccines scheduled for use in late 2009-2010, and the evidence submitted does warrant a more thorough investigation into the safety of the flu vaccines.
The Court ordered that the government shall be forbidden from forcing any person to be required to take any influenza vaccination against that person’s free will and free choice. The government will not allow any state or local government, or any party, to force any person to be required to take any influenza vaccination against that person’s free will and free choice.
U.S. government sued for gross negligence and violation of the Constitution
In his Cause of Action, Vawter charged that the federal government has engaged in gross negligence by funding and promoting flu vaccines that are proven to be dangerous and manufactured with little oversight. The vaccines scheduled for use in late 2009 and 2010 contain heavy metals including thimerosal mercury, which have been proven to cause autism in children with lowered immune systems, and other dangerous and toxic ingredients. The federal government has stated it will force these flu vaccines onto the American public against their will, under a document signed by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
He further charged that the vaccine makers stand to earn billions of dollars selling vaccines, and are already spending tens of millions advertising a “Phase 6 Pandemic” that the evidence shows does not really exist. The federal government has not required the World Health Organization (WHO) to show evidence of such a pandemic. There has been no collection of facts, sworn testimony, witnesses being questioned, hearings being held, or lie detector tests being given when preposterous statements have been made. The WHO declared a massive “Phase 6 Influenza Pandemic”, even though only a few hundred people worldwide had so far died of this swine flu virus, and when far more people die each year of regular flu.
Vawter noted there is a preponderance of evidence to show that the federal government so poorly trained its employees that they eagerly agreed with the unsubstantiated claims of the WHO in the face of evidence to the contrary.
Forced vaccination would violate the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution by allowing the government to enter homes and force people to be vaccinated, or to forcibly remove people to another location for vaccination. It would also violate Fifth Amendment Constitutional rights by depriving people of liberty without due process of law.
Vawter charged that the federal government has engaged in gross negligence by failing to properly investigate factual evidence submitted by esteemed medical professions over many years which proves flu vaccines have caused serious damage to people. The CDC has stated that thimerosal mercury is being used in the new flu vaccines being prepared.
The government has failed to investigate profiteering. Billions of dollars in vaccine sales can cause organizations to falsify threats so as to cause unwarranted public hysteria leading to forced vaccinations.
The government is guilty of gross negligence because its employees failed to properly investigate the release of a case of live swine flu virus. One of the main companies the government deals with, Baxter Vaccines, was apparently involved in the transporting of live bird flu virus that was released on a public train earlier this year. A lab technician with the Swiss National Center for Influenza in Geneva had traveled to Zurich to collect eight ampoules, five of which were filled with the H1N1 swine flu virus. However, failure of the dry ice in their container allowed pressure to build up, and the ampoules exploded as the train was pulling into a station.
The highly reputable UK newspaper “the Telegraph” reported on July 2nd that flu vaccines tested on homeless people caused twenty-one of them to die.
Vawter charged there is a preponderance of evidence to show that government will not provide people being vaccinated with a list of the vaccine ingredients and possible negative side effects before they are vaccinated. Most of the public will not know this flu vaccine contains thimerosal mercury.
Vawter submitted an Order to force the government to publish vaccine ingredients and side effects, and to give this information to everyone who takes a flu vaccine, and do so at least 3 days prior to their vaccination. A denial of this order would violate Plaintiff’s rights to demand the government obey the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by requiring it to engage in freedom of speech. The First Amendment not only allows a citizen to have freedom of speech himself, but it allows a citizen to demand his government engage in freedom of speech when it is promoting the use of such as these vaccinations to the public.
The government proclamation stating a person cannot sue for any damages he receives from the flu vaccine, completely bypasses the congress and the court system in violation of the Seventh Amendment of the Constitution which grants the right to sue to recover for damages. Vawter submitted an Order to deem unconstitutional any proclamation, rule or similar law that forbids people from suing for damages resulting from the vaccines of 2009 and 2010.
About Australian Vaccination Network, Inc.
The AVN is a non-profit, volunteer-run charitable association. Since 1994, the AVN has provided information and support to the general community who are trying to make informed choices about vaccination and health. Their lobbying in Federal Parliament has ensured that compulsory vaccination for children has not come to pass and they are the major reporters of vaccine adverse reactions to ADRAC (The Adverse Drug Reactions Advisory Committee).
Furthermore, under federal legislation passed by Congress since 2001, an Emergency Use Authorization allows drug companies, health officials and anyone administering experimental vaccines to Americans during a declared public health emergency to be protected from liability if people get injured. US Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius has granted vaccine makers total legal immunity from any lawsuits that may result from any new swine flu vaccine. And some states may make the vaccination mandatory by law.
But, looking positively we could rejig an old phrase and suggest that “Resistance is fertile!” (Ahem. I’ll get my coat).
At the end of the day, when the shill journalists and morons understand that this deadly vaccine is going to be pumped into THEM and THEIR CHILDREN by FORCE, all of a sudden, their masks come off and they turn instantly.
These are the sorts of people who are the great threat. Clear speaking, clear thinking, highly educated people who do not conform. This is the sort of young woman that the governments of Germany, Sweden and now the UK want to completely destroy and prevent from coming into being. They reflexively challenge and parse every piece of nonsense that is thrown at them. They are self confident, secure, self reliant and solid as a rock. They do not have a fear centered mentality; the absolute key to the kind of totalitarianized, brainwashed population that the monsters want to produce in their factories.
The unschoolers and autonomous learner young adults that I have met have all been polite, bright eyed, engaging, well spoken and grounded. They shake your hand firmly, look you straight in the eye when they speak to you and exude the sort of confidence that any parent would surely be proud of.
This is from an article entitled, Publik Edumacation Яefermation By Jerry Salcido
[…]
The concept of morality presumes that men come into this world with certain natural rights, including the right to life, the right to the fruits of one’s labor, and the right of liberty. The right of liberty endows all men with the freedom to act in whatever manner conceivable, so long as such actions do not infringe on the natural rights of others.
Under the right of liberty, therefore, if someone has gained rightful possession over some thing, there is but one way for another to obtain that thing — through voluntary exchange. The only other way to obtain it is through force, but that runs counter to the possessor’s natural rights.
Thus, if Shane has a pair of new shoes and Jason wants them, Jason can obtain those shoes in several ways. Jason can offer some form of value in exchange for the shoes, and assuming Shane is in agreement, the transaction is in accordance with the natural rights of both parties. Jason could also act by himself through aggression to force Shane to give him the shoes. Everyone would agree in that situation that Jason’s acts would be immoral. Even more sinister, Jason could combine with his friends Jeff, Kelly, Candice, and Heather and jointly vote in a democratic process to force Shane to give Jason the shoes.
Public education is based on the latter example, that is, it is founded on democratic force, aggression, and the violation of natural rights. In a public education scenario, Shane and Candice cannot get Jeff and Kelly to voluntarily fund their children’s education, so Shane and Candice combine with Jason and Heather to force Jeff and Kelly to either provide for the education of Shane’s and Candice’s children or go to jail. Elementary my dear Watson… or so it would seem.
To most Americans the public education system is sacrosanct, and to attack it, let along advocate its abolition, is in and of itself immoral. That is because somehow Americans have created and accepted a notion that everyone is entitled to an education at his neighbor’s expense. This underlying assumption was evident in President Obama’s Race to the Top speech when he said that “The future belongs to the nation that best educates its people.” A nation has no right or obligation to educate anyone. Instead, the state’s only role is to protect the right of the free individual to secure his education of choice by his own means.
Even the more conservative and libertarian types have a difficult time accepting that public education is immoral, but those same people will turn around and protest President Obama’s healthcare plan. The principles are the same for either socialized medicine or socialized education. Plain and simple, public education is founded on theft and force, and such a system can never become moral, and therefore, can never be reformed.
As I walk about the small town in the South Wales valleys that I now call home, I sometimes reflect on how vibrant and alive this place once was. I am not going back too far with my memories, but today the town is dying.
When I first came here to Blaenavon there was a butcher, a baker, a shop that sold all manner of things including the candlesticks, a number of florists, newsagents, hairdressers, greengrocers selling fresh fruit & veg, a plethora of book shops, cafe’s ranging from a greasy Joes to a bohemian meeting place. There was manned Police Station, a Fire Station, 3 petrol stations, 20 public houses, 2 Post Offices, a swimming and sports complex and a population of around 6,500 who had painfully recovered economically from the closure of the mining industry a decade earlier.
