“Britain's "Fundamental Resettlement" of Rights ... - Huffingtonpost.com”

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Britain's "Fundamental Resettlement" of Rights ... - Huffingtonpost.com Posted: 21 May 2010 03:14 PM PDT It is rare to be reminded that actual change is possible through the established mechanisms by which the various fictions of government have ended up operating, but that is what occasionally happens, and when it does, those of us who have such contempt for governments as to pretentiously declare them to be "fictions" ought to admit to it. Britain's polity has actually managed to collectively take such action as to prompt their government to adapt many of those changes which are known to most literate people with a penchant for individual liberty to be necessary and desirable. This is an incredible achievement for any citizen body even when noted sarcastically. It is very possible that the wholesale gutting of many of Britain's most malignant intrusions on civil liberties which is now being promised by Nick Clegg will fail. The very fact that such a program has been proposed by the de facto number two man of a major government is among the greatest actual causes for celebration in a lifetime. We have seen great increases in liberty both on the occasion of 1989-1993 and more gradually in nations such as China, but these have tended to involve cruel and incompetent elites letting go at least partially by their own inclination. It would be hard to point to a better example than this of a representative government actually being prompted to give up a great array of its own powers through the functioning of the electoral process itself. Likewise, it would be hard to imagine anything of the sort happening in the U.S. The Independent relays the bulk of Clegg's proposals as such: * scrapping the identity card scheme and second generation biometric passports; * removing limits on the rights to peaceful protest; * a bonfire of unnecessary laws; * a block on pointless new criminal offences; * internet and email records not to be held without reason; * closed-circuit television to be properly regulated; * new controls over the DNA database, such as on the storage of innocent people's DNA; * axeing the ContactPoint children's database; * schools will not take children's fingerprints without asking for parental consent; * reviewing the libel laws to protect freedom of speech. Of course, the Brits have more to work with than we do in terms of things that need to be revoked, but we have recently been gaining on them - and now, by way of this probable reversal in Britain, we are thus on track to reaching the point at which the U.S. will be on the whole less free than the United Kingdom, which, of course, was the entity from which we declared independence for the purpose of establishing a government that is more free than the United Kingdom. All of this is to say that the U.S. is about to fail. More at True/Slant. E-mail me at barriticus@gmail.com for information on Project PM. Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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