Are We Headed For '1984'

[Kamehameha34]

Quote by: Winter wind Nice to see you back! Dr. Logic returns.

I'd thank you but for the fear that you're being sarcastic

Are you re-educated? Sent to a Ministry of Love? For the cage, at least an argument of practicality can be made (block traffic = block ambulances and such).

I do agree that the United States isn't a fascist state as of yet; I do, however, believe that there are powerful individuals who wish to make it one, and that the government has much power at its disposal if it wishes to implement one.

[Winter wind]

Quote by: kame I'd thank you but for the fear that you're being sarcastic

I wasn't...(Honest).

The problem with the internet. Can't show tone of voice. (I really was happy...)

Quote by: kame I do agree that the United States isn't a fascist state as of yet; I do, however, believe that there are powerful individuals who wish to make it one, and that the government has much power at its disposal if it wishes to implement one.

*Singing* You can't always get what you want!

I think the public is currently pissed off at power enough to counter such ambition.

Quote by: GAdams The point is though, that despite the Conservative leadership being vastly against the NHS, they didn't dismantle it as you suggested new governments would.

Is it widely popular in the UK?

Quote by: GAdams So Thatchers changes were driven by neccessity. In her case, she did ideologically believe in neo-liberal politics, but the greater part of her party didn't, see Ted Heath and the One-Nation conservatives. That occaisionally, with the greatest of luck, you have a government that scales back it's powers, doesn't derail the whole theory that, in general, governments plod on towards ever greater power over the individual.

Yes but the scale back in power happens when necessary. How is this a bad thing? Government backs off when they have too.

I don't know that there has been a rising trend in government control. Mostly because of the rise in a global media and globalization. Two things government will have a hard time controlling.
Reminds me when the Russians had a coup that collapsed the USSR. They blocked all communications in Russia. They had swan lake playing on all tv stations and radio stations. All a reporter had to do was place a collect call to some friends in America and the news went out like wild fire.

Ah, so Tony Blair maintained government powers over unions, even though he is head of the Labour Party

Third way policy. No offense, but without some regulations on the unions, they could stop the country when ever they wanted. (so they could get the government to give them more. Something Libertarians hate)

And in actuality, it is a lot easier for a person earning £100 000 a year to pay £50 000, than it is for a person on minimum wage earning £12 000 to pay the £3000+ income tax, not to mentiond the hundreds of other taxes.

Since when is 1/4 more then 1/2? I like this system better because it isn't like your hands get cut off if you don't bring a thimble of gold to the Spanish. Your taxes fluctuate depending on how much you make.

Also taxes that are spread correctly will bolster the economy contrary to popular opinion. My example is below, to prove two points

So to highlight Thatcher and Reagan as contradictions to my theory is empty.

To cut the deficit, Clinton reduced government spending by 255 billion dollars and raised taxes on the top 1.2 percent of Americans. The result was the largest and longest economic peacetime expansion in the history of the United States. And for the first time in a century and a half, was on track to being debt free (then it was blown to hell after 2001 for some unknown reason)

My point is two fold. Taxes aren't terrible for the average person. And that governments expand and decrease power in a predictable manor. He raised taxes and lowered spending. It evens out.

Bush's actions in the context you mention them have little top do with this discussion, but he is an interesting case for the future. Do you think that if the Democrats win, they will strike down the Patriot Act?

It's going to be a hot topic if they don't.

Even if they do for just that one, how about the other hundreds of laws passed that expand government power?

My psychic is away this month, but maybe after that...(jk)

I'm not sure. I do think that a majority of the candidates are going to have to react to the general American annoyance at Bush's big government standing. Reagan was a reaction to Carter who was a reaction to Nixon. It's how it works.

No, that it is often "the people", the mob, who send us down the road to tyranny, fascist or other, is not an argument for total control by experts. It is an argument for limited government. If the government has few powers, then their is little either the rich businessman or the raging mob can demand they do.

......So if businessman have no control and the people have no control, do you think a power vacuum is just going to sit there? Humans seek power always. No one will be happy when no one governs, some one will rise to the top and history has shown that usually it is the most ruthless without some kind of system of election.

You don't answer my question. What does it matter to person in the death camps whether it is by the authority of the fuhrer or the people?

So they don't end up there next time, who should they be watching out for.

I don't care whether it's their first priority or not, I can't support an organisation that would support a policy that disarms innocents in the face of bandits and oppressive governments.

OK, I have officially looked around and have found nothing which they caused harm with this ideology or even supported it publicly.
Even if they did, I agree with them. Mostly because I was in Amnesty international and I've read reports about how children are used in these wars. Amnesty takes my position that the best weapon is not guns, it is media attention.

If I wore a t-shirt saying Mohammed was a murderer, it would be true, but it would also be offensive. I have the right, as a human right, to wear such a t-shirt. However, my government does not respect such rights and would arrest me if I refused to take it off.