In its day it was much larger, with a peak in population in 1921 of 12,500 supporting the string of mines that were present on both sides of the valley, the finest steel works in Britain and an Iron works that today stands in ruins and is supported by Heritage funds as a museum. The largest of the mines, Big Pit, still remains, although unproductive as it is now open to the public as a living museum.
Today however, after 12 years of Labour interference and mis-management in the Economy and the daily lives of everyone who lives here, the town is dying. The Butcher sold up, the baker has gone, the shop that sells everything now sells very little, the book shops are all gone, so are the cafes. The Police station is closed after an experiment to only have it open 2 hours a day, the Fire Station is part time, only 1 petrol station remains, 11 of the 20 pubs are gone, 1 of the post offices has been up for sale for over a year, the Swimming pool originally built with miners funds has been torn down, sold to developers (who intend to build a new police station?) and an increasingly confused population wondering where their next job and income is going to come from.
Pushing them further are the regulations, the interference in their lives, the touring DVLA vans with the ANPR camera, the host of newly installed CCTV poles, the mass of double yellow lines, the cut back in bus services, seeing Heritage grants diverted elsewhere, seeing their public buildings sold to developers, lack of toleration for any minor infraction of the rules, a lack of police presence.
The town itself has for many years been used as a training ground by the utilities companies, with more test holes dug and road patches laid here than anywhere else I have ever seen. Ex miners and their families had retrained as carpenters, electricians, builders, window fitters as they followed government advice and gained work from the rise of the social housing trusts that sprang up in surrounding towns and villages, that work is now dry as the funds are no longer flowing. The majority of those who still work are in public sector jobs or with companies that support the public sector.
That the people of this town have a work ethic goes without saying, given the opportunities they are hard working, given the opportunities they are adventurous as they have proven in rebuilding their lives after the mine closures, but yet again the rug is being pulled from beneath them by the very politicians who say they support them. It is soul destroying to see a town where nearly 40% of the population is on benefits of one kind or another sinking slowly because the disposable incomes have gone, and over the past 10 years the entire local economy has become dependent on government work or companies that provide services to local government or quangos, even then there is only enough to survive the daily payouts.
This situation is not unique to the one place where I live, it is repeated in town after town right across the UK, consequently to look from the bottom up we can see this country dying on its feet. That vital element in the recovery of any economy, the sustainable element, disposable income, has either gone or is diminished to such a level that everything begins to grind to a halt.
The Libertarian Party sees the recovery in a very different light to the other political parties. We do not see that bailing out banks and factories with taxpayer funds is either desirable or sustainable, nor is the latest Conservative idea of community work for benefits (pure communitarian not conservative). We do not believe that central and local government should be the only employers, further increasing the burden on taxpayers to sustain this huge monolithic spending machine.
People here do not want more state involvement, they do not want more debt through bank loans to survive, and the few businesses that are left want to be able to survive and grow on profits, not bank loans, and to do this they need customers.
Libertarians want to see people who are working keep their earnings, not working on half pay, giving them the disposable income to spend in the Butchers, the bakers, the candlestick shop, the pubs and all the other shops in the area. We know that this will mean replacement and replenishment, providing orders and growth to the factories and support businesses, who in turn will need to order and buy more raw materials. This is how the local, and in turn the national economy will recover.
In order to do that, we have proposed along with major reforms in monetary and fiscal policy, a range of far reaching manifesto items not least of which is the initial reduction and then elimination of income tax, not fiddling around the edges of tax policy, but scrapping it altogether. Putting money back into the powerhouse of any economic strategy, purchasing power.
In order that businesses can rise to this challenge, and survive afterwards we also propose scrapping many of the regulatory controls that currently restrict both the opening of new business and the sustainability of SME’s. A huge reduction in Corporation Tax, setting it at a 10% flat rate and including a commitment to investigate the possibility of a 5 year exemption from Corporation Tax for start-ups (not deferment, an exemption).
We know that 10 factories paying the headline rate of corporation tax of 28% will not sustain the economy of this area, but 50 factories paying 10% will. Growth will be self sustaining as more people enter the workplace to support that growth, there will be more disposable income being spent, spurring even more factories and business to support and service that spending. The best bit however is that it can be done without reliance on bank lending, as it will be real money flowing up the chain, real profits creating that growth.
When growth is based on turnover in this way, taxation receipts will actually rise through volume, rather than decrease as it is at present by taking an ever bigger percentage of a diminishing pie, allowing everyone to gain and remove the need for government to borrow.The current level of spending by Government cannot continue, and the Conservative and LibDems are already to committed to either maintain or increase spending in many areas. This is unsustainable. Only today the PSBR (Public Sector Borrowing Requirement) has been released for July. In one month alone government has overspent and had to borrow the unsightly sum of £8.016 billion. That means the government was over-spending by more than £258 million per day last month, which is living beyond our collective means by more than £10 million an hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. (H/T Guido) This means that the productive parts of our economy can no longer support such a huge government, the overspending and the restrictive regulations. (To give an example of how desperate these regulations have become, read this, punishment for attempting self help)
I look forward to the day when with the help of the Libertarian Party this small town that I live in can enjoy once again the vibrancy that it once knew, where it and its inhabitants can again be proud and self sustaining and above all self regulating as we diminish the power of the state to interfere and control.
As we have said before on BLOGDIAL, and as others have said, changing the laws on Home Education in the UK using the pretext of ‘child safety’ is utter nonsense. Thanks to AhED, we now know scientifically that Home Educated children are in fact SAFER than children who are sent to school. It has to be said that no matter what case they bring to the attention of the press, the fact is that the vast majority of families are perfectly safe, do not need to be spied upon and should be left alone to get on with the business of the pursuit of happiness. The current and nauseating fad of holding up exceptional cases as a pretext for putting everyone under suspicion is morally wrong, socially corrosive and the result of bad thinking.
But I digress…
The only other pretext they have left in their quiver of evil is to claim that Home Educated children are not achieving academically. This has already been proven to be false, and now it has been proven yet again; the HSLDA has just released a new study proving that Home Educated children out perform state schooled children in every way. There are those who say that exams should not be the sole way that success is measured, and I agree with them; how you as a parent measure success is your own affair. What the HSLDA is doing is proving that Home Education should not come under scrutiny because people believe that the families that do it cannot achieve anything.
Finally the only reason why Home Education is under attack in the UK is that a bunch of Hard Core Socialists are hell bent on eliminating what they see as privilege, and will do anything to prevent a free thinking, high achieving superclass from coming into being. The same jealous urges that drove Labour to vow to close Eton and Harrow drives the call to ban Home Education. An army of Home Educated people, vast in number, would be a real threat to the established order and to the Socialist Utopia that is the wet dream of Ed Balls and his ilk.
What this report shows is that Home Educated children perform well across the board, and that the factors that the insane Socialists think are the divisive causes of inequality make no difference to the level of achievement; in other words, when the state is left out of education, all people do better as a result and income, gender, level of education of the parents has no effect on the much beloved outcomes. This is what they hate even more than ‘privilege’; the fact that everyone can not only live without them, but that everyone would be better off without them entirely.
Children who are not brainwashed and who can think for themselves, numbering over 100,000, constitutes a game changing army. As the state system continues to churn out illiterate, immoral, violent and destroyed people, and as the penny drops about how and why this is happening, more and more people will opt for Home Education, normalizing it and forever breaking the poison spell that has hypnotized people for generations; the spell that made people believe that the only place children can learn is in a school with a professional teacher.
[…]
New Nationwide Study Confirms Homeschool Academic Achievement Ian Slatter
Director of Media Relations HSLDA
August 10, 2009
Each year, the homeschool movement graduates at least 100,000 students. Due to the fact that both the United States government and homeschool advocates agree that homeschooling has been growing at around 7% per annum for the past decade, it is not surprising that homeschooling is gaining increased attention. Consequently, many people have been asking questions about homeschooling, usually with a focus on either the academic or social abilities of homeschool graduates.
