Why Civil Liberties are Important : comments.
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![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Godwin
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.
Re: Godwin
Re: Godwin
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...
Re: Godwin
The imbalance of power is why citizens should not trust their governments.
Re: Godwin
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.
Re: Godwin
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.
Re: Godwin
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.
Re: Godwin
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.