Friday, August 12, 2005

"They're locking them up today, they're throwing away the key..."

And as the man said, so long ago, "we're all normal when we want our freedom". In an attempt to pose the unstated question as to what normality is, our good friend, Mr Tony Blair, is reviving that most dangerous of false dichotomies - security or freedom. So some lunatic Islamist has been banned from the country. So what? Well, is nobody else concerned that a man who has, whilst admittedly expressing views that any sane person would hold as obnoxious, committed no crime, has been banned from entering the country? Have we really reached a point at which expressing opinions has become a criminal act? Who's next? Do we really trust the current government to say, "Oh, but they're bad people - you have your opinions, which we disagree with, but you're OK"?
And the move to revive the treason laws. According to my dictionary, treason is a "violation or betrayal of the allegiance that a person owes his sovereign or his country". So my supporting of the removal of the royal family would count as treason under this definition. Assuming I owe my sovereign any allegiance (which I would maintain I don't - why should I? I didn't vote for her...)
We live in dangerous times. Making it easier for the government to lock up people who disagree with them isn't going to make them any less dangerous, no matter what the idiotic-populist right wing press may claim. It just means there is a greater risk for the rest of us - we have to worry about being locked up by our own country as well as being blown to bits by insane religious nutters.

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