As an organization advocating on behalf of homeschoolers, Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) long ago committed itself to demonstrating that homeschooling should be viewed as a mainstream educational alternative.
We strongly believe that homeschooling is a thriving education movement capable of producing millions of academically and socially able students who will have a tremendously positive effect on society.
Despite much resistance from outside the homeschool movement, whether from teachers unions, politicians, school administrators, judges, social service workers, or even family members, over the past few decades homeschoolers have slowly but surely won acceptance as a mainstream education alternative. This has been due in part to the commissioning of research which demonstrates the academic success of the average homeschooler.
The last piece of major research looking at homeschool academic achievement was completed in 1998 by Dr. Lawrence Rudner. Rudner, a professor at the ERIC Clearinghouse, which is part of the University of Maryland, surveyed over 20,000 homeschooled students. His study, titled Home Schooling Works, discovered that homeschoolers (on average) scored about 30 percentile points higher than the national average on standardized achievement tests.
This research and several other studies supporting the claims of homeschoolers have helped the homeschool cause tremendously. Today, you would be hard pressed to find an opponent of homeschooling who says that homeschoolers, on average, are poor academic achievers.
There is one problem, however. Rudner’s research was conducted over a decade ago. Without another look at the level of academic achievement among homeschooled students, critics could begin to say that research on homeschool achievement is outdated and no longer relevant.
Recognizing this problem, HSLDA commissioned Dr. Brian Ray, an internationally recognized scholar and president of the non-profit National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), to collect data for the 2007–08 academic year for a new study which would build upon 25 years of homeschool academic scholarship conducted by Ray himself, Rudner, and many others.
Drawing from 15 independent testing services, the Progress Report 2009: Homeschool Academic Achievement and Demographics included 11,739 homeschooled students from all 50 states who took three well-known tests—California Achievement Test, Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, and Stanford Achievement Test for the 2007–08 academic year. The Progress Report is the most comprehensive homeschool academic study ever completed.
The Results
Overall the study showed significant advances in homeschool academic achievement as well as revealing that issues such as student gender, parents’ education level, and family income had little bearing on the results of homeschooled students.
National Average Percentile Scores
Subtest
Homeschool
Public School
Reading
89
50
Language
84
50
Math
84
50
Science
86
50
Social Studies
84
50
Corea
88
50
Compositeb
86
50
a. Core is a combination of Reading, Language, and Math.
b. Composite is a combination of all subtests that the student took on the test.
There was little difference between the results of homeschooled boys and girls on core scores.
Boys—87th percentile Girls—88th percentile
Household income had little impact on the results of homeschooled students.
$34,999 or less—85th percentile $35,000–$49,999—86th percentile
$50,000–$69,999—86th percentile $70,000 or more—89th percentile
The education level of the parents made a noticeable difference, but the homeschooled children of non-college educated parents still scored in the 83rd percentile, which is well above the national average.
Neither parent has a college degree—83rd percentile One parent has a college degree—86th percentile
Both parents have a college degree—90th percentile
Whether either parent was a certified teacher did not matter.
Certified (i.e., either parent ever certified)—87th percentile Not certified (i.e., neither parent ever certified)—88th percentile
Parental spending on home education made little difference.
Spent $600 or more on the student—89th percentile Spent under $600 on the student—86th percentile
The extent of government regulation on homeschoolers did not affect the results.
Low state regulation—87th percentile Medium state regulation—88th percentile
High state regulation—87th percentile
HSLDA defines the extent of government regulation this way:
States with low regulation: No state requirement for parents to initiate any contact or State requires parental notification only.
States with moderate regulation: State requires parents to send notification, test scores, and/or professional evaluation of student progress.
State with high regulation: State requires parents to send notification or achievement test scores and/or professional evaluation, plus other requirements (e.g. curriculum approval by the state, teacher qualification of parents, or home visits by state officials).
The question HSLDA regularly puts before state legislatures is, “If government regulation does not improve the results of homeschoolers why is it necessary?”
In short, the results found in the new study are consistent with 25 years of research, which show that as a group homeschoolers consistently perform above average academically. The Progress Report also shows that, even as the numbers and diversity of homeschoolers have grown tremendously over the past 10 years, homeschoolers have actually increased the already sizeable gap in academic achievement between themselves and their public school counterparts-moving from about 30 percentile points higher in the Rudner study (1998) to 37 percentile points higher in the Progress Report (2009).
As mentioned earlier, the achievement gaps that are well-documented in public school between boys and girls, parents with lower incomes, and parents with lower levels of education are not found among homeschoolers. While it is not possible to draw a definitive conclusion, it does appear from all the existing research that homeschooling equalizes every student upwards. Homeschoolers are actually achieving every day what the public schools claim are their goals—to narrow achievement gaps and to educate each child to a high level.
Of course, an education movement which consistently shows that children can be educated to a standard significantly above the average public school student at a fraction of the cost—the average spent by participants in the Progress Report was about $500 per child per year as opposed to the public school average of nearly $10,000 per child per year—will inevitably draw attention from the K-12 public education industry.
Answering the Critics
This particular study is the most comprehensive ever undertaken. It attempts to build upon and improve on the previous research. One criticism of the Rudner study was that it only drew students from one large testing service. Although there was no reason to believe that homeschoolers participating with that service were automatically non-representative of the broader homeschool community, HSLDA decided to answer this criticism by using 15 independent testing services for this new study. There can be no doubt that homeschoolers from all walks of life and backgrounds participated in the Progress Report.
While it is true that not every homeschooler in America was part of this study, it is also true that the Progress Report provides clear evidence of the success of homeschool programs.
The reason is that all social science studies are based on samples. The goal is to make the sample as representative as possible because then more confident conclusions can be drawn about the larger population. Those conclusions are then validated when other studies find the same or similar results.
Critics tend to focus on this narrow point and maintain that they will not be satisfied until every homeschooler is submitted to a test. This is not a reasonable request because not all homeschoolers take standardized achievement tests. In fact, while the majority of homeschool parents do indeed test their children simply to track their progress and also to provide them with the experience of test-taking, it is far from a comprehensive and universal practice among homeschoolers.
The best researchers can do is provide a sample of homeschooling families and compare the results of their children to those of public school students, in order to give the most accurate picture of how homeschoolers in general are faring academically.
The concern that the only families who chose to participate are the most successful homeschoolers can be alleviated by the fact that the overwhelming majority of parents did not know their children’s test results before agreeing to participate in the study.
HSLDA believes that this study along with the several that have been done in the past are clear evidence that homeschoolers are succeeding academically.
Final Thought
Homeschooling is making great strides and hundreds of thousands of parents across America are showing every day what can be achieved when parents exercise their right to homeschool and make tremendous sacrifices to provide their children with the best education available.
Health care reforms are turning into health care revolts. Americans are turning up the heat on congressmen in town hall meetings across the U.S.
While watching these political hot August nights, I decided to research the reasons so many are opposed to Obamacare to separate the facts from the fantasy. What I discovered is that there are indeed dirty little secrets buried deep within the 1,000-plus page health care bill.
Dirty secret No. 1 in Obamacare is about the government’s coming into homes and usurping parental rights over child care and development.
It’s outlined in sections 440 and 1904 of the House bill (Page 838), under the heading “home visitation programs for families with young children and families expecting children.” The programs (provided via grants to states) would educate parents on child behavior and parenting skills.
The bill says that the government agents, “well-trained and competent staff,” would “provide parents with knowledge of age-appropriate child development in cognitive, language, social, emotional, and motor domains … modeling, consulting, and coaching on parenting practices,” and “skills to interact with their child to enhance age-appropriate development.”
Are you kidding me?! With whose parental principles and values? Their own? Certain experts’? From what field and theory of childhood development? As if there are one-size-fits-all parenting techniques! Do we really believe they would contextualize and personalize every form of parenting in their education, or would they merely universally indoctrinate with their own?
Are we to assume the state’s mediators would understand every parent’s social or religious core values on parenting? Or would they teach some secular-progressive and religiously neutered version of parental values and wisdom? And if they were to consult and coach those who expect babies, would they ever decide circumstances to be not beneficial for the children and encourage abortions?
