Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The Dictatorship known as Great Britain

The latest from Britain, the Doctors who make housecalls now will inspect your home to make sure it is a safe place for you to live in. They are looking to make sure you have smoke detectors, stair gates, hot water temperature restrictors, oven guards and window and door locks.

The guidance aims to “encourage all practitioners who visit families and carers with children and young people aged under 15 to provide home safety advice and, where necessary, conduct a home risk assessment”. It continues: “If possible, they should supply and install home safety equipment.” British officials claim that this will safeguard about 100,000 children that are admitted to hospital each year for home injuries and save £146m.

Since Britain is already the most security camera heavy country in the world, it makes me wonder how long it will be before big brother installs video cameras inside homes.

I take two lessons from this:

1 Government run healthcare will allow the government to intrude upon every aspect of your life, all in the name of spending money. That is the cost- loss of your freedom.

2 Once the right to keep and bear arms goes, as it did in Britain a few years back, the rest of your rights will begin to disappear as well.

7 comments:

EMT said...

"Since Britain is already the most security camera heavy country in the world, it makes me wonder how long it will be before big brother installs video cameras inside homes."

It's too late, they already have plans in motion for cameras in "problem" homes.

http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/government-wants-more-cctv-cameras-in-homes-622368

balkanoldhand said...

According to the Times report, this a draft report, which will no doubt, not be implemented. It's rather tendentious to call us a dictatorship - let's remember that the US brought us Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, waterboarding and legalised torture. Is the US a dictatorship? No - because eventually the checks and balances worked. But please don't throw stones across the Atlantic - we all live in glass houses.

Divemedic said...

What checks and balances worked in the US?

Gitmo is still open.
Extraordinary rendition is still being carried out.
I also disagree with waterboarding and torture. All you have to do to see that is read through this blog from the Bush years.

Still, all of that does not support your original statement: You claim that Britain is not a dictatorship. Upon what facts do you base this opinion?

balkanoldhand said...

Seriously?

Well - what's a dictatorship? This from wikipedia is as good as anything else I suppose:
"A dictatorship is defined as an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator, without hereditary ascension."

So - we have a parliament (several in fact); procedures for the orderly transfer of power, habeas corpus, an official opposition, universal suffrage, contested elections, lots of demonstrations against government policy (some of which I've been on), checks on the executive and a whole lot of things which are inconsistent with the notion of dictatorship.

We're by no means perfect - we have lot's of social problems (especially where I live - the part of the UK where the party in government is opposed to the party in government in London and which thinks the part of the UK I live in should not be in the UK) and there are many controls on people's civil liberties which I don't agree with. But this is not Zimbabwe under Mugabe, the USSR under Stalin or Germany under Hitler. For the record I don't think the US under Bush was a dictatorship although I think the government he led made very big mistakes which had an impact on many people's freedoms.

My point is that criticism, based on the facts is fine, but that's different from namecalling.

Divemedic said...

So while it is wrong to live under the rule of a single dictator who violates your rights, it is OK to allow a group of people to violate your rights?

You are required to allow government agents and cameras into your homes, for God's sake! Have you not read Orwell? Every aspect of your life is being controlled, and you see little problem with that?

Your country has become a nation of spineless pussies. I fear we are soon to follow.

How is that for name calling?

Thanks for proving Godwin's law, by the way.

balkanoldhand said...

On a matter of fact - I am not required to let the government put cameras into my home. The government cannot make me do this. "Government agents" can come into my house with a warrant or authorisation from a court or in "hot pursuit".

Divemedic said...

Didn't you read the post above? Doctors, entering your home in the employ of the State, will inspect your home to ensure that you are in compliance with safety laws.

If you read the link supplied by the first commenter above, you will see that government cameras are being installed in the homes of "problem families" to ensure that ensure children go to bed and school on time and eat proper meals.

Volumes can be and have been written about the issue of freedom versus dictatorship, but, in essence, it comes down to a single question: do you consider it moral to treat men as sacrificial animals and to rule them by physical force?