posted by [identity profile] purplecthulhu.livejournal.com at 03:49pm on 04/06/2003
Pardon my ignorance - what does calling Godwin mean?
 
posted by [identity profile] yonmei.livejournal.com at 04:08pm on 04/06/2003
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...
 
posted by [identity profile] purplecthulhu.livejournal.com at 11:56pm on 04/06/2003
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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