One government rebuttal is that this program would be “voluntary.” Is that right? Does that imply that this agency would just sit back passively until some parent needing parenting skills said, “I don’t think I’ll call my parents, priest or friends or read a plethora of books, but I’ll go down to the local government offices”? To the contrary, the bill points to specific targeted groups and problems, on Page 840: The state “shall identify and prioritize serving communities that are in high need of such services, especially communities with a high proportion of low-income families.”
Are we further to conclude by those words that low-income families know less about parenting? Are middle- and upper-class parents really better parents? Less neglectful of their children? Less needful of parental help and training? Is this “prioritized” training not a biased, discriminatory and even prejudicial stereotype and generalization that has no place in federal government, law or practice?
Bottom line: Is all this what you want or expect in a universal health care bill being rushed through Congress? Do you want government agents coming into your home and telling you how to parent your children? When did government health care turn into government child care?
Government needs less of a role in running our children’s lives and more of a role in supporting parents’ decisions for their children. Children belong to their parents, not the government. And the parents ought to have the right — and government support — to parent them without the fed’s mandates, education or intervention in our homes.
Poor old Chuck; he almost gets it right in the end; government needs less of a role and no role at all in supporting parent’s decisions for their children not MORE of a role. More of a role means MORE GOVERNMENT.
In any case, this sounds very much like the home invasions outlined by Balls and Badman, “for your own good”, to make sure that you are teaching your children ‘correctly’. It’s all completely bogus of course, but what is interesting is that there seems to be a simultaneous move both here and in the USA to usurp the parent and replace the state in that sacred role.
Americans will not have it, and they will go to war over it. Thank heavens for real people.
Although he is a Candian native, Cory’s family came from the Soviet Union: he asked his grandmother why she didn’t stay there.
I asked her why she didn’t stay, and she shook her head like I’d asked the stupidest possible question. “It was the Soviet Union”, she said. She waved her hand, groped for the answer. “Papers,” she said, finally. “We had to carry papers. The police could stop you at any time and make you turn over your papers.” The floodgates opened. They spied on you. They made you spy on each other. Your grandfather wouldn’t have been allowed to stay – he was Polish, they wouldn’t let him stay with the family in Russia, he’d have to go back to Poland.
There are many people who are simply not going to put up with what is happening in the UK and are either planning to leave or have already left. Many more will fight till the bitter end. This is not just ‘foreigners’, but British citizens also.
Only a total fool, having full knowledge of recent history, would wait around to be ‘Kristallnacht’d’; and of course, if that does not happen, there are an infinite gradation of bad things that can happen beneath that, like the state saying you cannot remove ‘your’ money or your property when you leave. There was a time in the very recent past where the maximum you could take out of the UK was £100. Anyone that does not think this can happen again is insane, especially with the economic chaos that is about to unfold before our eyes. The US has already passed laws that are aimed at stopping americans from leaving – the ‘Hotel California’ laws – what makes anyone think that Britain will not follow them? They follow them everywhere else, so why not there?
Cory then moved to Britain, where he found—as Bella has—that his status here is at the whim of the disgusting, petty, spiteful little cunts in government, responding to the BNP dog-whistle morons who populate this green and increasingly unpleasant land.
Britain is run by disgusting, petty, spiteful little cunts; it is not populated by disgusting, petty, spiteful little cunts. The same Britain that we all remember and loved is still there, as are most of the people who inhabited it; its just hidden under a layer of grime that needs to be jetwashed off.
Britain can be great again. This next election is clearly its last chance; the things that have been done since the Bliar regime are so contrary to everything that is right, if the Tories do not move to undo them, Britain will be lost. I know many people who are going to leave this beleaguered island if the Tories do not clean house. There are only so many chances that people are willing to give a place, and if it does not improve, it is pointless to stay and suffer the indignities of a police state when you can simply get on a train and LEAVE.
People from all over the world have given up on Britain. They do not come here for medical treatment anymore (for example) instead, they fly to Dubai, where they get a high standard of treatment, equivalent or better than what you get in Britain, without having to be treated like a criminal. In the end, when this country starts to wither, as it becomes culturally isolated, they will either have to change their ways or end up being just like a Soviet satellite state; grey, grim, paranoid, devoid of innovation on all fronts, purged of individuals and individuality, freedom-less and inert… like soot, the chemically spent remains of combustion.
A few years later, I was living with my partner, and had fathered a British daughter (when I mentioned this to a UK immigration official at Heathrow, he sneeringly called her “half a British citizen”). We were planning a giant family wedding in Toronto when the news came down: the Home Secretary had unilaterally, on 24 hours’ notice, changed the rules for highly skilled migrants to require a university degree. My immigration lawyers confirmed it: people who’d established residence in the UK for years and years, who’d built businesses and employed Britons here, who owned homes and given birth to British children, were being thrown out of the country, taking their tax-payments, jobs and families with them.
My partner and I scrambled. We got married. We applied for a spousal visa. A few weeks later, I presented myself in Croydon at the Home Office immigration centre to turn over my biometrics and have a visa glued into my Canadian passport. I got two years’ breathing room. My family could stay in Britain.
Then came last week’s announcement: effective immediately, spousal visa holders (and foreign students) would be issued mandatory, biometric radio-frequency ID papers that we will have to carry at all times. And I started to look over my shoulder.
You must do what you think is right of course.
We have spoken about this before; about changing the rules half way through the game:
[…]
Many people came to the UK because the rules were favorable. Now, after settling down, doing good work, bringing prosperity and creativity to the UK, the government wants to change the rules halfway through the game. That is not cricket.
The financial crowd understands this better than anyone, “… if the rules can change in this way, arbitrarily, unfairly, insanely, then its best to get out NOW before some other, even worse, more insane rules come down the pipeline, locking us in here”. That is why so many financiers have already left and have vowed never to return.
When someone asks you to ‘hand over your biometrics’, which actually means GETTING FINGERPRINTED LIKE A CRIMINAL, it means that a fundamental line has been crossed. With the NIR, once you hand over your fingerprints, YOU ARE IN THE SYSTEM. It doesn’t matter if they issue an ID Card or not, the mobile fingerprint scanners they are going to deploy mean that your fingerprints ARE THE ID CARD.
Its pointless to now, after having submitted to violation, leave the UK because they are discriminating against foreigners by compelling them to carry ID Cards. You are already in their system to the exact same degree that you would be had you been made to get an ID Card right now.
Biometric (violating) VISAS are vendor driven garbage. They do not improve border security or stop illegal immigration. There are better ways to issue VISAS that do not threaten the recipient.
Canadians can get six month entry when they come to the UK at any port. It is a mistake to get a VISA if you are a Canadian, IMHO. Everyone has their limits, their pain threshold…
Yes, that’s right. And why should immigrants have to do this? They are easy targets, of course. I am now caught up in a similar situation: I am in a relationship—and have been for some time—and the continuance of that relationship is at the whim of bureaucrats and filthy, disgusting, morally bankrupt politicians and the filthy, disgusting, morally bankrupt morons who elect them.
This is a problem that is similar to stock traders and market timing; when is it the optimum moment to exit the market and cash out? If you leave too early, you might miss out on some market movements. If you leave too late, you might not get out at all.
I have seen, at first hand, the second-rate status accorded to those who want to live and work here, and the callousness with which their situation is dealt with. I have seen the way in which this country deals with immigrants, and I dislike it intensely.
Every one of these measures was beta-tested on less-advantaged groups before it was rolled out to the general public.
It is, quite simply, a divide et impera tactic and it is one that I, as a positive libertarian who believes that we are all human, find morally repugnant.
I have constantly pointed out that all of these measures tested on minority “undesirables” will be applied to us sooner or later—and probably sooner.
CCTVs used the be the exclusive territory of bank vaults and prisons. Network wiretapping and censorship began in schools, “to protect children”.
Now, we immigrants are to be the beta testers for Britain’s sleepwalk into the surveillance society. We will have to carry internal passports and the press will say, “If you don’t like it, you don’t have to live here – it’s unseemly for a guest to complain about the terms of the hospitality.” But this beta test is not intended to stop with immigrants. Government freely admits that immigrants are only the first stage of a universal rollout of mandatory biometric RFID identity cards. What happens to us now will happen to you, next.
Even if it were not the case hat what happens to immigrants now will happen to the natives next (Kristallnacht) it is wrong, and you should not put up with it.
