Why Civil Liberties are Important : comments [purplecthulhu]

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However, the implication here is that I am unable to formulate my own opinions and ideas, and that somehow my parents are entirely responsible for the ones I have. This is not the case.

No, in fact, that wasn't my implication. You are only 20: the way you grew up is bound to have affected your opinions. You believe - with apparent sincerity - that the government is benevolent and that this won't change. That in itself tells me that you're either very young or appallingly naive. Take "you'll grow out of it" as a compliment: I presume that your trust in the government is based on lack of experience rather than in blind stupidity.

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There's also an issue of 'amount of experience' as well. Major stories about the abuse of authority only come out about once a decade in the UK. We may be seeing one now wrt WMDs in Iraq. Past instances include the West Midlands serious crime squad, for example.

But there are other examples as well which cut to the heart of this issue. The fall of Harold Wilson as prime minister has often been laid at the feet of 'the security services', and there are persistant rumours (see Chapman Pincher and Peter Wright to name but two) of a plot for an actual coup against Wilson. It would all have been very English, with a veil of respectability, but it would still have been a coup.

And then there is the US of Nixon, with plentiful abuses of the FBI and IRS and others for political aims. Similar tactics, perhaps, to those now being used by Bush the lesser (see eg. http://www.berkshireeagle.com/Stories/0,1413,101~6267~1433934,00.html for the mistreatment of those rounded up after Sept. 11, and http://www.diggers.org/freecitynews/_disc1/00000033.htm for news that no-fly blacklists are possibly being used to hamper opposition groups).

And have we really forgotten the massive abuses of Joe McCarthy in the 50s, all of which was perfectly legal and above board and sanctioned by a nice democratic society?

These are among the reasons why even democratic governments can't be trusted.

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Chipping in here: my experience of the government's actions so far *is* positive.

I got a Government grant to go to University (I was in the last year to do so, but hey ...), then a Research Council studentship to do a PhD, and the UK's excellent relations with the US meant that I easily got a visa to get a really good job here in the States. The one time I had a run-in with the police, the officer was perfectly civil to me.

The one bureaucracy I did have bother with was the Passport Office, but even then my MP was able to check that it was going to come in time (it did).

It probably helps that I'm white, straight, nominally Protestant and middle-class, and my home town is a quiet place in the middle of nowhere in East Anglia.

I'm perfectly willing to believe that some people have different views of the Government and its agents, but those are intellectual concerns. I feel no direct threat from Government action any time soon.

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I'm perfectly willing to believe that some people have different views of the Government and its agents, but those are intellectual concerns. I feel no direct threat from Government action any time soon.

Quite so. (http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/niemoller.shtml)

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Indeed.

If and when "They" start coming for any particular ethnic/social/religious group, I will be worried.

Thank you very much for the discussion; I honestly don't know which side I stand on. I seem to have a talent for working out all the defects of both sides' arguments.

And I call Godwin on this one.

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Pardon my ignorance - what does calling Godwin mean?

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Godwin's Law (http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/legends/godwin/): "if you mention Hitler or Nazis in a post, you've automatically ended whatever discussion you were taking part in".

Technically I didn't: I just cited a famous quote from Pastor Niemollar about the dangers of supposing that because your civil rights aren't at risk, you can safely ignore other people's civil rights being ignored.

I still think this is a perfectly appropriate quote: the example of the US, where no one seems to be too worried that the current US administration is acting illegally with the wrongful detention of Arab/Muslim immigrants, with Camp X-Ray, and with the equally monstrous but much less visible prison camps in Afghanistan and now in Iraq - because, after all, these atrocities are being committed by the US government only on people who aren't us: the only one of all those swept up by the US who has yet been granted a due process was also the only white American. None of the other detainees has been granted so much by the US - not even the Brits or the Australians.

Not quite relevant to ID cards, except that one reason David Blunkett claims he wants them is to "crack down" on asylum-seekers...

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Correct - what the US is doing now is yet anbother example of how supposedly nice democratic governments can still do terrible things, and why they cannot be trusted to consume our civil liberties.

The imbalance of power is why citizens should not trust their governments.

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If and when "They" start coming for any particular ethnic/social/religious group, I will be worried.

Then you can start worrying.

