UK Goes Full Orwell: Government To Take Children Away From Parents If They Might Become Radicalized
from the ministry-of-love dept
If there are two edicts I try to follow whenever I’m writing, they are, first, write what is true and, second, avoid cliche at all costs. I bring that up only as a preface before saying the following: the UK is walking down an Orwellian path. It’s nearly the cliche of cliches to say something like this, and yet it happens that the cliche is true. While there is most certainly a real thing known as a threat from Islamic terrorism, there is also such a thing as overreaction. What started as the British government’s attempt to ban extremist thought from social media and television (under the notion that some thoughts are too dangerous to enjoy the freedom that other thoughts deserve) then devolved into the conscripting of teachers that were to be on the lookout for children that might become radicalized. To assist them with this, the government helpfully provided spy-software to use against students. Spy-software which itself was found to be exploitable in the most laughably easy of ways. This employed two of the most horrifying aspects of Orwell’s Oceania: the concept of thought-crime and the employ of citizens to fearfully surveil one another.
And now it seems the UK is going even further, adopting Oceania’s reputation for the swallowing up of citizens should they be found suspect of thought-crime by those watchful citizens. Specifically, the Family Division of the Judiciary has put out a memo declaring exactly how it will remove children from the homes of anyone it suspects might radicalize those children. Here’s a snippet.
Recent months have seen increasing numbers of children cases coming before the Family Division and the Family Court where there are allegations or suspicions: that children, with their parents or on their own, are planning or attempting or being groomed with a view to travel to parts of Syria controlled by the so-called Islamic State; that children have been or are at risk of being radicalised; or that children have been or at are at risk of being involved in terrorist activities either in this country or abroad.
Only a local authority can start care proceedings (see section 31(1) of the Children Act 1989 – the police powers are set out in section 46). However, any person with a proper interest in the welfare of a child can start proceedings under the inherent jurisdiction or apply to make a child a ward of court.2 Usually, in cases falling within the description in paragraph 1 above, it will be the local authority which starts proceedings under the inherent jurisdiction or applies to make a child a ward of court, and the court would not expect the police (who have other priorities and responsibilities) to do so. There is, however, no reason why in a case where it seems to the police to be necessary to do so, the police should not start such proceedings for the purposes, for example, of making a child a ward of court, obtaining an injunction to prevent the child travelling abroad, obtaining a passport order, or obtaining a Tipstaff location or collection order. Given the complexities of these cases, I have decided that, for the time being at least, all cases falling within the description in paragraph 1 above are to be heard by High Court Judges of the Family Division.
In other words, the High Court Judges within the Family Division are now tasked with determining whether children will be made wards of the state based solely on suspicions of possible radicalization. Children torn from mothers and fathers in Muslim homes will be subject to the whims and inherently flawed watch of the larger citizenry. A citizenry, mind you, that has had its vigilance unduly ramped up by the government’s past actions and requests. It’s hard to imagine a better recipe for the unfair targeting of Muslim families than this. Unfortunately for all concerned, this same memo imagined just such a recipe, making things even worse.
Judges hearing cases falling within the description in paragraph 1 above will wish to be alert to: (a) the need to protect the Article 6 rights of all the parties;4 (b) the fact that much of the information gathered by the police and other agencies will not be relevant to the issues before the court; (c) the fact that some of the information gathered by the police and other agencies is highly sensitive and such that its disclosure may damage the public interest or even put lives at risk; (d) the need to avoid inappropriately wide or inadequately defined requests for disclosure of information or documents by the police or other agencies; (e) the need to avoid seeking disclosure from the police or other agencies of information or material which may be subject to PII, or the disclosure of which might compromise ongoing investigations, damage the public interest or put lives at risk, unless the judge is satisfied that such disclosure is “necessary to enable the court to resolve the proceedings justly” within the meaning given to those words when used in, for example, sections 32(5) and 38(7A) of the Children Act 1989 and section 13(6) of the Children and Families Act 2014; (f) the need to safeguard the custody of, and in appropriate cases limit access to, any sensitive materials provided to the court5 by the police or other agencies;6…
It goes on from there, essentially giving courts and law enforcement an absolute free pass to deny the court open access and review of the very intelligence that landed the case before it in the first place. This is a memo designed to create a court system by which Muslim parents will lose their children and won’t even be told why, or have the opportunity to rebut evidence against them, as no evidence need be presented. This isn’t just overreaction, it’s terrifyingly provocative action designed with one target in mind and built on the back of a process designed to be flawed in favor of a government that apparently can’t get its head on straight.
Nobody means to suggest that there is no threat that the UK might face from Islamic terrorists and/or extremists. But you simply don’t adopt the tactics of Orwell to combat that threat. Not if you want to claim your own people remain free, that is.
Filed Under: children, courts, families, family services, radicalization, thought police, uk
Comments on “UK Goes Full Orwell: Government To Take Children Away From Parents If They Might Become Radicalized”
"I know, let's give them even /more/ reasons to hate us!"
