On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 10:54 AM, Larry C. Lyons <[email protected]>wrote:
> > Britain a police state? Only in your right wing ideological dreams. In > what ways is the country a police state? I have yet to hear one iota > of evidence for that. > Then you must not be paying attention. Video cameras in public places with loudspeakers to police can not only monitor people's activities but chide them when they commit some minor infraction. Speed cameras on remote stations monitoring everyone's behavior. The current planned use of military drones to patrol (and monitor) civilian populations. Abusive, and now ruled illegal, random stop and search tactics that smack of the politically incorrect-inspired idiocy at the TSA in the US. Demanding that all the residents of a town submit their DNA to the police or face investigation. The list goes on and on. Here's a site filled with stories from the British police state: http://policestatebritain.blogspot.com/ There is also the Cryptohippie's scorecard of the electronic police state: https://secure.cryptohippie.com/pubs/EPS-2010.pdf The US actually has a worse score on this measure than Britain (though not by much). Canada is lagging behind a bit but making a serious effort to catch up. > Lets see they lack the freedom to be shot by some psycho who's pissed > off at losing a job, as happens almost every 2 or 3 weeks in the US. I > think that its happened what twice in over a decade in the UK. lets > add in all the random shootings that happen in the US or the gang > warfare in quite a few US cities. That does not happen in the UK. > > Then there's the freedom to die because you cannot afford health care. > While I do not like the model of the National Health system the UK > uses, proportionately more receive good health care than in the US and > without being bankrupted by the process The freedom to die because you have National Health care in the UK is quite well documented. Death panels, rationing- they have it all. . Then there's the freedom not to have your views represented in the > national legislature. The British parliamentary systems allows for > multiple political parties, unlike the two party system (rather 1 > party system with two faces) that you see in the US. Factually incorrect. > > Freedom to not to travel. The US forbids travel to Cuba. There are > multiple flights from London's Gatwick or Heathrow airports to > Havana. And the Virgin Atlantic flights are cheaper than flying to > Washington Dulles. > Who cares? Puerto Rico is way nicer and it's American soil. > I could go on about this. But frankly the bs about American > exceptionalism really does get tiresome. > You brought up American exceptionalism. If you don't like the subject, don't bring it up. All I said was that we could reverse course. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:332025 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