Re Godwin: It struck me that your comment that you couldn't believe the danger was real because it had never happened to you made the comment of Pastor Niemollar's genuinely appropriate.

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I thought that it wasn't terribly appropriate because I remain to be convinced that the danger is real.

And it's hard to tell if the progression that Niemoller described is actually happening (I guess until it's a bit too late).

Take New York. They imposed a "zero tolerance" policy there to "clean the city up". But I don't see any evidence that it's gone any further - there are no death camps in Brooklyn or Queens (to the best of my knowledge).

It just seems premature to warn me about fascism when I honestly can't see that there are any of the warning signs of it domestically.

If we were in France, where the neo-nazis get ~15% in elections, then I would think that you were be more timely.

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Take the US as a whole: they have locked up over 700 people for no better reason than that they were Arab in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Look at Camp X-Ray.

Take the UK. Look at the gradual progression of the way the government is treating asylum seekers.

I don't see any signs that white people need to be particularly concerned about how the government might treat them. I do see signs that non-white people need to be concerned. And though I'm white, I don't see that this means I should sit back and shrug and go "It's not going to happen to me, why worry?"

That attitude of mind is what I was decrying by quoting Pastor Niemollar... and what you seem to want to avoid thinking about.

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And there are plans for X-Ray to become a death camp, with summary military trials and execution with no appeal.

And there is clear evidence that anti-terrorist no-fly lists are being used to hamper the activities of groups opposed to the Bush government in general and the Iraq war in particular.

You should try reading some of the links I've provided.

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My grandparents are (I'm willing to bet) older than you are. They have correspondingly more life-experience than you (or indeed nearly anyone on this thread).

Are you willing to accept their ruling on what is and isn't socially or culturally acceptable? They're rather more socially conservative than we are [to put it mildly].

Back at my high school we used to call this "playing the man not the ball". Your argument is strong enough that you don't need to use age-based arguments.

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A fair point. I was trying to suggest that lack of knowledge of history and current affairs is the problem, and I guess that can happen at any age. Apologies to anyone offended.

I note that nobody has gainsaid the information I've provided, and I'd like someone who's happy with western governments in general to say why this information doesn't worry them.

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I think everyone seized on a rather unfortunate phrase one of your friends used, and we kinda got side-tracked from that :)

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Nope. Because it's not just a question of age, but a question of life-experiences. I am certain that most straight white middle-class 20-year-old students haven't yet had the kind of life-experiences that make them realise that we really can't afford to trust the government to respect our civil rights. Maybe some straight white middle-class people get all the way through their lives without ever realising that just because the government never hassles them, doesn't mean that the government only hassles people who deserve it.

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My grandparents weren't born middle-class.

And they've already lived through a compulsory ID card scheme (World War 2 until 1952). So I would say that they have more first-hand experience with such a thing operating in the UK than we do.

I would note that we did not become a fascist totalitarian society then.

The most hassle I ever had was working for private companies while a student - at one factory especially there were lousy working conditions, snotty management etc. The only sign of Government hassle was that we actually *did* get breaks (only barely the legal minimum).

I must confess that I always saw Big Government as an ally against Big Business - they can force companies to not discriminate against women, black people, students, anyone they don't like etc.

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I would note that we did not become a fascist totalitarian society then.

Hmmm... Well, you should read George Orwell's Letters to America (I don't know where you'd read them, unless in the 4-volume complete collected shorter works, though). Or Nineteen Eighty-Four. We didn't become a fascist totalitarian society. But WWII ended, and so - eventually - did the compulsory ID card. The proposal now is not to institute a temporary ID card for the duration of the war (and read Quentin Crisp on how the police used the ID card then to make trouble for deviants) but to institute a permanent and compulsory ID card.

I must confess that I always saw Big Government as an ally against Big Business - they can force companies to not discriminate against women, black people, students, anyone they don't like etc.

Yes, they can. But at present it's still perfectly legal for an employer to discriminate against me, for example - to sack me on the grounds of my sexual orientation. And yes, the government can be a useful ally against big business. It can also - and frequently is - be the most useful ally of big business.

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The point to ask is this; if the ID card system was working so well, why was it removed.

The answer being a case brought by somebody who felt that the police were unfairly demanding ID papers. They won, the card was dropped.

I also don't think that comparing war and peace time in this context is helpful.

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December