So taking away children, without having to present any real evidence or anything beyond suspicion of what might happen…
Well, I’m sure any parents who’ve had their children taken away will respond to the matter in a calm and collected manner, understanding that Big Brother really does know best, and would in no way make for a perfect target for any terrorist recruiters looking for people who might have a very real reason to hate the UK government and nothing left to lose, having already lost that which was most precious to them.
Re: "I know, let's give them even /more/ reasons to hate us!"
I know what you mean and I think I know your good intentions in writing a comment like this, but I dislike this argument. For the would-be extremist, it seems pretty clear that little in the way of true terrestrial grievance or geopolitical factors need be applied. After all, there are oppressed peoples the world over, and not all of them react in identical fashions.
For me, I’d rather focus on the pure evil of tearing a child away from his/her parents without being made to produce evidence at trial for why. I don’t think we have to worry about might-be future-terrorists in that scenario. I think we have plenty on our own plates to worry about….
Re: Re: "I know, let's give them even /more/ reasons to hate us!"
Along that thought, Who again is terrorizing who? Really who are the real terrorists now?
Re: Re: "I know, let's give them even /more/ reasons to hate us!"
Yes, there are hardliners out there. But shitty policies like those in the UK push more and more fencesitters into their camp.
As the old cliche goes, you cannot kill an idea. But you can create an environment in which it is difficult for certain ideas to take root. Sadly that’s not the case right now.
Re: Re: "I know, let's give them even /more/ reasons to hate us!"
Oh I don’t believe it would have that affect on most, and in fact I’d be surprised if it worked that way even once, but even once, one parent who was at the tipping point, who had heard the arguments, and thanks to how the government treated them didn’t outright dismiss them, and ended up being pushed over by the loss of their child would be too many, all the more so because it could have been completely avoided.
In supposedly trying to fight extremism, the government performs it themselves, and in so doing they make the arguments of the nutjobs sound more legitimate than they otherwise would be.
Re: Re: "I know, let's give them even /more/ reasons to hate us!"
…focus on the pure evil of tearing a child away from his/her parents without being made to produce evidence at trial for why…
The US isn’t perfect on this either. Every state’s Child Protective Services has stories where CPS jumps the gun and takes children away from their parents only to realize CPS’ position was wrong while other cases results in children being left with obviously abusive parents resulting in injured or even dead children. CPS is in a no-win situation: take a child away and get criticized for not showing cause or get criticized for leaving the child and the child gets abused.
But the ‘radicalized intentions’ does create a slippery slope and in the US First Amendment issues. Would the children of Waco, Colorado City, and the Westboro Baptist Church, just to name three examples, be subject to removal just because their parents have beliefs that are different from the rest of the country?
Re: Re: "I know, let's give them even /more/ reasons to hate us!"
I know what you mean and I think I know your good intentions in writing a comment like this, but I dislike this argument. For the would-be extremist, it seems pretty clear that little in the way of true terrestrial grievance or geopolitical factors need be applied. After all, there are oppressed peoples the world over, and not all of them react in identical fashions.
Very true, however, although it is unlikely that it will cause anyone to hate us more – it certainly gives their apologists excuses for anything bad they might do – and that is not a good idea.
Re: "I know, let's give them even /more/ reasons to hate us!"
“They hate us for our freedoms, so we must take it away so they wont hate us so much”
“Dont blame us, blame the terrorist……..like your suppose too”
Hey, your 2 year old . . .
. . . he might become radicalized in 14 years from now.
Best to let the government have him. They can do a better job.
Re: Hey, your 2 year old . . .
No way, your talking about a, a, some sort of, of…..correctional facility….or something..no way man, no way, i mean, we have nothing like that, institutions in the care of impressionable young minds that could so easilly be turned into such……no way man
How do you combat radicalization , by becoming radical yourself … that doesn’t work , Education is the only winner here , unless the goal is to create the radical behavior in a particular group of people.
Re: Re:
How to stop radicalization 101
Number 1
All sides need to fess up publically of past crimes, ALL crimes, however far back it needs to go
Number 2
Justified retribution for past crimes to those who caused it, no matter who they are
Number 3
STOP GIVING REASONS FOR RADICALIZATIONS
Number 4
See number three
Number 5
See number 4
Number 6
See number 5 X infinty
No side is innocent in this, and im not gonna root for the “LESS” inocent side, instead im gonna wait however long it might never take, for someone, some entity, some nation, some people, who actually tries to do good by humans
Re: define education
you seem to ignore what “education” means for your government;
“the Prussian Connection to American Schooling” by John Taylor Gatto
Its like Faux News decided to run a country.
“Those people” are all bad, and now we have a law to make sure they won’t be bad. Everyone cheer and go on with your merry lives, completely accepting this… because it will never happen to your children… until it does.
Secret evidence, that might be nothing more than some power tripping racist, taking children away. Aided by a court system who want to support the party line, and give themselves cover.
Seems no one has a history book, which is sad because they are in Europe where all of the history comes from.
Indigenous people having their children ripped away to stop them from rising up, that worked out really well.
Citizens who were part of a group everyone started to fear, hustled away to camps. I mean we never talk about it, its rarely touched on but it was fucking wrong.
How far will be to far for them this time?
So when the whole Muslim boogeyman dies down, who’s children will be next?