Everyone, when they study Germany, wonders, “what would I have done if I was living in Germany then?”. Now is your chance to find out. As we have seen, some people run to legitimize themselves with the state, getting into a marriage at a time other than their choosing, and them to ‘turn over their biometrics’ for the sake of immigration status. Others opt to disappear, or leave or game the system. The ones with nothing to lose burn their fingerprints off and go hard core. There are many different responses to threats.
Of course, everyone with half a brain cell knows that no one would desire to come to Britain as a ‘sponger’ if there was no welfare state. Libertarians abhor the welfare / warfare state because it is founded on stealing. A Libertarian society would be able to accommodate ‘foreigners’ since the state would not be stealing from anyone to pay for the ‘scroungers’. All resentment of immigration would virtually disappear; the only people harboring ill feeling being the racists who have ethnic identity issues.
ID Cards are going to be justified as a way to control the scroungers, and set the world to rights. They are an unintended consequence of the welfare state; something started with good intentions but which has ended up almost destroying Britain.
No, we aren’t seeing people wandering around with yellow stars on their clothing—but we are seeing them forced to get ID cards that we would never wish to carry ourselves. And what do we do?
Nothing.
The conclusion is simple: had the Nazis risen here, we would have not put up any more protest—as our neighbours were taken to the ghettos and then to the death camps—than the Germans did. In fact, we would probably complain less.
As the repulsive general population continue to make shitty jokes about “not mentioning the war”, they are blind to the fact that—had it happened here—they would have been happy to hassle those Jews onto the cattle trucks.
Because, as our own pogrom happens, I hear not a fucking spark from the “great British public”. They are too busy devouring Coronation Street to care.
If this is true, it means that you will have to do what the Doctorowictz family did. Leave, and never come back. This is the choice that you face; you either stay and fight risking everything, or preserve yourself and your wealth and leave. If the British really have degenerated to the degree that you describe, then they are beyond saving. Many people who felt that they owed a debt to this great country, and who fought to help it keep some semblance of sanity, like Doctorow, who in writing that article is contributing to a place that has been his home and which gave him his wife and daughter, are going to have to decide when the time is right to get out before it is too late. If they decide to flee.
Nothing lasts forever. And that really is literally true. The Britain that we all loved may well be gone forever… and we were lucky to have tasted it at all. From what I can tell, there are many people who are still The Real British™ they think like the British used to think, they act like the British used to think, and, most encouragingly, some of them are young.
Very encouraging.
On the other hand, we have, The Cancer That Is Killing Britain, the physical embodiment of which can be seen in the shapes of the presenters and talking heads in this clip:
This is, essentially, a battle against Cancer, a biological struggle. Either the body will survive, or the cancer will kill it.
We are encouraged to spy on our neighbours and report their suspicious activity. We can be stopped and searched with no particularised suspicion, and during these searches, police officers can and do examine such things as the books we’re reading and the personal notes we’ve made.
This is all true, and all horrible.
What we have to do is look to history, recent history, to see how it can all end. It is important to say not only the truth about how things are bad, but what can happen to turn it all around.
East Germany is my favorite example:
If the British are anything like the Germans, the ID Card alone will not be enough to force a massive change in Britain. They might be made of stronger stuff… who knows? One thing is for sure; the ID Card, if it is not scrapped entirely, along with the NIR, is just the beginning; the aparatchicks have many new monstrosities planned that will be hinged on the NIR/ID Card. When they roll them out, and they begin to bite, THEN we will see a Poll Tax style revolt in the UK.
The question is, once again, are you going to wait around for everyone to wake up, are you going to cut your loses and get out, or what?
It might take seventy years for Britain and its people to grow a backbone; if you are over thirty, you are not going to see it, that is for sure, and even if you do, the only pleasure you will get is seeing the evil apparatus destroyed on TV while you are on your deathbead.
OSes are actually VERY important. A free OS keeps you and your information private. In a country where omnipresent surveillance of computers and communications is on the horizon, the free OS is the modern equivalent of an unlicensed photocopier in the Soviet Union. It is a computer under YOUR control doing YOUR bidding, that cannot be hacked into by default under secret arrangements with the manufacturers.
But I digress…
Cory has said that—if nothing changes—he will leave this shithole we call Britain. I don’t know if I can do the same—where is there to go?—but for the very first time, I am seriously considering it.
Even if there is ‘nowhere to go’, which is not the case, wherever you go, if it is the same as Britain police state wise, at least the weather will be better.
I am ashamed and afraid: I thought that I lived in one of the world’s great and tolerant civilisations: over the last few years, I have come to realise that is it simply a gilded cage.
There is nothing to be ashamed of. If you did not make it this way, you are not to blame. You actually did live in one of the world’s greatest and tolerant countries; in many ways, it still is. Britain has just lost its way, and it is not too late for it to change course and restore its former greatness. There are still enough people to make it happen, and believe it or not, you are one of them.
It is why this end to V For Vendetta, desirable though it may be, will never happen.
I wouldn’t be so sure.
There is a reason why that film has struck such a chord with everyone who watches it.
Nor will the people of Britain walk the streets in masks. Our “respresentative democracy” is just a sympton of the greater malaise—the shits in Parliament simply reflect the shits who elected them.
Libertarians know what representative democracies really are, so lets not go there.
For every one person who thinks, and evaluates and tries to be just, there are ten thousand ignorant bigots—repulsive in their stupidity and prejudice—whose voice carries far more weight (ten thousand times the weight, in fact) than that of those who can think. It is why this country is such a fucking shithole—because the filth who live in it vastly outnumber those who are decent.
Cough! cough!:
[…]
And this, I fear, is the problem. This genial idiot is the sort of person who will be the interface between you and the NIR. They will accept anything that is put in front of them; they have no idea of literally any concept of morality or the reality of ‘the other’. They are the people who when told that pressing a button someone will recieve an electric shock, press the button without any hesitation. They are without imagination, human drones, Eloi, animals, sub human, and the worst thing about them is that they have the vote, which means that they have control by proxy over how the world evolves. This is unnaceptable to anyone with even half a brain cell.
Look out for the yellow stars: the concentration camps will not be far behind. And as their friends and neighbours are carted off to the gulags, then the British people take to the streets.
But it will not be in protest, it will not be to condemn—no, it will be to cheer.
Right, that’s it. We now have a new category called ‘TC TI KB’ (The Cancer That Is Killing Britain) I would pronounce it, “Tick Tea Kay Bee”…. but thats just me:
Can a film critic claim to be libertarian while calling for the banning of a film he hasn’t watched?
There’s a new film out filled with sex and violence. Sounds like fun. I know there are those who think Libertarians would have infant-school day trips to watch it, but not so. It would be the parents’ responsibility to decide whether their child can watch it and once they’re old enough to join the Army, they’re old enough to make their own decisions. Joining the Army can be a life or death decision. No bigger decision is possible so if they’re judged old enough for that, they’re old enough for anything. Currently the Army takes recruits at 16 and a half years old and they could be killed defending the country before they’re old enough to go into the booze aisle of a supermarket. If you think that makes sense, I have a very nice bridge for sale.
Back to our authoritarian libertarian, Christopher Hart.
A film which plumbs new depths of sexual explicitness, excruciating violence and degradation has just been passed as fit for general consumption by the British Board of Film Classification.
General consumption? You mean they’ll shelve it with Disney films?
They have given the film an 18 certificate.
Aha, this is the restricted general consumption that goes along with compulsory volunteering, killing in the name of peace and A* grades without knowing the subject – also known as ‘freedom is slavery, war is peace, ignorance is strength’ in that order. I see.
As we all know, this is meaningless nowadays in the age of the DVD because sooner or later, thanks to the gross irresponsibility of some parents, any film that is given general release will be seen by children.
Ah, but Libertarianism is all about responsibility. Corrupting children harms them, and the central tenet of Libertarianism, ’cause no harm to others’, is therefore violated and the parents will be held responsible for their actions. As it is, they aren’t allowed to take responsibility, so many of them don’t. Besides, films like A Clockwork Orange, The Exorcist, Hellraiser and much stronger stuff is all on DVD now. If parents are likely to let their kids watch this one (which I doubt many would) then those kids have already seen some blood and boobs. I’m not saying it’s right, I’m saying it’s happened already.
