We’re probably going to have to abolish blogs, comments threads underneath newspaper columns, Twitter and Facebook – and indeed, just about anything else. Her Majesty’s Government, just when you thought it could do nothing even more stupid than the last stupid thing it did, is passing legislation which will make it an offence to cause annoyance. We are ‘reassured’ by the Home Office that the Police would never use this right in an ‘unreasonable way’. That would be the same police who have arrested street preachers and tried to intimidate them into silence, and have accused them of being ‘homophobic’ because they repeated what St Paul said about homosexuality? Ah, well, happen some folk reassure more easily, but somehow, I’m not in the slightest bit reassured.
In case you think that no Government would be so stupid as to make being annoying an offence liable, upon conviction, to a term of imprisonment of up to two years, check out the campaign against it here. I find David Cameron intensely annoying, can I sue him and get him locked up? More seriously, for those of us who proclaim the Gospel on the streets on a Saturday morning, is the prospect of the boys in blue feeling our collars for proclaiming Gospel Truth. All it seems to need is a person of homosexual orientation to complain he’s been hurt in his feelings (diddums) and that, we saw in the case of Dr Clifford in Norwich, is all it takes for the police to bear down on you. This is the same police force which can’t really tackle crime such as burglary and theft, so I suppose it is as well to give them a ‘crime’ they can try to deal with
Anyone who thinks it won’t lead to vexatious and needless litigation must be a lawyer. Nowadays folk are so sensitive that even looking at someone the wrong way can be enough to involve the law.
It would appear that as a society we no longer have agreed norms, so everything comes down to the law. That may be the inevitable outcome of a House of Commons full of lawyers and folk who’ve never held a job in the real world, but it is also a chilling prospect for a free society.
We’ve just been told by a former president of the Irish Republic: ‘If you are the so-called sinner, who likes to be called that?’ Presumably under the new British law, you can sue someone for the ‘annoyance’ caused’? Now you might say that’s a bit of an exaggeration, who would do that? But when an Irish Catholic former president studying for a doctorate in canon law can seriously bang on that it is wrong for her church to take the stand it does on homosexual behaviour, and make a comment like the one just quoted, all bets are off.
Anyone like to start a book on the first victim of this legislation being a street preacher? If so, I’d take a side bet that it isn’t a Muslim one. This ridiculous government has already told us that same-sex marriage is what the country wants, even though its sham consultation showed it wasn’t what those who responded to it wants. It has driven down heavily on those on benefits whether they are disabled or not, it has shown all the care and compassion of Dr Crippen. Then it asks us to trust it on this one. Well, there’s one born every minute I guess, but I don’t trust them as far as I could throw them.
All Along the Watchtower 
When one can’t annoy another with speech, well in a word, Freedom is dead.
It may be time to say good-bye to the world’s oldest bastion of freedom, who taught us all. And yet, I think there are enough of you around to get your government back under control. You certainly need to-even our idiots aren’t (quite) this idiotic.
In any case we will do our best to be here for you, as you have been for us.
But in any case, be careful, as a famous Briton once cried in the night, “The Regulars are out.”
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I’ve been watching this one for a bit, but not bothered blogging as it seemed obvious to me that at some point it would be pulled – but clearly not. I am hoping today’s debate in the Lords will help. But it’s come to something when we require unelected people to help out in this manner. Bonkers!
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That barely begins to cover it. We’re having trouble with the IRS (Inland Revenue to you) in this regard but that’s civil mostly, and some form (or lack of) organization can help, but that one is purely a frontal assault. A very sad development, indeed.
And strange as well at a time when the Commonwealth is showing us all the way.
We will of course be watching as well, but we can’t fight the battle, that is for you guys to do.
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I daresay some lawyers are going to get rich off this one.
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Yes, and some people are going to have their lives pretty well ruined, when the police overreact, as they will, and soon.
I can’t say this strongly enough, if you don’t get your government under control, you will be answering to bureaucrats in Brussels for everything and Great Britain will be but a memory.
This goes against our entire common history, you know it, I know it, and yet your population sits around like a bunch of Frogs waiting for the water to boil.
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Oh we’ll protest – but like Iraq, the Gocernment will ignore us; we can ignore tham and vote for the other lot, who will do just the same. The problem seems tp be that whoever you vote for, the Government gets in!