When the program’s standards are deemed too strict to give reportable results, how much will they loosen them? What constitutes radicalization? Will we see a period in which natural-born white european dissenters to the status quo are seen as radicals?
Re: Re:
Have you seen the reaction to Corbyn’s taking leadership of Labour? Even if you think the guy is a bit nutty, the accusations of being a security threat are a bad joke…
Re: Re:
It goes even further than this. Government agencies need to show results to keep their funding. In this case, “results” are taking children away from their parents and finding them new homes. Which means that everyone involved has incentive to keep increasing the reach of the program until some outside agency has reason to cut their funding anyway.
Re: Re: Re:
or until a engineer/sniper/demolition specialist “law abiding citizen” gets his child kidnapped
Re: Re:
“So when the whole Muslim boogeyman dies down, who’s children will be next?”
How about radical Catholics?
It appears the UK government has decided that 1984 was a how-to manual, not a warning.
Re: Re:
More like an ouverture. The themes were sketched, but the play has just begun.
It seems this law is quite radical. Let’s start by taking the lawmakers’ children away so they don’t get radicalized by their parents.
You don’t even have to commit thoughtcrime. If your child gets rickets, the UK government will take it away and adopt it out.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/09/parents-cleared-of-abuse-launch-legal-battle-to-win-custody-of-adopted-baby
How exactly do you wage war against something as intangible and everchanging as an idea?
Re: Re:
If you’re the UK government, ‘Poorly’.
If you actually have a brain in your head, with better ideas. You fight one idea by showing why it’s wrong, and why your idea is better.
racism
It’s a wonder why these kinds of Orwellian ideas were lacking during The Troubles in Northern Ireland, when so-called “terrorism” was an everyday event and even members of the British Royal Family were being successfully dispatched by the IRA.
But there was an important difference: the Irish terrorists (and their half-million supporters) were white skinned, English speaking Christians.
Re: racism
But there was an important difference: the Irish terrorists (and their half-million supporters) were white skinned, English speaking Christians.
No – the real difference was that the Irish terrorists were supported by major US politicians
Re: Re: racism
And by the way – the totalitarianism wasn’t at all lacking – remember the Guildford 4 and the Birmingham 6.
Remember also the republican spokesmen having their words “voiced by an actor” to get round the ban on them speaking on the media – note that that particular limitation on speech has not been applied to muslims – although those who oppose them more honestly than the UK government dares to do have been prevented from speaking in the UK.
I can’t think of a much more effective way to radicalize someone than taking their child away. Pure madness.
Re: Re:
Why? The radicals just want to blow up their children anyway.
Re: Re:
I can. Taking someone’s parents away. The parents are usually settled in life already. They’ll fight the government the government way.
But imagining that the child will become less likely to commit violence against a society that forced it to grow up without its parents and effectively turned it into an orphan is optimistic, to put it mildly.
Re: Re:
yes, this is scary
batman´s bane scary.
How about the parents join and organize a rescue squad?
Absolutely disgusting
There’s really not much more to say about it.
Well at least it’s better than per-emptively droning the kid like Abdulrahman al-Awlaki.
people who think like this probably believe squeezing the tube harder will force the toothpaste to stay inside.
Just remember, mass surveillance makes this all possible.
Re: Re:
Not just possible, but this is the natural and expected outcome of all mass surveillience.
What do you do with all that information that you use to form profiles on people and determin what their tastes, interests, and beliefs are? Certainly not let it rot in a server somewhere. It has to be used somewhere, if nothing else to justify itself.
Who is better to use it on than people who have the ‘wrong’ opinion? Political or otherwise?
Rallying cry?
If I remember correctly, Islamic fundamentalists often label the US “The Great Satan” and the UK “Lesser Satan”…. who knew they got it the wrong way round?
Re: Rallying cry?
USA drones children (small USA citizens),
UK is proposing to kidnap and brainwash them.
which one is prolonging the suffering???
You never got Full Orwell.
Let’s hope the Conservatives are destroyed at the next election, hopefully by a party which also promises electoral reform like in Canada, because FPTP is only great if combined with approval voting, but on its own it’s terrible. Might as well change it with other more democratic voting systems.
Strangely enough, the same judges were using the same exact logic to take away the children of [url=http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-20474120]UKIP supporters[/url] earlier this year. Arguing that they, too, might be radicalized by their parents.
Attacking children is typically easier than attacking the adults. Totalitarians love taking the easy way.
Re: Re:
Whoops, I forgot where I was posting this for a minute.
Let’s try that link one more time
Re: Re:
It goes further than this – what we have is totalitarianism pressed into service to defend a politically correct “moderate middle ground” in which everyone is equally nice, and in which Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with Islam.
When the line you are trying to push is so logically inconsistent then you cannot defend it by argument and you have to resort to this kind of totalitarian nonsense.
Role Models
If government’s weren’t trying to subvert their own constituencies, one would think they would find better role models than George Orwell’s writing to emulate. After all, Orwell was complaining about them.
This is scary because the government can make any allegation that children are being radicalized and just go after families and take their children if the parents are videotaping cops or politicians, protesting or whatnot.
This is a very dangerous precedent and the U.K. is turning more into a dictatorship than it is a free democracy.
