what happened to freedom?

[Whistla]

i know everyone on here likes a good banter about the odd political issue, so here goes.

What happened to freedom?

The members of a free society would have full dominion over their public and private lives.

This clearly is not the case with private data about everyone everywhere being stored by the govt and lord knows who else.

So what do ya reckon?

What happened that made us all capitulate to "Big Brother" ?

And can we do anything about it?

[diablo]

Stockpile an arsenal of weapons

[steshine]

A few irresponsible people commit crime, the media blow it out of proportion and the government act accordingly to the public reaction, created by the media.
I don't see this as a lack of freedom, more of an increased sense of security. I'm all for the government having everyone's DNA on file if it helps to catch rapists, peodoes and murderers.
If you've done nothing wrong then you have nothing to fear.

[Whistla]

If you've done nothing wrong then you have nothing to fear.

lol

this is kind of what i mean tho
so you are willing to sacrifice freedom for security?
i am totally not for that kind of thought.
for me its freedom over security

[diablo]

A few irresponsible people commit crime, the media blow it out of proportion and the government act accordingly to the public reaction, created by the media.
I don't see this as a lack of freedom, more of an increased sense of security. I'm all for the government having everyone's DNA on file if it helps to catch rapists, peodoes and murderers.
If you've done nothing wrong then you have nothing to fear.

Give 'em YOUR dna if you want !!!!

Might as well let them implant a GPS tracking device in shoulder while your at it.

FUCK Big Brother!!!

[__________]

can we do anything about it?

this is the key part...

if you ask me, i think we've all lived in fear for too long to change anything.
to make people stand up, think for themselves, and do something about the state of society (in this country at least) the FIRST thing you'd have to do is get them to stop watching TV.

for this reason alone, i don't think we'll ever be free. people like sitting on their ass being fed shit TV too much. put news bulletins (brainwashing) in between everybody's favourite programs, and bingo - you've got a complacent population before you know it.

until righteous people control the media, we're fucked. the internet is key in providing people with knowledge about their rights and alternative coverage on news stories, but it doesn't pack the same punch as government-approved, globalised news coverage, and information on the internet is so fragmented and unreliable, its always hard to get 100% reliable sources. most of the time, people don't know what the fuck is going on.

smoking ban - perfect example. everybody here is too fucking pussy to tell the government to fuck off and let us smoke inside. i doubt the government will meet much more serious resistance when they bring in ID cards!

bit of a long message...i'm baked...but i think about this kind of shit a lot, and to be honest, i think we (the british) as a population are far too lazy and complacent to ever be free. look at the french, perfect example. they're only 40 miles away over a little stretch of water, but they DO NOT take shit from their government! they'll strike at the drop of a hat, ignore the smoking ban, riot, protest, and kick up shit fearlessly in huge numbers. the majority of the population in this country are shit-scared to protest or kick up a stink, and its not really suprising considering what the police can lock you up for these days.

news coverage has gone from telling you important national/global events, to a 24 hour channel with the soul purpose (that i can see) of fucking with your emotions and/or brainwashing you. everything is stacked against us (civilian citizens) and now with this well-timed 'recession', no doubt the population will be 10 times more worried about their own finances than the state of the country, what the government is up to, or how many illegal wars we're fighting in other people's countries.

I was born in 1989, and I've NEVER felt free. so fuck knows what happened to freedom...don't ask me because I'm not sure I've ever experienced it.

[Whistla]

can we do anything about it?

this is the key part...

if you ask me, i think we've all lived in fear for too long to change anything.
to make people stand up, think for themselves, and do something about the state of society (in this country at least) the FIRST thing you'd have to do is get them to stop watching TV.

for this reason alone, i don't think we'll ever be free. people like sitting on their ass being fed shit TV too much. put news bulletins (brainwashing) in between everybody's favourite programs, and bingo - you've got a complacent population before you know it.

until righteous people control the media, we're fucked. the internet is key in providing people with knowledge about their rights and alternative coverage on news stories, but it doesn't pack the same punch as government-approved, globalised news coverage, and information on the internet is so fragmented and unreliable, its always hard to get 100% reliable sources. most of the time, people don't know what the fuck is going on.

smoking ban - perfect example. everybody here is too fucking pussy to tell the government to fuck off and let us smoke inside. i doubt the government will meet much more serious resistance when they bring in ID cards!

