I’m reading The Illuminatus! trilogy at the moment. It’s a book written by two guys who took way too much Acid during the sixties. It’s all about cabals who try to control the world. Stuff you read fairly regularly by authors like Dan Brown. So there’s no factual content whatsoever. As such, these guys are free to contemplate the doomsday scenario that would lead to totalarian government, which reads as
More stringent security measures. Universal electronic surveillance. No-knock laws. Stop and frisk laws. Government inspection of first-class mail. Automatic fingerprinting, photographing, blood tests, and urinalysis of any person arrested before he is charged with a crime. A law making it unlawful to resist even unlawful arrest. Laws establishing detention camps for potential subversives. Gun control. Restrictions on travel.
Apart from “inspection of first-class mail” and “unlawful to resist even unlawful arrest” the U.K. government has fulfilled every other criteria. In fact there is automatic fingerprinting and photographing of everyone (a.k.a. ID cards), not just persons arrested. And the unspoken approval for Guantanamo Bay is an extra-legal establishment of camps for potential subversives.
It really is scary.
I can’t give you an op-ed piece on how I think that this is all bad. Nor can I give an insightful comentary on how these protective laws are good. I feel that they’re bad….and some tripped out authors have given a list of things that can “only” (in the book) be enforced by some evil cabal. But we’re here. Feels like a crossroads to me. This could all work out fine, or it could turn into a Germany circa 1939 situation.
The question for me is, who is going to choose which road to go down? If a politician chooses, we’ll get more survailance etc… because this is the easy road. It may, or may not, improve “security”. But if a politician dosn’t choose this road they’ll be accused of being “soft” on terrorism (notice I don’t quote/unquote the word terrorism. The terrorism is real, just vastly overstated.). We need a statesman, in any European country to take the other road and offer an example to the politicians. A road that might get a lot worse before it gets better. Someone with an actual philosophy and backbone.
I just don’t see that someone at the moment. Colm MacCarthaigh once told me that if you don’t agree with the current political status-quo it is your responsibility to run for office. That democracy is a privilege not a right. And privileges come with responsibilities…..
Not sure where this brings me.
Update: Just got this joke from a friend.
New U.S. anti-terror bill published in C
if (person = terrorist) {
punish_severely();
} else {
exit(-1);
}
For those of you who know nothing about C, = is an assignment not a
comparison.