First off, for practical reasons, why wear that shirt? Why?
Second off, I don't agree with the move, but honestly don't care too much. If that is the worst move on to free speech you can point out...

No that isn't 1984.

If I hold ideas, and disseminate them, that lead to violence, that should not lead to my imprisonment. Jefferson, Adams, Mandella etc all disseminated ideas that caused violence, but they were well within their rights to speak out.

What if I tell an angry crowd that the Jew opposite them is a parasite of society and anyone with conviction would stop him now?

What if I just out-right tell them to beat or kill him? Getting ideas out there is one thing, being an enabler of murder is another.

Breach of the peace is whatever the UK police want it to be. Shouting to loud? That'll do. Arguing with an officer? That'll do. You are arrested, taken to the station for 24 hours, then released without charge. The aim is to take you away from whereever you are, and make you afraid enough to do as your told next time, even though no crime is committed.

Then you should strictly define it. The one upside the the gruesomely sue-able society in America is that you can get these laws thinly defined by sue-ing them in court.

We, the people of the UK, own Parliament. We the people of the UK, hire politicians as our servants. If we the people of the UK choose to protest within hearing distance of our own property, we have the right to do so.

You can't own people. That was pretty much decided with the abolishment of slavery. I also think you are assigning an incorrect motive. The first thing you learn as a politician is that you know you can't please everyone. No matter what decisions you make, people are going to be pissed, so every time you take a side on a hard decision, you want to be able to walk to work without someone sticking a sign up your ass and yelling at you. Let take abortion. Side one way and its "how many babies did you kill?" Side another it is "You gag woman you prick!" Don't go either way and...then everyone hates you for being weak.

That's the motive. Again, I don't agree with it, but I don't think it is a horrific breach on free speech and adding motive without proof doesn't help.

So whether or not the individual keeps their human rights is based upon a popularity contest? Not whether or not they are human and are damned well entitled to them no matter what a mob thinks?

Hey, you learn fast on this site that what everyone thinks is a human right and an individual right changes from person to person. Your argument is that people should all go by what you have decided was a human/individual right.
I think education is an individual right, I'm guessing you say guns are...you see the problem.

No, if for example, I was a Muslim, reading about how the West should be burned to the ground, and how to do it, and I fully agreed with all of the material, and the government knew all of this, they would arrest me, and detain me for as long as possible. Now that I might, just might, be let out after the maximum detention period. But hell, say I thought up a way to effectively blow up the city of London. I might even have written down how to do it. That would lead me to a long prison sentance, even though I have only thought of what I might do. And before you say it's planning, it's differenct, what is planning if not thinking?

A fine line. I say leave it up to a judge. For instance if someone has the blueprints to a gov building and a butt load of C4 and connections to suspicious groups, government has a right to be curious.
However if you are just a radical with no C4 and no blueprints, just a bunch of scrawled messages, then keep an eye on the person, but leave them be.

[Winter wind]

Increasingly unpopular? Most of the people I speak to don't know it's happening, and the only people I ever talk to about this are undergraduates for crying out loud.

Get them interested and ask why they don't care. A lot of the things up there I don't care about are simply because they don't effect me or my rights. Even if I lived in the UK, those restrictions would not apply to me. I feel it's like arguing over the flag burning amendment.
Now if free speech was restricted to the point where publications can't criticize public policy, thats when I leave town.

[Kamehameha34]

I wasn't...(Honest). The problem with the internet. Can't show tone of voice. (I really was happy...)

Haha, thank you then

*Singing* You can't always get what you want! I think the public is currently pissed off at power enough to counter such ambition.

I do believe that there would be great public uprising if elections were suddenly closed down, and we were made to accept a fascist regime.

Have you ever heard the toad-in-boiling water scenario?

[Winter wind]

Have you ever heard the toad-in-boiling water scenario?

Yes, but I still own a copy of 1984 and I've also set a limit to where I hit the road and get citizenship to another country (If every country is like that, I set up shop in Tahiti.)

The limit is publications. As soon as the government begins to regulate it with no uproar, I'm gone.

Also, I think the American public the most freedom obsessed group in the world (by country). The smallest of liberties taken gets a whole front page and accusations of apathy, etc. No I don't think 1984 starts in America (Not even China had 1984 during the cultural revolution, but not for lack of trying.)

[Kamehameha34]

Also, I think the American public the most freedom obsessed group in the world (by country). The smallest of liberties taken gets a whole front page and accusations of apathy, etc.

The fact remains that the seizing of our liberties is not abating. Germany started out as a relatively free representative democracy in the early 1910's.

[Winter wind]

Quote by: kame The fact remains that the seizing of our liberties is not abating. Germany started out as a relatively free representative democracy in the early 1910's.