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No difference than here, except that we’ll stand for it only so long. How about you guys?
I recognize that your problems are different,an executive in the legislature makes it more difficult but, if you guys want to be free you’d best start thinking about a solution, we’re better off than you at this point, and we already have a nearly open rebellion going on, Canada and Australia have figured it out. Is England really that passive?
I know, I sound like an alarmist here but, if you can’t speak freely, you have effectively to place to start.
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I hope that the European elections will give the parties a kick. I am sure they will, but hard to see what will replace them.
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You’re evading the issue. It’s about Great Britain, you can’t pass the buck to Europe (or America). It’s your freedom, what’s is it worth to YOU.
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I’m not Neo. Problem is our system, which effectively neutralises opposition. So unless you can get a hold of the Commons, you can do nothing, but the parties have that in a death grip – with too many decisions already taken in Europe. I don’t see a solution.
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The common comment here would be, “Let it Burn”.
if you have to tear down the whole damned thing and start over, you do it. You’ll recall that we did that once, and the reason our politicians (yes, even O’ Bumbles) don’t try that stuff here is that deep in their hearts, they know we’ll do it again. Freedom is more important.
New Hampshire has it on their license plates:
“It’s better to die on your feet than to live on your knees” That’s the lesson of history and Christianity.
Europe never knew what freedom was until we, you and us taught them, a very frail reed to lean on.
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The difficulty here Neo is that the structures which ensured freedom are still very strong – but are now used to impose this version of it.
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True, and they read their Orwell,
“Freedom is Slavery”
and it’s just as true as
“Arbeit macht Frei”
In addition you have long given up the real check on government. When we over here say “The second protects the rest” it is emphatically not a joke. When you gave up the right of the freeman to be armed, you gave up far more than you knew.
It’s easy for me to be a hardcase here, and you know that I say much the same about the US, but in truth, if you don’t stop them now, when will you be more able to? That’s the real problem, they use an incremental method, which was the second meaning of the Frog comment, if you turn up the heat slowly enough, the frog never notices. I don’t know enough of England to have a valid opinion of measures but, it is time for you to stop your divine right parliament.
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We have much the same thing going on here as well Geoffrey. My thinking is that all the Western Societies are dealing to one degree or another with governments that no longer are expressive of the desires of the people whom they govern. They have divided the electorate along every possible issue that can create total chaos of “the people” (as if we were still one people). It is truly amazing how chaotic the societies have gotten. We have successfully turned the 2 party system into a no party system that is simply moving us wherever they want to move us over the long run. In my opinion we don’t get out of this with dialogue and without blood being shed. I guess that was the same gut reaction I was having with the theology of individuals in the recent posts. It is the modern philosophy of negating any commonly held beliefs to substitute individual beliefs that (when seen from this perspective) destroy that which at one time was our culture.
Neo is right, but then again, he is more of a glass half full guy than I am. I think these elites will be overthrown at some point but I don’t think it will happen in a peaceful vote by the electorate.
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Sounds the sane as here. Folk are fed up, and demagogues will get votes, but nothing actually changes. If the elite can continue to afford bread and circuses, fair enough, it will stagger on; what will happen when they can’t remains to be seen. Glad I am in my seventies, but worry for the young ones.
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Well I’m not sure how much further they can stagger along without taking a fall. It might be sooner than we think. I just don’t want us our kids to be sitting on the spot where their fat arses might land. 🙂
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Me too 🙂
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I’m less optimistic for them than I am us, Servus. We have a chance, and it will be a fairer fight if it comes to that. There, well, steak knives are not very effective against military rifles, and no posse comitatus either. But they are going to have man up and do it, or the statist are going to win. And that’s really why they need to do it now, before it gets worse.
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Your last point was a good one Neo. These past 2 years have seen the largest sale of weapons and ammo that this country has ever seen. Seems that getting prepared for the worst is becoming a common idea among many of us. 🙂
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Yes, America is, in large measure, preparing for the american Revolution 2.0. If it is necessary, it will happen but, the time is not yet. The signs are there to read though. My plans are set, I imagine yours are as well. And that may be the difference, we are not really fatalistic about it, we have seen this coming and have been planning. The Brits seem much more apathetic, don’t they? I hope that’s not true but late at night, I worry about them 🙂
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I do as well since our histories and our philosophies are so entwined. I don’t think they are apathetic though their forefathers gave up their rights to bear arms which I think is one of their worst decisions. They might not be so brow beaten had they not accepted such measures. 🙂
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I agree, the fact of arms (at least small arms) gives a fair measure of confidence, as does the closeness of our rank and file military to the people, which is something else they seem to have lost (or never had).