You do not need to see Lars von Trier’s Antichrist (which is released later this week) to know how revolting it is.
Actually, I would need to see it to know how revolting it is. There’s no other way to judge. I’m not going to take your word for it just because you didn’t like it.
I haven’t seen it myself, nor shall I
Huh? So you’re telling me I shouldn’t be allowed to watch a film you have decided is utterly without merit, and you haven’t even watched it yourself? How did you come to this conclusion, pray tell?
and I speak as a broad-minded arts critic, strongly libertarian in tendency.
You’re not sounding very libertarian here. You’re sounding New Labour to the core, I’m afraid. Are you trying to give the impression that libertarianism is the same as Labour, Tories, Lib Dems etc? It’s an interesting new approach but it’s not working.
But merely reading about Antichrist is stomach-turning, and enough to form a judgment.
Is it? Depends who wrote what you’re reading, wouldn’t you say? Someone who didn’t like it, wrote a review and exaggerated? Someone in PR thought it might be a good idea to hype it up? The British Board of Film Censors actually watched it and let it through. They didn’t rely on second-hand reports. Neither will I. As a ‘libertarian critic’, neither should you. At this point I’d like to ask – isn’t watching films your, ah, job?
The husband and wife go to stay in a log cabin to recover from their grief. There, horrors the likes of which I have never witnessed unfold in graphic detail.
Well of course you’ve never witnessed them. You’ve never watched the film. You don’t know what these horrors are, how they are portrayed, whether they are on screen or off screen, nothing. Yet you deride the film and call yourself libertarian!
Now the anonymous moral guardians of the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), in their infinite wisdom, have passed this foul film for general consumption
But you don’t like it, so the anonymous moral guardians are wrong. We must all bow to the Morals of Hart, for they are superior to ours.
Oh, and he doesn’t miss the ‘for the cheeldren’ part…
Another bizarre but typical judgment from this panel of experts whose names we don’t even know (and so we don’t even know if they are parents).
No, they are Augustine monks watching films on a remote Scottish island in a cinema powered by harnessing lightning with a big machine run by a hunchback called Igor. I don’t know if they are parents either but odds are, some of them have children. But we don’t know their names, remember, because Hart has said so twice. Then he says –
We do know that its president, Sir Quentin Thomas, gets £28,000 for 25 days’ work a year. Nice job if you can get it.
How can this be? The name nobody knows is here, in print before our eyes. What dark magic is this? And he earns £28,000 a year for 25 days of work. Shocking. He could be on triple that if he was an MP. But we cannot possibly know this man’s name, salary or working hours because he is an anonymous moral guardian. Mr. Hart, meet Mr. Logic. You haven’t met before.
I tried to find out more from the Institute, but to my small surprise they disdained to reply. But you can be sure that they in turn are funded by the EU and so by my taxes – and yours.
Possibly. But you’re assuming here, not declaring a definite truth. It would be wrong to carry on as if your assumption were true.
How do you feel about that? If not shocked, then weary, furious, disgusted? Well you can complain all you like, but no one is listening. Our arts mandarins, along with the rest of our lofty liberal elite, don’t work like that.
What, you mean how do I feel about your assumption that the film was paid for by taxes when you present no evidence? Shocked, perhaps. How would I feel if the film actually was funded by taxes? Well, our taxes are spent on much more wasteful and pointless things than films so I don’t mind all that much, actually.
Oh, and I don’t agree that our elites are ‘liberal’ in any sense of the word other than the doublethink one.
How odd that while government-appointed health czars are so obsessed with anything that might harm the nation’s physical wellbeing – hanging flower baskets, conkers, too much sunshine, not enough sunshine – any concern with the nation’s moral or spiritual well-being has completely vanished.
Ah, Mr. Pretend Libertarian, you seek to justify adding more control to our lives by saying ‘well, all that stuff is controlled so we should control this too’. That is not libertarian, that’s insidious Righteous creeping totalitarianism, which is what we’re going through now. Those things you mention cannot harm the nation’s well-being, only the individual’s, and the individual should be allowed to assess their own risks and make their own choices. You use these spurious examples to justify control of the entire population’s morality. Specifically, everyone must think as you do or they are immoral.
As for this –
Censorship today seems to have been reduced to the feeble principle that if it doesn’t harm children, then it should be allowed.
As soon as it’s released on DVD, Antichrist will harm children anyway, deeply and irrevocably. But when did this principle of protecting only children arise anyway? What about harming adults?
He’s extended ‘For the cheeldren’ into ‘For the adults too’ and he calls himself libertarian! He wants to decide what ADULTS can and cannot watch! Look, some people won’t want to see this film because it contains sex and violence and that’s fine. Nobody is going to pin their eyelids open and force them to watch it. It’s a matter of choice. A Libertarian would understand that.
A Righteous would not.
If I were to see Antichrist, I don’t believe for a moment that it would incite me into copycat violent behaviour or make me a danger to others. But it would poison my mind and imagination, with explicit, ferocious scenes of sexual violence that would stay with me for ever.
Then don’t watch it. Some of us have minds made of stronger stuff. We haven’t all lived permanently comfortable lives and some of the stuff I’ve seen – without choosing to – in real life means that nothing on film is going to ‘poison my mind’. I can tell what’s real and what’s not. Most adults can.
Isn’t that good enough reason to ban it, or at least demand extensive cuts?
No. Just because you don’t like a film you’ve never watched, funded from a source you imagine is taxes but might not be, passed as okay by nameless people you then name and give salary details for, is not a good enough reason for a ban. You don’t like the sound of it. Fair enough. Don’t watch it. Do NOT attempt to control everyone else’s morals and then have the gall to call yourself libertarian.
But have we – that is to say, the hesitant, fumbling, comfortably cushioned, value-free Leftish elite who now govern us – got the guts? I doubt it.
All I can say is – wow. What planet has this man been on for the last decade? Have the government got the guts to ban something? Look around, Righteous Hart. They’ve banned pretty much everything and you, calling yourself Libertarian, want to ban some more!
It seems ‘Libertarian’ has become a ‘cool tag’ now, and is used here by one of the most ferocious Righteous I’ve come across. He clearly has no idea what ‘libertarian’ means.
Here’s a clue for the clueless, Righteous Hart. It does not mean ‘total control’.
I would like to distribute to every idiot that calls himself a Libertarian but who so clearly is not one, a copy of For ‘A New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto’. There are several strains of libertarianism out there, but this Hart fellow is none of them. Not even close.
Since the esteemed climatologist Al Gore declared that “the debate is over,” it seems the number of scientists denying both this fact and the accuracy of the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) hypothesis has continuously increased. Perhaps the “skeptics” have found the courage to speak out at this point when AGW has become universal religion and the movement’s leaders are calling for “global governance.” The threat from this movement is much clearer now and the ultimate goal of the AGW prophets is finally spelled out, which of course has nothing to do with environment or climate.
The “global warming” movement is now calling for enormous “investments” in certain public policies and new political institutions to supervise people’s and firms’ emissions of CO2. To most scientists in climatology this change in the movement’s agenda is most likely unexpected; if you are not used to the political game you are not prepared when your opponent makes his politically obvious (in normal situations denoted “irrational”) move.
Of course, the debate is not primarily between scientists even though such debates do exist. The literature in peer-reviewed journals in the relevant scientific disciplines have since long disproved the politicized Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios. It has even been established that the global warming according to reliable data sources ended in 2001, despite the fact that CO2 emissions are greater than ever and continue to increase.
The AGW hypothesis with man-made climate change through emissions of CO2 and other “greenhouse” gasses lives on, however, as politicians and the media find in it an extremely powerful thesis that makes people feel both vulnerable and defenseless and desperate for “help.” Politicians need a threat to increase their realm of power and make the masses cling to their belief in government, and the media needs disasters to attract readers and viewers (selling real news is a long-gone idea in mainstream media). To be honest, climate change is the perfect issue for the fascist state – it is a win-win game for powerful politicians, their buddies in the media, and big business.