True. It was a natural shift from democracy to fascism. It wasn't like they were in huge debt to foreigners for some reason. Especially not from a war or something. It wasn't like the country wasn't desperate or looking for a powerful and charismatic leader who could tell them who was to blame.

By the by, that was sarcastic.

[grandpa]

Quote by: Winter wind It was a natural shift from democracy to fascism.

Well, there was also a shift of power behind the scenes. But, yes, the very arrangement of "representative democracy" proved itself as problematic.

Grandpa h.

[G. Adams]

To Winter Wind,

Yes, the NHS is popular in the UK. Popular doesn't make right, no doubt lynching black people was once popular in the South, doesn't mean it's right. On a theoretical level, a government has no rights to pillage my wages to pay for someones hip replacement 200 miles away. On a practical level, it is innefficient and ever expanding, demanding a continually greater input of money for a diminishing return.

It is good that governments scale back when they have to,but it would be far better if they would do it when they should.

In my own case, govenrment control is expanding over me. More and more powers of the UK are being exported to the EU. The EU has an elected talkshop with litle power, while it's unelected commisioners and vast over paid bureacracy has immense control. So while my vote has only 1/20million in the UK, it's more like 1/200million in the EU over a largely redundant body. In the UK itself, just look at the rise of the surveillance state and expansion of police powers for a start. And then it goes all the way down to the minutae, like regulating the vitaman industry.

Ahh yes, Third Way, the 'I have no vision but getting into and staying in power' way. If there are no government industries, then a Union' dispute is with it's employer. If governments do not enable monopolies, then there are always alternatives when a Union objects to whatever condition, so there is no great calamity when a Union is out on strike. Therefore, I do not care what Unions do as long as they are not breaking anyone's rights. So they don't need their powers' curtailing at all, as long as they were never given special, government granted powers in the first place ( eg, a person should be able to hire and fire at will, it is their money (property) they are spending on workers, so they should be able to cease paying for them if they no longer want them. To be any other way would be like saying if you buy from Walmart you should always buy from Wal-Mart unless you give a months notice).

1/4 isn't more than 1/2, but it is much easier to live on £50k than £9k, which is what is left over after those deductions. While flat taxes don't solve that problem, they do solve the despicable inequality between how government treats people. Just because one person garners more wealth than another doesn't mean the government has a right to take more of their property.

Clinton created stability which is always good for the economy, as is clearing your debt. But that does not mean that redistributive taxation is good, nor the power it gives government. I can just as easily point to Ireland, which was verging on third world in the 60's, but has gradually cut taxes over time and has expanded it's economy greatly, which improving the living conditions of it's people significantly.

If, presuming the Dem's win, they do take away the Patriot Act, will they do away with the rest of the repressive laws introduced? Doubtfully, because they have made their big show with scrapping Patriot. No need to lose more power. Will they, finally, remove all of the states of national emergency, some of which have been continuing since the US Civil War.

Oh, of course there will be a scramble if government backs out into it's designed areas. That is good. A seperation of powers is highly desirable if tyranny is to be prevented. The scramble won't be bloody, but it will be highly productive in the long run.

If someone is burning their way through your village, kidnapping children, raping women and killing men, do you want a rifle or a camera? Sure, a camera too, but would you pick that over the rifle?

The government has no right to expect an answer if they asked the question "why wear this t-shirt?", because I still have the right to wear it and proclaim it's message. Similarly, I won't answer you because it isn't relevant to the debate.

"I don't agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it to the death" No doubt I've misquoted there, but the principle is the same. I take this view. Mohammed was a murderer, but I won't likely wear that t-shirt, but it doesn't mean that it isn't disgusting that they deny me the right to wear it.

Hey, I hear angry demagogues on the street, in print and on TV spouting similar sentiments about the rich, the productive and entepenurial, but no one deals with them. Good, because they have the right to say it. Just as someone has the right to spout hate about Jews, Whites, Asians etc It is up to the listener to act or ignore it, and it is they who commit the crime if they then breach anothers rights.

Yes, it should be strictly defined, if kept at all. But it will not happen because it deprives police of power and then they will then bitch and moan, saying that crime has gotten oh so much worse because they can't hassle a teenager for wearing a hoodie.

I you can't own people, then how can the government conscript me or jail me if I refuse?

And a politician can, quite rightly in most of the cases people shout and government for whatever reason, say "it's not my job, and I have no right to interfere". Then people might, for once in their lives, think that they should do something for themselves instead of begging the government like children to their parents.

Why should education be a right? If I wish to be a teacher, I should be allowed to teach for a private fee. And I, as a taxpayer, shouldn't be forced to pay for other peoples education. If you wish to get into this bit further we'll have to post another topic regarding governments right to tax.

Hey, government can be curious all they want. They can follow me around all day if they like. But untill I breach another persons righs, they have no business arresting me. I note here that you didn't actually deal with my point however that they would be arresting for your thinking through an action.