Those factors have a lot to do with why I am more confident here than there, even without armed rebellion. 🙂
But still, we have proved over and over again, that we can NOT do it for them, anymore than the French did it for us, we can, perhaps help, but that’s it.
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Indeed we have our own house to clean before we go out and offer ourselves as house maids to others. I’ll loan them my windex if they ask though. 🙂
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Yep, and perhaps even a few rounds of .303 Enfield, if they ask nicely. 🙂
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They won’t have anything to put them in, I’m afraid. 🙂
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That’s all right, they’re inventive people, the Viet Cong figured out how a square foot of plywood and 5 nails would work fine. And then they’ll have something that takes 5.56 NATO. It’s ugly but it works. 🙂
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That is indeed ugly. I hope it does not have to get to that in the UK. 🙂
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Me too, and that is why they need to take control of their government because ultimately that is where it goes, and it is very hard on the people. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone but, in the last analysis, I would go there, as we did. The Swamp Fox was by no means an angel, which you’ll recall. 🙂
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Very true, my friend. 🙂
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If only we could really help but the attitude I see, says they’ll lose. They’ve already lost in their minds, I fear.
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As I say, last time a well organised and united group tried it, they had the full force of the State turned on them. Any revolt here will be from the Left anyway, as Government is seen as a creature of the Right and the rich. Not an enticing prospect.
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there’s part of your problem then (we have it too) the rich are more a product of the left than the right.
Parenthetically your left must be really goofy, if they believe your government is rightist, from here they make Obama look conservative.
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The Government here is right of centre, so opposition to it is, by American standards, practically communist. Part of my problem is just that – organised opposition comes from the very far left.
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I don’t particularly follow your politics but, at this point I think I’d be supporting either UKIP or BNP, they seem to have the right idea, and unsavory reputations can be salvaged as good people join in. You’ll note that very few of us have very good things to say about our parties either.
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The problem with the BNP is that it has little support, is violent, and is badly led ( its leader just filed for bankruptcy) . UKIP may do well in May, in fact my guess is it will, but what then? It will take votes from the Tories in 2015 and let Labour in. It is not defeatism on my part, it is not seeing how the maths can work.
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I know some of that, I don’t see much about BNP really.
And yes UKIP will hurt the Tories mostly, but are the Tories really any different from the rest? That’s the point we’ve gotten to, deciding that pretty much anybody in Washington is against the country, I don’t have a clue how it will play out here either, but electing the party of government, the demopublican, ain’t gonna fix it either. Your country is different, but the basis is the same.
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What won’t happen is that UKIP will get in. Labour will, and it will go back to doing what it does best – bossing folk about and bribing the electorate with its own money.
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Probably true, but is what you’ve got any better? That’s where we start saying “let it burn” because we’ve the same problem, and if the electorate is that foolish, you lost, and the gods of the copybook headings will be along shortly.
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That’s precisely the problem. The system cannot deliver a UKIP majority, and Labour will do what is always does. There may be a crash and burn, but if there is here, it will be the far left who will benefit.
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I don’t really know your society but I doubt the far left is really that powerful, well organized maybe, and on message, but I think there is a large part of your society that, like ours, has a fair modicum of common sense, once they wake up. My only evidence of that really would be the turn out for Lady Thatcher’s funeral, that I would call a marker thoguh.
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The Thatcher thing was very revealing. A lot of folk mourned, but a lot didn’t. Up in this part of the world the mood wax very hostile, as it was most places outside the south east.
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Interesting
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You said it before about the frog waiting for the pot to boil. Erosion of rights and subjection to regulations etc., always happen so slowly that by the time one is starting to worry about survival it is far too late into the night to do much else than scream from the night terrors that accompany it.
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It is more complex. In the first place, 1688 was not about democracy, it was, as Magna Carta was, about the aristocracy restraining the monarch in its own interests. There is no tradition of democracy from below here. Attempts by organised labour to get it have always been met with extreme violence – you only have to look at Churchill in 1926. Then there’s the problem of how you govern a country if you abolish parliament – Cromwell didn’t solve that one.
