A recent study of social attitudes in Britain has discovered that support for civil liberties is on the wane, with the majority of the population seeing infringements on their rights as a reasonable price for apparent security.
The British Social Attitudes Survey, released every year since 1983, reports that the vast majority of British citizens support compulsory, biometric identity cards, are in favour of detentions of terrorist subjects without charge, and support the tagging and wire-tapping of terrorist suspects without charge.
There was some positive news: 75% of Britons oppose torture, for example, and 63% oppose the banning of demonstrations. A slim majority, 55%, oppose the suspension of trial-by-jury for terrorist suspects. In addition, 80% supported terminally ill patients’ right to assisted suicide.
Overall, however, it’s a grim picture. The vast majority of the British public seems to be willing to sacrifice their own rights and the rights of others if it means an ostensible increase in security; gone is the British attitude of the past, where civil liberties, and those who had fought for them, were things to be proud of.
Perhaps it’s our memory of World War II growing fainter; perhaps it’s simply the realities of a “post 9/11 world”. Whatever the cause, people are growing content with a lack of freedom: a contentedness I for one find particularly depressing.
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Karl Marx would love the popular moves among politicians in various state governments and the federal government to ban so-called "junk" food in schools, and to "put healthy food in" convenience stores and on the tables of those they define as poor. It's a very elitist and arrogant mindset that promotes this ideology, and it needs to be addressed.
Ultimately, the war supporters in Congress prevailed in the vote on the resolution. Still, the vote was significant because it places every member of Congress on the record as supporting or not supporting the unconstitutional, costly, violent occupation of a country that never attacked us. This vote should serve as an important reminder to the American people of where their representatives really stand when it comes to policing the world, empire building, and war.
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Q
Jan 24, 2007
time for them to cut back on the tea and crumpets, then wake up and smell the BS
Rob Miller
Jan 24, 2007
Crumpets are wonderfully liberating, I’ll have you know.
Jan 24, 2007
Cafe Novo
Q
Jan 24, 2007
Rob, now that was funny, thanks you made me laugh when I needed it.
Javarod
Jan 25, 2007
I shouldn’t be surprised at this, after all, how long was this country a monarchy? With that in mind, it shouldn’t surprise me that they’d trade freedom for security. Now in America, a country founded on individual rights, I’d be surprised (and am with every law Bush and Co. push through).
Rob Miller
Jan 25, 2007
The country still is a monarchy, FYI. However, the monarch serves a largely symbolic role and we’ve a long tradition of constitutional monarchy, dating back to the Magna Carta almost 800 years ago—a document that had a profound influence on your Constitution and Bill of Rights. Your individual freedoms owe quite a lot to us and our legal history.
We’re not as backwards as you appear to make out, you know. At least our Parliament has the decency to even attempt the striking down of draconian anti-terrorist legislation, and our judiciary declare it or elements of it unconstitutional—something your government has singularly failed to do.
F
Jan 27, 2007
‘Perhaps it’s our memory of World War II growing fainter.’
Agreed, unfortunitly war opens our eyes, keeps us on our toes.
Kevin Fields
Jan 29, 2007
This isn’t surprising to me. Britians have never had the level of personal freedoms and liberties that Americans won and expected. They’ve always lived in a state of limited freedoms that is only granted by the government and have the potential to be revoked.
Rob Miller
Jan 29, 2007
All of your freedoms can be revoked by the government too.
susan 28
Feb 04, 2007
i don’t think freedoms can ever be revoked, per se; but they *can* be disrespected. how we react when that happens tells the tale. they can kill you or imprison you, but you’re still free as long as you don’t let them crush your will. government is the mirror-image (not a xerox copy) of the collective will: when will is strong, government is weak; when it is weak, government is strong. it begins at home.
and ah, i too love crumpets.. no, wait.. that’s *strumpets*.. but beware! no greater tyranny than that of the heart..