Re: Re:
And they already have.
Has anyone in the Family Services see "A Man for all Seasons"?
Any time these point of view, judgment type of laws and regulations are applied, I think of the quote from “A Man for all Seasons”,
[William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!]
Re: Has anyone in the Family Services see "A Man for all Seasons"?
Hey that’s my quote – I’ve had editors choice for that before!
Applies again here though.
Re: Re: Has anyone in the Family Services see "A Man for all Seasons"?
Actaully there i another quote from the same place that works here:
Margaret More: Father, that man’s bad.
Sir Thomas More: There’s no law against that.
William Roper: There is: God’s law.
Sir Thomas More: Then God can arrest him.
Waht better way to radicalize
What better way to radicalize children than taking them away from their parents and teaching them that their religion is evil and bad.
Seens like the UK is creating a self fulfilling prophecy. Maybe thats their goal………
Re: Waht better way to radicalize
What better way to radicalize children than taking them away from their parents and teaching them that their religion is evil and bad.
Except that that is NOT what is happening here.
They are trying to get them to conform to a “moderate” version of the religion – unfortunately what that means is a version that cannot easily be found in the sacred texts of said religion. They are doing this because they want to maintain “solidarity” with moderate muslims – who they see as key to the de-radicalisation agenda.
Better to teach them simply that it is false. (Quite a different thing from “bad”) This is easier and less likely to backfire later.
If the Ministry of Love can’t care for our children then honestly who can?
So, that couple’s children were taken away because they expressed a view that the government didn’t like? I don’t believe in mixing the races either and while my views are not strong on the matter, it is my personal opinion.
Adolf Hitler would be proud of the United Kingdom. They are becoming a dictatorship that is using this new policy to stop dissent, stop protesters and to shame families.
This reminds me of the practice of taking American Indian children from their parents and communities to re-educate them in boarding schools. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16516865
They wanted to “kill the Indian to save the man.”
Good God. What the fuck is wrong with the UK?
Re: Re:
They lost any kind of voice to tell their government to fuck off.
Not that we’re any better, but our populace is also much, much larger and made up of fifty-one different states who all have conflicting views on mass tracking. The UK doesn’t have that problem, so the totalitarian wheels are speedier than the ones elsewhere.
It’s a good warning, though. Soon, this sort of thing will be coming to us.
Re: Re:
Nothing. They said they want to strengthen British values and that’s what they do. Orwell was British
Re: Re: Re:
Somehow I doubt that they are particularly strengthening the British values Orwell stood for by going all Orwellian on Britain.
Wrong country
UK…UK… there was something about child care homes and politicians…
http://uk.businessinsider.com/over-1400-british-celebrities-and-politicians-suspected-in-child-sex-abuse-scandal-2015-5
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Wales_child_abuse_scandal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elm_Guest_House_child_abuse_scandal
Re: Wrong country
And the end result of all of those? Slaps on the wrist for those involved.
Also it doesn’t help that MI6 ‘gives them a hand’ when they can
Well. They’ve taken your guns,they control your healthcare, they control your money with taxes and austerity measures. Now they need to make sure the next generation of sheeple continue this tradition.
Re: Re:
They’ve taken your guns,
So you have 40x fewer gun deaths per head than the US’
Last time I looked, being alive was a good thing.
they control your healthcare,
So at least you have some healthcare and you don’t risk being bankrupted if the ambulance takes you to the wrong hospital.
Last time I looked being alive and not bankrupt was a good thing.
they control your money with taxes
Well they have to pay for the healthcare somehow – and it works out 2x cheaper than the US version.
and austerity measures.
OK you got me there – but then I didn’t vote for this government – and this last point is their unique contribution.
Re: Re: Re:
Would you rather live on your knees or die on your feet
Re: Re: Re: Re:
“Would you rather live on your knees or die on your feet”
I think he already answered that.
Justify it however you want Richard. They’ve started coming for your children. Good luck with that.
Re: Re: Re:
Richard,
You are prepared to give up your freedoms for security and comfort. You like the fact that you don’t have the same freedoms to own guns in the UK because there is less gun death/violence, it makes you feel safe. You have given up your freedoms and your ability to resist for comfort and safety. Our forefathers warned us against this, and some of us are listening.
Some would say that “what good do your guns do against a military or police”. We have over 350 million people, and more than 1 gun per person. It will and does give pause to our idiotic government, however slight, when they are preparing to do something stupid. We have the ability to resist, with lethal force if necessary. That, even if it were the only reason, is worth having to deal with the illegal gun violence in our country.
The same goes for healthcare. You would rather have the government take your money, and provide you with heath care, than shoulder the responsibility of caring for yourself. You have given up your freedom to control your own health. Your Government will decide what procedures you get, and if your worth getting them. Your Government will decide when it’s time for Richard to die by cutting health care spending and/or services. Your “care pathway” may not include that life saving tipple bypass, sorry Richard, your just too old. The IEA has stated that the “UK faces ‘crippling’ tax rises and spending cuts to fund pensions and healthcare”. Your population is aging, just like ours. Your health care system, just like our social security system, only works when their are more people pulling the wagon than riding it, and the balance is tipping.
