Skip to main content

Losing Liberty and Security

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" Ben Franklin.

After traveling to Warsaw and back this week, I can honestly say that the security procedures that have been enacted are pointless and farcial.

In the name of safeguarding our security, travelers are now subject to the kind of intrusion that no free person should have to undergo. We are constantly told that "the terrorists must not change our way of life!". Apparently, they already have.

Since we know that we can never be 100% safe from terrorism, we have to decide what is an acceptable level of risk.

I believe that in their futile search for complete security, our political leaders are corroding our liberties.

I believe that this process must be stopped immediately.

The risk of any single individual being hurt or killed in a terrorist outrage is very small- the risk to our freedom from these pointless restrictions is now certain and is already unacceptable.

We should be watching the results of the Police investigations very carefully- if this turns out to be another Forest Gate, then John Reid, the Home Secretary, should be instantly dismissed.

His political grandstanding, based on fear, which is dubious now, would be totally unacceptable then.

Comments

Gavin Whenman said…
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself"

You're quite right, the current situation, and the seemingly endless intrusions on our civil liberties, risk corroding the very society we are trying to protect.
5:36 pm
Anonymous said…
I agree.
What can we *DO* about it? Besides complain?
3:23 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Concert and Blues

Tallinn is full tonight... Big concerts on at the Song field The Weeknd and Bonnie Tyler (!). The place is buzzing and some sixty thousand concert goers have booked every bed for thirty miles around Tallinn. It should be a busy high summer, but it isn´t. Tourism is down sharply overall. Only 70 cruise ships calling this season, versus over 300 before Ukraine. Since no one goes to St Pete, demand has fallen, and of course people think that Estonia is not safe. We are tired. The economy is still under big pressure, and the fall of tourism is a significant part of that. The credit rating for Estonia has been downgraded as the government struggles with spending. The summer has been a little gloomy, and soon the long and slow autumn will drift into the dark of the year. Yesterday I met with more refugees: the usual horrible stories, the usual tears. I try to make myself immune, but I can´t. These people are wounded in spirit, carrying their grief in a terrible cradling. I try to project hop
Post a Comment
Read more

Media misdirection

In the small print of the UK budget we find that the Chancellor of the Exchequer (the British Finance Minister) has allocated a further 15 billion Pounds to the funding for the UK track and trace system. This means that the cost of the UK´s track and trace system is now 37 billion Pounds.  That is approximately €43 billion or US$51 billion, which is to say that it is amount of money greater than the national GDP of over 110 countries, or if you prefer, it is roughly the same number as the combined GDP of the 34 smallest economies of the planet.  As at December 2020, 70% of the contracts for the track and trace system were awarded by the Conservative government without a competitive tender being made . The program is overseen by Dido Harding , who is not only a Conservative Life Peer, but the wife of a Conservative MP, John Penrose, and a contemporary of David Cameron and Boris Johnson at Oxford. Many of these untendered contracts have been given to companies that seem to have no notewo
Post a Comment
Read more

KamiKwasi brings an end to the illusion of Tory economic competence

After a long time, Politics seems to be getting interesting again, so I thought it might be time to restart my blog. With regard to this weeks mini budget, as with all budgets, there are two aspects: the economic and the political. The economic rationale for this package is questionable at best. The problems of the UK economy are structural. Productivity and investment are weak, infrastructure is under-invested and decaying. Small businesses are going to the wall and despite entrepreneurship being relatively strong in Britain, self-employment is increasingly unattractive. Red tape since Brexit has led to a significant fall in exports and the damage has been disproportionately on small businesses. Literally none of these problems are being addressed by this package. Even if the package were to stimulate some kind of short term consumption-led growth boom, this is unlikely to be sustainable, not least because what is being added on the fiscal side will be need to be offset, to a great de
Post a Comment
Read more