bit of a long message...i'm baked...but i think about this kind of shit a lot, and to be honest, i think we (the british) as a population are far too lazy and complacent to ever be free. look at the french, perfect example. they're only 40 miles away over a little stretch of water, but they DO NOT take shit from their government! they'll strike at the drop of a hat, ignore the smoking ban, riot, protest, and kick up shit fearlessly in huge numbers. the majority of the population in this country are shit-scared to protest or kick up a stink, and its not really suprising considering what the police can lock you up for these days.

news coverage has gone from telling you important national/global events, to a 24 hour channel with the soul purpose (that i can see) of fucking with your emotions and/or brainwashing you. everything is stacked against us (civilian citizens) and now with this well-timed 'recession', no doubt the population will be 10 times more worried about their own finances than the state of the country, what the government is up to, or how many illegal wars we're fighting in other people's countries.

I was born in 1989, and I've NEVER felt free. so fuck knows what happened to freedom...don't ask me because I'm not sure I've ever experienced it.

yeh man i totally agree
i guess my ques about freedom is like have we forgotten about it? because we (as in the general joe bloggs) is so brainwashed he doesnt know that he should be free.
Almost as if he is happy to be enslaved (as steshine seems to be, no offense matey )
The yanks get a lot of shit of us english, but when it comes to rights and freedoms they do seem to have it way better than us in some ways, not so much in others ofc, stuff like freedom of speech etc...
I'm worried that we are slipping into a serious totaliterian state with all the powers the police has, the way they can stop you for no reason at all, the way this had led to racism (police on the public) returning with a vengance to the streets. The basic freedoms like for instance were fought for during the second world war havebeen/are being eroded away, and people actually seem happy about it!
Yes please take my freedom away, is the resounding cry from the "silent majority" and it worries and sickens me.
I can hear a million WW2 soliders turning in there collective graves

[__________]

fucked innit!
i (like a lot of other people) would do more to fight for everybody's rights, but what can you do? write to your MP, write to the BBC, have a protest, vote for a different puppet, smash some shit up...nothing except becoming a politician (perish the thought) will do anything worthwhile, surely? every politician i've ever met has been a slimy tnuc anyway, and as much as i want to sort my rights out, i don't want to inevitably turn into one of them.

to be fair, what goes up must come down, and the british empire has been the tits for hundreds of years, so its not suprising that we've been falling quite harshly for the past 10 years or so.

add immigration into it all, and surely you've got a significant percentage of the population that define freedom differently, or are grateful for anything except the blatant brutality they put up with in their home countries.

there's so many different contributing factors, and stupid people, that i think we're pretty much fucked.

[Cornish rant]
another thing that pisses me off is the fact that Cornwall was never invaded. william the conquerer basically couldn't be fucked to come down 'ere and claim it...so we SHOULD be an independant state. we've got our culture, customs, flag and most importantly, language. somewhere along the line, the English took advantage of the mellow Cornish population and fucking claimed it for their own. if this wasn't the case, us Cornish mandem would be able to offer to you enlightened folk a separately governed and lawed principality or even a free country. but no. we're apparantly part of england, and therefore have to adhere to your shitty laws. fuck prince charles, fuck the royal family, and fuck the british government.

i think the bottom line is, people EXPECT to be able to trust their government, and believe that since they are also people from this country, they will surely have the nation's best interests at heart.
the fact is that its all about money and status. politicians will lie to anybody to further their career or bank balance.
the government abuse this inherent trust by bringing in laws that deep down people know are totally wrong...but if Gordon Brown is that adament he's not fucking with our rights...hey i'll give him the benefit of the doubt...just let me watch eastenders yeah

[steshine]

Not being funny but have you seen American news? if that's freedom of speech then i am bloody glad we don't have that in England! It's sickening and disturbing that they can get away with saying such racist things on Television.
I don't feel giving the government my DNA will be like them tracking me because it would only be used when need be, and if that's what i have to go through to get rapists caught then that's what i'll do. It's gone so far that we should be willing to do whatever to clean up this country, get rid of all the scum that get away with this f'd up shit.
I can, however understand while people would be reluctant to submit to this regime, but we do still have freedom, if you don't like this government, then you're free to move to another country. We still have free health service and a decent benefit system, which is often overlooked, these things help support our freedom, but while one person has freedom, the next man must pay. Everything comes from tax payers, so one person has to be constrained for the other to be free i guess.
Fuck it.
Isn't this freedom of speech?

[djake]

£10bag did u not realise i have invaded cornwall

[djake]

tbh the goverment needs to legalize weed

we all no the country would benifit from it.