Our system is not perfect. You are absolutely right, it can bankrupt you just as fast as it can save your life. Freedom is a dangerous, burdensome, and difficult thing to have, but I will always believe it’s worth the costs.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
You have given up your freedoms and your ability to resist for comfort and safety.
I wish more gun advocates would explicitly make the argument that yes, kids are going to die and people are going to be accidentally shot, but it’s worth it.
It will and does give pause to our idiotic government, however slight, when they are preparing to do something stupid.
What good is that if they go ahead and do it anyway?
You would rather have the government take your money, and provide you with heath care, than shoulder the responsibility of caring for yourself.
The only way you can provide for your own health care is by being very lucky – either so wealthy you can afford to pay for it, or so healthy you don’t need it.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
“I wish more gun advocates would explicitly make the argument that yes, kids are going to die and people are going to be accidentally shot, but it’s worth it.”
Could you be any more disingenuous nash?
Yes, kids are going to die in car accidents, but it’s worth it.
Yes, kids are going to die on a bicycle, but it’s worth it.
yes, kids are going to die simply walking down the street, but it’s worth it.
We have less cars per person in this country than guns, yet there are 26 times more injuries from cars than guns. It’s a fact, if people have cars there will be injuries. You try and make them safer if you can, you don’t take them away.
“What good is that if they go ahead and do it anyway?”
Because if they push hard enough, we will rise up in armed protest. You don’t believe that? I suggest you look at our history, it can and has happened.
“The only way you can provide for your own health care is by being very lucky – either so wealthy you can afford to pay for it, or so healthy you don’t need it.”
It is expensive yes. It needs regulation yes. Something needs to be done yes yes yes. But nationalizing it? Turning your life over to the politicians? Really? When has that EVER worked out well for the people in the long run?
I could paste link after link of stories regarding the trouble the UK’s health care is in right now. It’s a great system, until it runs out of money and the politicians get out the knife and start cutting.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Your a smart guy nasch. Look at the title of the story were posting our comments in. They are using the system to take kids away from their parents for what they believe to be future crimes/problems. That is the premise of the story that were posting in. If nothing else, THAT SHOULD BE ENOUGH to prove that politicians don’t know when to stop. With the title of this story in mind, do you really want them running your health care, or leaving you unarmed in a country with unsecured borders?
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
With the title of this story in mind, do you really want them running your health care, or leaving you unarmed in a country with unsecured borders?
First I’d like to point out some issues with these questions. 1. universal health care paid for by the government doesn’t have to be “politicians running your health care” because there’s a difference between health care and health insurance. 2. your juxtaposition of being unarmed and having unsecured borders implies that the people coming over the border pose a significant hazard to people living in the US, an implication which is not substantiated by facts.
Now my answers.
I would like doctors running my health care, with an effective, efficient and fair insurance system to pay them. I don’t particularly care if that system is market based or not, but single payer seems like the best bet to me.
As for guns, I’m unarmed anyway, in part because having a gun would, at best, be very unlikely to increase the safety of my family and would be much more likely to decrease it.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
“1. universal health care paid for by the government doesn’t have to be “politicians running your health care” because there’s a difference between health care and health insurance.”
How can it not be so? The government is run by the politicians, the politicians control the funding. Paid for by the government means the politicians run it by definition.
“2. your juxtaposition of being unarmed and having unsecured borders implies that the people coming over the border pose a significant hazard to people living in the US, an implication which is not substantiated by facts.”
Let me clarify because my wife is an immigrant. people coming over the border “illegally” pose a significant hazard to people living in the US.
Answer: yes they do. Why? Because when they come to the U.S. illegally, they are proving their willingness to break the law. Their first act to becoming a U.S. citizen is to break our laws? That doesn’t make any since at all. My family “came over the boarder”. They did it right, it was painful, time consuming, and expensive, but they did it right anyway because it was the right thing to do.
“As for guns, I’m unarmed anyway, in part because having a gun would, at best, be very unlikely to increase the safety of my family and would be much more likely to decrease it.”
Good for you. You were able to decide for yourself what is best for you and your family. I applaud your choice… but if you live in the U.S., it was your choice to make.. you had the freedom to make that choice, as you should.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
Paid for by the government means the politicians run it by definition.
If health care were provided by private companies and individual doctors who were compensated by government insurance, I wouldn’t consider that politicians running health care, but suit yourself.
Let me clarify because my wife is an immigrant. people coming over the border “illegally” pose a significant hazard to people living in the US.
Answer: yes they do. Why? Because when they come to the U.S. illegally, they are proving their willingness to break the law.
So you think someone who violates, say, campaign finance law is a dangerous criminal and you would be worried he might break into your home and hurt you? After all, he proved his willingness to break the law.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
“So you think someone who violates, say, campaign finance law is a dangerous criminal and you would be worried he might break into your home and hurt you? “
Some illegal immigrants come across the border carrying guns, and are convicted criminals already.. not all, but some. Should we start electing criminals from other countries to office, then yes, I will probably feel the need to protect myself from them.
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
Some illegal immigrants come across the border carrying guns, and are convicted criminals already.. not all, but some.