Yet more people seem to realize that things don’t add up and that there is another side to the story, which is not generally allowed to be told. Even though most people still believe “we” are to blame, a thesis we are fed from cradle to grave by our all-too-mighty government through public schooling and media outlets, the number of people doubting the truthfulness of the theory is growing. This is why the mainstream posse needed to increase the level of blame in the overall blame game; people doubting man-made global warming were compared with holocaust deniers. People with no connection whatsoever with the study of weather and climate did not hesitate to join their fellow state worshipers, like the ignorant-of-economics-economist Professor Krugman.
Most of us laymen AGW skeptics have been dismissed with the proclaimed truth that “scientists all agree” (which really means “talking heads all agree”), but a lot of people are nevertheless beginning to doubt. We may be approaching a tipping point, at which politicians will be desperate to find another made-up disaster to rally support for their destructive policies. In other words, this may be an opportunity to not only get rid of the climate change scare – but also force the “noble” savages back to their Platonic caves.
One way of doing so is to be ready for and engage in the discussion – and do so wisely. This is the purpose, I believe, of Joanne Nova’s comic-book-style The Skeptic’s Handbook (PDF), in which she describes how to “[r]ise above the mud-slinging of the Global Warming debate.” The book shows how to use the existing and scientific facts properly and how not to accept non-answers such as referring to authority or cheap ad hominems. It also supplies the facts and the only points that matter. It is a short manual for constructively pursuing debates with AGWers and in that sense it is truly a “skeptic’s handbook.”
Perhaps Newton was right in that “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction” and that this is applicable to public political discourse. There is just a slight delay between the action and the reaction, just like there is a proven time lapse between increase in temperature to increase in CO2.
Philip Johnson writes in the Telegraph about ‘the database state’ and how evil it is. It feels like he has had a whiff of coffee and is waking up. What he REALLY needs are some smelling salts:
Beware Labour’s quest for a database state
There’s no reason why the Government should know so much about us, argues Philip Johnston.
By Philip Johnston
Here is a good idea. Instead of handing over personal information to the state, why don’t we keep it and control it ourselves?
Indeed. That is a really good idea. I have another one. Why not, instead of handing over all your money to the state, why dont you keep it and control it yourself Philip? If you do that, then they would not have the means to build the database state that you are so rightly frightened of.
Simple, eh? For a start, it means the state would not be able to get its hands on these data, which most of us would consider a good thing, not least when they get lost. It would also be significantly cheaper than the industrial quarrying of private information to be held on vast central government databases, which is estimated to cost a mind-boggling £16.5 billion a year, a lot of it spent on repairing IT projects that have failed to work properly.
Exactly. And the cost of keeping this data would be spread to each and every person. They would keep what they want, store it how they want (on hardware or on paper or in the ‘white meat’ between their ears), and share it with whom they like on whatever terms they care to agree with.
Anyone who has the temerity to suggest that the database society may have a flaw or two is often accused of neo-Luddism, usually by those who have a vested interest in its expansion. No one is suggesting that we should not exploit the extraordinary benefits of storing data.
I have to say, in the eight years of BLOGDIAL I have NEVER heard people who are against ID Cards or invasive databases being called ‘luddites’. And once again, who is the ‘we’ in this section? Who is it that decides what is or is not a benefit? This is central to the problem; what is the proper role of government.
But there is a similarity here with those who raged against the machines in early 19th-century Yorkshire – a feeling of powerlessness, an inability to control something that can have an enormous influence on our lives.
This is one of the great subjects of our times because it is the same one that has exercised the minds of political philosophers since Plato: to what extent should the state be able to control the individual?
Ummm, you mean should there be a state at all? Its like asking, “should people be robbed every other day of the week starting Mondays or Tuesdays?”
Doesn’t work does it?
In this age-old battle, one thing is clear – information is power, and the state is now in a better position than at any time in history to possess it and access it easily. It does so, it says, for our own good.
Information is not power. Cooperation transferees the illusion of power. Information by itself is not enough to compel obedience. The fall of East Germany and the Soviet Unions are proof of that. Those were two societies with deeply invasive and all pervasive surveillance systems that could not withstand the pressures that caused them to collapse.
Under Labour, a programme, known as Transformational Government, was established a few years ago to develop the database society and to obtain what the policy papers call “a single source of truth” about the citizen, based on their behaviour, experiences, beliefs, needs and rights. Why should the state want to have “a single source of truth” about us?
In a lecture to the Centre for Policy Studies, in London this Wednesday, Damian Green, the Tory frontbencher, will tackle this question head on; and it is heartening to see that the Tories, in opposition at least, have understood the dangers here. Government, says Mr Green, can do harm even when it is trying to do good,
though I am by no means convinced that it really is seeking “to do good”. All states collect information on their citizens.
‘Their’ is used here in the form that suggests that people are the property of the state. This reflexive use of language to describe people as the property of government is everywhere. It is a testament to the effectiveness of brainwashing over decades. Free people are not the property of anyone. Free countries do not have citizens; in a free country, the citizens have a free country, the citizens own the government… etc etc.
However, the amount they are able to collect depends upon the technology, which is clearly available nowadays, and the constraints placed upon its capture by the legislature. Such constraints are remarkably few in the UK compared to other democracies. How have we gone so quickly from being the country you would most expect to resist these tendencies to the one that adopted them so meekly?
It is simple. The abuse of language. Fascism is renamed ‘Transformational Government’. Journalists talk of ‘a country’s citizens’ as if people are the property of the state. They talk of ‘the social contract’ which is a fantasy. They refuse to address the true nature of anything, especially money, self ownership, ownership of property. To sum up, they absolutely refuse to be serious and question the core assumptions of their lives and ideas.
Mr Green has identified 28 state databases on which personal information is kept, from the obviously necessary, such as the PAYE collection system
And here is a perficio exempoator of what I just described above. Philip Johnston says it is ‘obviously necessary’ that the PAYE system collection should exist.
to some that are impossible to justify, like ContactPoint, which will hold the details of everyone under the age of 18 in England.
And again. This description of ContactPoint is very poor. ContactPoint is the compulsory database of all eleven million children in the UK, that will be accessible by over one million government workers from council workers on up. You see? by describing ContactPoint as something that ‘will hold the details of everyone under the age of 18’ you deny access to the true nature of the beast, thus preventing people from the vital starting point that will allow them to come to the correct conclusion; that ContactPoint is one of the most evil things ever created by a British Government.
The Conservatives have promised to scrap or modify many of these if they win power; but they might find in office that the temptation to hang on to the data is too tempting.
True. Nevertheless, whatever government is in place, none of these databases mean anything in the absence of cooperation. This is what Johnston misses entirely. He means well though…
What is needed is a complete reversal of the assumption that our personal data is the state’s to possess.
True.
Why should it?
It should not. And it should not do many of the other things that it does that you do not yet accept that it should not do.
This is the question that should be answered by the “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear” brigade. It is not as if letting the Government handle all of this information is secure, cheap or efficient. More importantly, it is inimical to any notion of individual freedom that a central bureaucracy should possess so much personal information about us; and, no, giving private data to the state, which has the power to misuse it to our considerable disadvantage, is not the same as having a Tesco Clubcard.
The smell of coffee… finally.
Mr Green puts forward a number of proposals for reform, including US-style security-freeze laws, which allow people to lock access to their data;
The only word that should be applied here is DELETE. No one should have data about them stored without their permission. PERIOD. Just as you should not be compelled to be a party to a contract without your consent, you should not have data stored about you that you do not consent to have stored, or even worse, shared.
an “open source” system which does not dictate the technology adopted by users from the centre;
Nice try, but open source is not the problem here. To collect and store or not to collect and store is what we are discussing. The operating systems and file formats can be discussed later.
and a right to see who has accessed personal information, the so-called audit trails.
Once again, having the ‘right’ (another misuse of English by the way) to see who has violated you and when is not the issue; that you should not be subjected to violation at all is the entire point.
Health records, for instance, would be better kept by GPs and by us as individuals.
Google could store your health records, uploaded by you under a pseudonym known only to you and your doctor. Google would know that your pseudonym was a diabetic for example. They would display ads for diabetic related goods and services right in your account, without knowing who you are. You get highly efficient, completely private, secure hosting of your medical records, that you can ‘take with you’ wherever you go, advertisers get highly targeted adverts to precisely the people who need to hear from them… and you have to pay NOTHING for the service.