[__________]

£10bag did u not realise i have invaded cornwall

perfect example...people from Devon trying to lay claim to Cornwall. i'm telling you the country is fucked.

true story: a pasty making crew from Devon won the award for 'best Cornish pasty' recently...and they're from Devon. not Cornwall. i'm telling you again, the country is fucked.

We still have free health service and a decent benefit system, which is often overlooked, these things help support our freedom, but while one person has freedom, the next man must pay.

the NHS is properly shit though. i broke my leg when i was 14 or so...I spent over 12 hours in A&E with my kneecap flapping around inside my leg, without pain killers or any form of medical attention. big up mum for the paracetamol about 8 hours in.
then, once they kindly fixed my broken leg for me, i had free physiotherapy sessions every few days. lovely. until one day i couldn't reach because the car's broken down...so i let them know a day in advance, and they kick me out of physiotherapy permanently. its about 12 miles to my nearest hospital. and my leg isn't right, about 6 years later. should i have paid for my own physiotherapy, aged 14, or what? who was in the wrong? or am i making a fuss about nothing?

taxpayer-funded healthcare should be standard in every country if you ask me. it just isn't pulled off very well in this one.

i'm more worried about the new terrorism laws than our health care, anyway!

[j-sh]

"Any one willing to sacrifice freedom for security deserves neither and will lose both" Benjamin Franklin

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free" Von Goethe

I think those two quotes summarise quite nicely what you guys are talking about.
My thoughts - although it's a little bit cynical, my genuine perception is that the average brit is a fucking idiot. Most people you meet really are just paranoid, closet racists who live and breath they're false sense of security and bigotted nationalism. Don't get me wrong, I love everything my country does for me, and in return i'm a good member of society - and further more I like people. I just don't like television, alcohol, tabloids, the education system and all the other things that enslave us.

[__________]

the education system

that's the big one...

[karmacazee]

^^^^ You've clearly never been up the Valleys in south wales, Hayz.

Where I live I see plenty of empty kids. I mean, they have no substance to them - nothing to talk about, no enthusiasm for anything except TV or computer games and getting wrecked. They go out and get wrecked at 12 and never look back, with no plan other than "I'll go on the dole and sell weed, innit?". They all either end up in the army (not dissing the army but... fuck that!) or in prison. Most of the kids I grew up with around here are in that situation, and their younger siblings seem to be doing the same, just a lot quicker.

They're imprisoning themselves in tiny worlds, because they don't know anything else.

Obviously, noy everyone is like that.

I just think there really is a whole load of people who have slipped into a semi self inflicted bubble of ignorance, made worse by the fact that we have a FAIL government, a FAIL mainstream media, a FAIL education system and a FAIL economic system, with failures at the helm of them all.

[karmacazee]

Society will never be perfect, but it could be better.

[__________]

If you really look at shit, in terms of politics....[/quote]

i see where you're coming from, but i'm not worried especially about conspiracies or shit like that. i'm worried about the new terror laws more than anything i've been worried about politically in my life so far.
the po po can stop you, take you to the station and BUMSEARCH you for absolutely no reason other than you could have possibly been a terrorist. this can apply to anyone. if you're stoned and acting a little bit sketchy, you could be seen as a terrorist and have your ass fondled by the police. fuck that. that's not free. that's bum rape. unless i'm actively TERRORISING people, or walking around with a knife or a bomb, i'm not a terrorist, and you can stay the fuck away from my ass and my weed.

from the OED:

terrorist

• noun: a person who uses violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.

sounds like the government to me...know what i mean? use violence against protestors or iraqis, and intimidate people via the television or police force, to get them to back you politically when its time to vote.

you can be stopped and bumsearched for doing literally fuck all...looking the way that you look, or being an indian person with a back pack. the ONLY way to justify these new laws is if the pigs suddenly start catching 100's of these previously-invisible terrorists...which they haven't, and never will.

and Obama isn't going to change fuck all, sorry mate. he's just another puppet. yeah, he's going to 'close guantanamo', but what does that mean? if you ask me, it means they're going to open up a handful of smaller, not so internationally blatant illegal torture prisons, and try a lot harder to keep them a secret this time.

the british government even intimidates people into paying their TV license. that says it all really. they intimidate you into PAYING for their intimidation...am i the only person that sees this?!?!?!?!?!?!

free public service broadcasting - its not even free. i always thought in this country, we had the right to free radio/tv/media...obviously not.