That’s true of citizens too. So how is your mentioning immigrants anything other than a red herring?
Re: Re: Re:9 Re:
“That’s true of citizens too. So how is your mentioning immigrants anything other than a red herring?”
Because we have thousands of miles of unsecured border compared to the UK being an island? Because we deport 5 times the amount of criminals from out country than they do per year? My original post was a comparison to the UK, where Richard is from, and where this story is originally about. If the UK lived on the border of Mexico, and it was not secured, I wonder if they would still have the gun laws they do, and as a result, the same lack of freedoms?
I can/will argue this forever nasch. Our forefathers made sure we would always have the right to be armed. They did that to protect us from our own government. Crime (immigrant or not), recreation, collector.. etc.. all good reasons to have the freedom to own a firearm. But the main reason, is to give pause to a government, that proven by this very story your reading, can and will get out of control.
Re: Re: Re:10 Re:
If the UK lived on the border of Mexico, and it was not secured, I wonder if they would still have the gun laws they do, and as a result, the same lack of freedoms?
Since immigrants are not a substantial safety threat (and if you still claim they are, I invite you to provide numbers), I don’t see why it would make a difference.
They did that to protect us from our own government.
I’m fairly skeptical of that, but I’m pretty sure there is no way you would ever give up that belief. 🙂
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“I’m fairly skeptical of that, but I’m pretty sure there is no way you would ever give up that belief. :-)”
History, and the very story we are posting in, provides enough evidence to suggest that giving up that believe would be silly. Read the story nasch… they are already out of control. What’s next?
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they are already out of control.
That has nothing to do with the original purpose of the 2nd amendment.
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Yes, kids are going to die in car accidents, but it’s worth it.
Yes, kids are going to die on a bicycle, but it’s worth it.
yes, kids are going to die simply walking down the street, but it’s worth it.
I agree with all of those. Do you not?
Because if they push hard enough, we will rise up in armed protest.
That is true, but it has to get so bad that the common person would rather risk everything than put up with it, and we’re clearly nowhere near that point now. Thankfully. The presence of all these guns might possibly prevent a blatant, grinding, horrific dictatorship, but it will not prevent the government from doing stupid things or even subverting the will of the people on a large (if subtle) scale. If you’re going to take comfort from all the guns, it’s best to be realistic about it.
But nationalizing it? Turning your life over to the politicians?
Now who’s being disingenuous?
I could paste link after link of stories regarding the trouble the UK’s health care is in right now.
What system are you comparing it to? Because the same is true of the US.
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“Yes, kids are going to die in car accidents, but it’s worth it.
Yes, kids are going to die on a bicycle, but it’s worth it.
yes, kids are going to die simply walking down the street, but it’s worth it.
I agree with all of those. Do you not?”
I do, just as I agree that Kids are going to die because of guns, but it’s worth it as well.
“That is true, but it has to get so bad that the common person would rather risk everything than put up with it, and we’re clearly nowhere near that point now”
There are current examples of armed protest in the U.S.
“But nationalizing it? Turning your life over to the politicians?
Now who’s being disingenuous?”
Isn’t that exactly what they did in the UK? The politicians do run the health care, they control the funding, they control health care.
“What system are you comparing it to? Because the same is true of the US.”
I never said the US system isn’t broken. It is in fact broken. It needs regulation and it needs competition. If as much effort was put into making the health and insurance industries compete fairly on the open market as is spent trying to nationalize them or create a single payer system, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. The market would have fixed the problem.
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I do, just as I agree that Kids are going to die because of guns, but it’s worth it as well.
That’s great, I’m just saying it would be nice if everyone could own the positions they believe in like you are doing.
Isn’t that exactly what they did in the UK?
“Turn their lives over to the politicians”? No.
If as much effort was put into making the health and insurance industries compete fairly on the open market as is spent trying to nationalize them or create a single payer system
Like… zero? I don’t recall hearing any national politician advocate for nationalizing the health care system. Maybe Bernie Sanders, I’m not sure. I’m pretty certain there has never been a bill to do that, and if there was it never made it out of committee.
It needs regulation and it needs competition.
It might go a little deeper than that. There are structural problems, for example the person doing the shopping (patient) isn’t the person doing the paying (insurance) and the customer doesn’t understand the product or the pricing. But at any rate we’re agreed there are things that need to be fixed.
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“Like… zero? I don’t recall hearing any national politician advocate for nationalizing the health care system. Maybe Bernie Sanders, I’m not sure. I’m pretty certain there has never been a bill to do that, and if there was it never made it out of committee.”
I could post plenty of links to the contrary, just google it, it will save us both a lot of time.
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I could post plenty of links to the contrary, just google it, it will save us both a lot of time.
This doesn’t mention anyone trying it since 1976.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=615
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“That has nothing to do with the original purpose of the 2nd amendment.”
It has everything to do with it. It’s not the only reason, but it was one of the main reasons.
“To determine the meaning of the Constitution, one must start with the words of the Constitution itself. If the meaning is plain, that meaning controls. To ascertain the meaning of the term “well regulated” as it was used in the Second Amendment, it is necessary to begin with the purpose of the Second Amendment itself. The overriding purpose of the Framers in guaranteeing the right of the people to keep and bear arms was as a check on the standing army, which the Constitution gave the Congress the power to “raise and support.” “
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/gun01.htm
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WHoops.. put this post in the wrong spot.. re=posting it to the correct spot.