Sadly, journalists are for the most part computer illiterates. And Stephen Glover really is like the Luddites Philip Johnston describes above in this particular instance; Glover cannot see how Google storing his health records could possibly be a good thing, because he does not understand how Google works, how anonymity works, how the internets work, and he cannot imagine several steps down the line in a hypothetical scenario thanks to this missing information.
Oh yes, and I forgot; with Google, you would be able to delete your medical records with the press of a button and would be able to control with absolute precision, who can and cannot access your medical records.
There are personalised electronic card systems available which can hold our medical details without them being available to government agencies, yet which are accessible by hospitals when we need them to be. This would eliminate the need for the NHS database and be practically cost-free. Instead, we are spending upwards of £12 billion on a centralised data system that hardly anyone wants.
There is now an assumption that the state should know everything about us and be able easily to access that information.
And this assumption, like all the others, needs to be countered actively. You go second.
This is justified as being good for us because it facilitates the provision of services that may be to our advantage,
It is not good for ‘us’ it is only good for THEM, and it is only to THEIR advantage.
and on the grounds that anyone who is unhappy with the prospect must be concealing something nefarious. It is time we took back control over our own lives.
ART. 1
"Unity in diversity" is the foundation that drives this initiative, which started up in 1996. Its aim is to bring people together and go beyond national stereotypes. Its historical importance is even greater than its economic one; it is a goal built on faith, common hope, and the unification of cultural and spiritual roots.
ART. 2
The relationship between Europe and America, and between the United States and many Countries from the five continents, is based on common cultural traditions and sustained by a parallel vision of the world. It is driven by the highest concepts of brotherhood and peace. These relations are cultivated through global dynamics whose purpose is to fulfill social, political and economic objectives, in full respect of the values and national identities that found countries' respective constitutions.
ART. 3
It is therefore our wish to bring to life the project for a common currency, which has been given the provisional names, "Eurodollar/Dollaeur" (initially), "United Money", then "United Future World Currency". It would symbolize not only the economic, but also the human, social, political, and spiritual bonds between the Nations of different Continents that hold similar ideals.
ART. 4
The common currency project is a highly important step towards bringing people together. It is a means of understanding, provides reference and reinforces different identities that share principle objectives. Competition in respective markets remains free, and the basic principles of participating countries' national identities will be safeguarded.
ART. 5
We are determined to raise awareness of this project among as many people as possible in all Continents. We are focused particularly on the active involvement of young people, especially from schools. Indeed, young people represent the strongest, most concrete vehicle for spreading this initiative. They are also the potential future beneficiaries of this large step forward towards unification and the creation of a world that responds better to the requirements of the new Millennium, as it gradually breaks down social and ideological barriers.
ART. 6
Renewed cultural interest in the Economy comes as a result of shifting perceptions of currency as a whole. This follows on from the debate opened by the introduction of the Euro. Through this Project, students, including from a very young age, can become familiar with basic economic issues. The latter are increasingly important in a new society of widespread wellbeing.
ART. 7
A joint Committee will be selected. It will include experts from a wide variety of disciplines. Everyone will be free to offer their own contribution to the project. This committee will also form the Jury that selects the most interesting ideas, proposals and projects demanded by different initiatives underway.
ART. 8
There will be an information and support campaign to coordinate working groups, committees and clubs, implemented through organizations, bodies and associations. There will be a consideration period for all contributions regarding the expansion, comparison and development of: issues and technical problems; optimizing legislative instruments and procedures; and fulfilling the obligations of the new Currency.
ART. 9
Trials will be carried out at important international events, aimed at awareness, education and promotion. "United Money" currency (banknotes and coins) trials will be entrusted to the best international professionals and experts in the appropriate fields.
Time will be set aside to explore technologically-advanced security and counterfeiting issues, which a future Currency will have to keep in check. This will involve the most prestigious and trustworthy public and private bodies, including universities and companies.
ART. 10
It will be the responsibility of the world's future citizens and the governments they put in place to make our Project a reality. This project is driven by a firm belief in the unification and co-existence of different peoples. It aims to promote an increasingly equal distribution of the planet's resources and human intellect.
Rome and Brussels, March 21st 1996
New York, January 12th 2000.
Milan, February 17th 2009
Unless this new currency is made out of Gold that will be distributed directly to the people who are going to use it, i.e. the public, it will be no better than any of the other Fiat Currencies that are currently circulating. All of them are flawed, all of them rob the people who ‘own’ them by inflation.
They have some interesting crypto enhanced banknote ideas:
but it is meaningless when we are talking about the nature of the money itself. The fact of the matter is that counterfeiting of banknotes is not what causes instability of currencies; it is the printing of banknotes by governments that causes inflation and currency instability. Of course, the government will have the private keys to sign every banknote – an infinite number of them if it wanted to. These notes will have no more intrinsic value than the now totally discredited dollar.
That image is from a page called ‘The Tests’. If this currency is made of 999.9 gold, there is no reason to test anything. I will accept it myself. Why? Because GOLD IS MONEY. Once it is in my hands, it cannot be devalued by inflation. It retains its value. It is, in fact, the perfect store of value. A commenter on a Grauniad article about the ‘financial crisis’ said that, “we need to have a standard of money that we understand in the same way that we understand what a meter is”. DUH Grauniad socialist, that thing is GOLD.
Sadly old ‘Dimi’ and his cohorts didn’t have the balls to simply declare a Gold Ruble and have done with it. The silly name of this currency and all the fluff surrounding it, like that absurd manifesto makes this thing reek of unseriousness. I could be wrong, and this could be the beginning of the restoration of real money. I might have missed the part where it says this is a money made entirely of gold, and where the notes are backed by gold. Lets see.
One thing is for sure though, if it does not conform to the laws of Economics, then it is doomed to fail.
Legislation that will require all authors who visit schools to be registered on a national database has been branded "Labour's Section 28" by bestselling author Philip Pullman. Section 28, or clause 28, a controversial piece of Conservative legislation, aimed at preventing the promotion of homosexuality in schools, was scrapped in 2003.
From November 2010, professional and voluntary staff working regularly with children in sectors including education will need to be registered on the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) database.
Pullman said: "This is Labour's Section 28—the implication being that no adult could possibly choose to spend time with children unless they wanted to abuse them. What will it say to children? It'll say that every adult is a potential rapist or murderer, and that they should never trust anyone."
The His Dark Materials author added: "Naturally I shall have nothing to do with any such 'clearance', and in consequence, I suppose, I shall never be allowed into a school again. I shall regret that very much, but I refuse to be complicit in any measure that assumes my guilt before I've done anything wrong. The proposal deserves nothing but contempt."
Trollogy author Steve Barlow branded the legislation "undemocratic", "ineffective" and "in violation of one of the cornerstones of English law—the presumption of innocence until proved otherwise".
Authors will need to register with the ISA through an umbrella organisation and pay a one-off £64 fee. A spokeswoman for the Vetting and Barring Scheme at the Home Office confirmed that specialist children's librarians, and those librarians and authors visiting schools, would need to be registered. Currently, checks are at the discretion of local authorities. Foreign authors visiting UK schools would also have to register, as will booksellers going into schools once a month or more.
Chair of the Children's Writers' and Illustrators' Group of the Society of Authors Celia Rees said: "We have a number of reservations because it is not clear how people will be affected by this, and what the costs and process of application will be. I am sure that, as more people become aware of it, there will be a groundswell of opinion against it."
However, author Gillian Cross backed the new checks. She said: "I understand entirely why people are enraged about the whole child abuse suspicion frenzy, which is particularly hard on men. It is nevertheless true that many children are abused. Theirs is the real suffering, and if checking can help to prevent that, I'm not opposed to it. Though I would be interested to know how often CRB [Criminal Records Bureau] checks have actually prevented known abusers from working with children."
Cross said that the scheme that replaces the current Criminal Records Bureau checks could be better as it is automatically updated rather than being repeated annually.
This madness, like all other madness, will one day just go away. People will scratch their heads, and wonder how it was that people went so completely mad.
Thankfully there are people out there who will simply not comply.
If everyone refused to comply, all the schools in the country that rely upon and who enjoy visits would cry out for the system to be abolished.
Of course, Home Educators can group together and invite whomever they want into their homes, without having to consult with or receive permission from anyone.