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It has everything to do with it.
It’s impossible for events in 2015 (“they are already out of control”) to have influenced the authors of the US Constitution. Sorry.
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You said: “That has nothing to do with the original purpose of the 2nd amendment.”
My response was that the original intent was to keep our government in check with an armed populace who potentially could rise up and overthrow them. It was true then, it is true now. Our founders knew that without it, the government would head down the path of becoming a totalitarianism government, just like your seeing the government in the UK doing with this story. It won’t happen over night, but they control their health care, they have disarmed them, now they are going to take away their children if they think they will become radicalized? Does radicalized equal disagreeing with the government?? What’s next? Re-education?
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I think we may have our definitions mixed up on this one.
I’m not suggesting all doctors work for the government or anything. I was more referring to nationalizing the insurance portion of the heath care system with some type of government run compulsory health insurance program. I think the proper term is “universal heath care”. Forcing people to purchase health insurance, in my mind, is no different than just taking their money through taxes and providing it to them.
Were going to find out soon enough. As soon as the “tax” errrr… Obama care penalty surpasses the cost of actually purchasing health insurance, it’s going to get interesting. The low income earners that can barely support their families will buy insurance, insurance that they can’t afford. The government will provide them with some subsidies, subsidies that will be carried on the backs of tax payers, but will it be enough? They won’t get away with paying nothing, the system will collapse if they do. So they will have to start paying something…and that something is money they don’t have.
If you control the funding and the insurance side of health care, you control health care. Look at the correlation between spending cuts, wait time, and quality of care due to the austerity measures in the UK right now. Eventually they will run out of other peoples money, and when they do, and because the system is subsidized and not self supporting, the entire system is going to come crashing down.
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/a-brief-history-universal-health-care-efforts-in-the-us
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hello shillbot what software version are you?
Re: Re: ostrich "position"
the problem with hiding by sticking your head in the sand is…
not only that you are on your knees,
but that you have your NAKED ass up in the air…
kind of inviting isn’t it?
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Dear Richard:
google the “Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient (LCP)”
this is how your government is going to give you health after an age THEY will choose for you.
Orwell was English
Maybe it’s something in the water.
I swear, whenever I hear of some nutty proposal out of Washington, I can always count on an English politician to propose something nuttier.
Incidious
The incidious nature of this sort of thing bothers me the most (I live in the UK).
Because you just *know* that if the parents complain that this is unfair, then they will be branded as ‘radical’ for it…
@ "If there are two edicts I try to follow whenever I'm writing, they are, first, write what is true and, second, avoid cliche at all costs."
Frankly, you flop pretty badly on both, and also mis-use words, such as “edicts” above when you probably mean principles, not commands or orders. Sheesh. You’re so egregiously bad at “writing” that shouldn’t use that word for what you do.
Re: @ "If there are two edicts I try to follow whenever I'm writing, they are, first, write what is true and, second, avoid cliche at all costs."
You’re so egregiously bad at “writing” that shouldn’t use that word for what you do.
Talk about bad writing.
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This coming from the joker who’s the bedfellow of darryl, who uses punctuation like a chimpanzee?
You wouldn’t know anything about either point you’re criticizing. Nothing you write is true, and everything you write is a constantly repeated cliche of your own pathetic invention.
First they came for the children
And i did not speak up for i was not a child
Then they came for the teens
And i did not speak up for i was not a teen
Then they came for the adults
And there was no one left to speak up for me
Its funny how signs of “extremism” is awfully close to signs of someone simply disagreeing with them
Seems like one definition away from forced subserviance……submit or be defined as we define them, into a group we have given ourselves extra authority over, to do with at our will
Yeah, this is a good government /s
There are worse, but thats not saying much when their ALL bad
“with a view to travel to parts of Syria”
Ok, simply travelling to sysria should not be a crime, and dont tell me thats not exactly the impression this gives to joe public, not signing up, but simply setting foot with no intentions of signing up(for lack of a better term), at least be prepared to find a gchq branded bug up your arse the moment you get their(im implying their probably gonna survey the hell out of you, irregardless of guilt or inocense) ………..i seriuosly doubt i will travel to syria, but if i did, im pretty certain that i, and many others would do so with the intentions of seing first hand, with their own two eyes, to see just what the fuck is honestly going on, without the narrative of the media to tint things…….regardless if their telling the whole truth or not
This also means that less people will do this, and hence less observations made by those other then mainstream media, thats highly suspicious to me, given the history of war and the super powers actions during them……..and since
Our freedoms are as thick as a sheet of ice
this is like arresting the children of hippies for speaking out against the vietnam war
Precedence, they are above human right
A representative government who believes it has ultimate authority, is no representative government at all
A dictatorship disguised as a representative……
Don’t worry, unless you are radicalized wanker. (oink)
“(b) the fact that much of the information gathered by the police and other agencies will not be relevant to the issues before the court; (c) the fact that some of the information gathered by the police and other agencies is highly sensitive and such that its disclosure may damage the public interest”
Public interest, or public support
Are you afraid of revealing your imoral methods, or the information you feel entitled to
“Nobody means to suggest that there is no threat that the UK might face from Islamic terrorists and/or extremists.”
dont forget car crash, plane crash, stubbed toe, chipped tooth, lightning strike, stairs, slips, falls, heavy object, sharp object, lack of object, suffocation, mastacation, electricity, chemicals, nighttime vision, door, frame, sleepy weepy lemon squizzy
I do think theres a threat too, but one that is being USED and not NEW…….and not entirely without BLAME………i dont think anyone has a right to claim to be the good guys in the “terrorism” fad
This is just the foundation for governments to control any and all opposition, even ones that are justified if its a threat to their position, the ones that are no threat are let go to give the impression of a “free” society
Pot Kettle Black
UK Goes Full Orwell: Government To Take Children Away From Parents If They Might Become Radicalized
This is an act of a totalitarian government.
What could be more radical than circumventing international law and launching an elective war based wholly upon lies that has killed hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of innocent human beings?
I know what is more radical than launching elective wars based wholly upon lies.
It is the kidnapping, torturing, indefinite,incognito,incommunicado detention of other innocent human beings in a vainglorious attempt to connect Saddam Hussein with the US created terror group al qaeda and thus provide an ex post facto justification for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Can’t have any of our Western war criminals (Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Feith, Wolfowitz, Perle, Powell, Blair, etal) have the appearance being radicalized now can we.
Operation:Extend Authority Permanently
….mmmm, must be wednesday
just watch as the term “radicalization” gets retroactively applied to anyone that does not blindly support whoever is currently in power.
Oh you voted for a different political party well that’s no longer accepted . You have a different life style away with you. You believe in a different religion were no longer accepting that in this country.
Where does it end. Though it’s not like history does not show us where this sort of laws, thinking and leadership goes in the end.
is a whistleblower actually.
UK has been walking down an Orwellian path waaaaaaaaaaay before Orwell,
he just leaked what he could find out. He was working for them.
He is more like a whistleblower with oustanding writing skills.
Aldous Huxley Approves This Program
And I am certain that various parliamentarians will regularly visit those poor children. So they can ass rape them.
I suppose this is what happens when you cram 60+ million people onto an island that can reasonably support 6 million people.
Reminds me of those old rat population density experiments – where the rats became increasingly insane as the population density climbed higher and higher.
Nothing new here. The sect that has run Britain for centuries ( google: jewish opium trade britain satyricon ) has a long history of killing millions in police states (google: stalins jews ynet ). They have been killing their British slaves for centuries. (google: The Charge Of The Light Brigade: What Can American Military Personnel Learn? ).
UK Goes Full Orwell
I just wonder if the Plan behind this is Sexual Abuse of these Kids again, like it happened in Argentina, Chile, in the US, in the Uk, in Belgium, in Sachsen and other Countries before, maybe the Political Class and the Elite needs an Excuse for Fresh Blood for their perverted Inhuman Torture of helpless Kids who have no Lobby to keep them save, when the Parents are in Jail????
government stealing children from parents
Tory support of the beheading hatefull saudi arabs and cowardly israeli war criminals makes them pretty radical in normal people’s eyes. Supporting a country that destroyed its own people in the twin towers controlled detonation and spraying its own people with aluminium oxides to reach oil and mineral wealth. Then blaming it on global warming. And starving its own people whilst allowing bankers to print thier own cash and charge the public for it. O yes and lying through their back teeth in Ukraine about Russia. Creating Isis and letting the fighters flood into Europe. Forcing toxic chemical laiden GMOs on the public. Forcing flouride rat poison in water and toothpaste and pretending it does you good. RADICAL my ARSE.
I beleive the family courts in the UK could be part of agenda 21
If you read about Agenda 21 as taken from the 1992 Climate sustainability conference in Rio Brazil. you will see what could be coming and is planned,
I beleive this could be part of that so called agenda to keep a control on families as the world government wants to retain control on the brining up of the future generation.
And they thought Thatcher was bad.
Cameron, what that journalist “going mad” live on tv was not ravings but the real news.
I hope the britons wake up sometimes soon like we Canadians just did and push those neocons out of government before it’s really too late for them.
islam
The only threat to our leaders is islam. And thet know very well that it is the solution for all our problems if implemented. If.
The rise of islam in europe is a threat they cant accept. Its not a threat its a reality. Our country will be majority muslim soon. They dont like that
Radicalisation
The headmistress of a pre-school in Cornwall has sent a letter to parents warning that the school is to adopt a strenuous de-radicalisation programme to combat violent extremism.
Careful monitoring of children aged 2-5 and teachers is envisaged.
The PM, David Cameron has also warned the country to be on the look-out for “non-violent extremists”. These are people the PM defines as those who subscribe to false-flag theories re-911 or what he terms “anti-semitic conspiracy theorists.”
Such is low level of cultural awareness in the general population on our overcrowded island, they haven’t noticed that the Big Brother state is just around the corner.
Totalitarianism won’t need to come in through the back door. Here in the UK, the comatose state of the population will allow it in through the front!