Still, when you’ve dealt with Obama, we can see what to do, perhaps?
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Good point. There are many of us who want him impeached but there are only a few in Congress willing to take that position. Will we beat back the regime he formed in the next election? Maybe. We can only hope and work very hard to rid ourselves of government that is too large to succeed (of course, they think that they are too large to fail).
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It will be interesting to watch. I don’t, at this stage, see the GOP with a viable candidate.
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Nor do I. We fare better at the Congressional elections that we do in the Presidential. Hopefully, someone will emerge to take us out of this mess.
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I hope so.
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As do I my friend. If we don’t then I fear it is a loss for all in the world who cherish freedom and liberty.
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Very true my friend. But I think Obama’s methods will be copied.
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That will no doubt be true and we will have to handle them as they arise. No single party has clean hands I’m afraid.
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Very true, my friend.
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Yep, its taken the Prog 100 years to get to this point, and we’re just beginning to wake up. They got lucky in England and got the population disarmed, which has allowed them to come further.
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I hear that the Lords have thrown this one back at the Commons – so, yet again, we need peers to save us!
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Good on them, it’s too bad they can’t just consign it to the dustbin and be done with it.
If I understand correctly, their old rule, like our senate’s old rule was to slow down and delay until saner heads could prevail, and apparently they still know how.
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Yes, but only for a year now. The Commons can try to think again – but judging by the first time, they need the practice 🙂
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That is surely true. 🙂
So you all need to apply whatever pressure you can, like all governments, they have their weaknesses.
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We shall, and here we’re joined by the Secularist Society!
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I saw that from the link on Cranmer. Well the enemy of my enemy is my friend, for now, anyway.
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Very true here.
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It’s always true, with the possible exception of Bosworth Field.
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Well, the Stanleys have always been a tricky lot.
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That is certainly true 🙂
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The State has a monopoly on force. You only to see what happened to the miners in 1984 to see that the Government is prepared to use it to break its opponents – and the miners were well organised and prepared to fight.
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Yes, there is little movement needed it seems to make your government overly oppressive on its subjects. That is, indeed, a sad state of affairs.
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We shan’t. The difficulty is that in the modern world, revolutions seem to make things worse.
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They do for awhile if one does not have a genuine leader and a plan for governance that is acceptable. Our Constitution is a great road map if only we would adhere to it. Our struggle would be one of a counter-revolution that might reinstate the government that our founding fathers envisioned. That is another plus that might help in our struggle.
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Always have, Geoffrey. We were far worse off in 1783 than in 1776. But it was still worth it in the long run. But far better to not go there if you don’t have to. Jefferson call it the last resort for a reason.
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Difficulty here is that after 84, who is going to try to fight? Well organised miners literally beaten by State violence.
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Geoffrey if you guys really believe that the State has a monopoly on force, you may as well go quietly into the night. No force on earth can make you free because you have given up the dream, just like the Iraqis.
The state is your creature, you created it. The power of the state is delegated from the people, you taught us that, back in 1689, what is different now.
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That isn’t the case here. No one elected the Queen or the Lords. If you look at what happened, not far from here, in 1984, to the Miners, you’ll see the scale of the problem. They tried to use force – doesn’t work against armed police and soldiers. That seemed the lesson then.
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That’s very true, and I suspect you would be in better shape if the Queen ruled rather than merely reigned.
Look, I don’t really have answers here, and I haven’t read all that much about that mess but the road your going down isn’t going to get better, unless you wrench control from your politicians, peacefully if possible but it must be done.
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It is a nice idea – but as Animal Farm suggests, one may end up much the same.
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One always must guard against the power hungry, it’s the eternal battle, and yes one may end up dead. that however didn’t stop any of the heroes’ of English history but, I suppose time are different now.
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Not really, but most of those who were successful were not workers. The problem here is that the are no Whigs any more.
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True enough, and they surely got subsumed in the Tory party never to be heard from again.
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Some did, some stayed with the Liberals and went down with the ship. Now they are all the same.
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Yep, I can see that and how it happened as well. I’m much to weak on your history to have any great insights, but the advice of Lord Acton is always a basic rule, “The love of power corrrupts, and the love of absolute power corrupts absolutely”, always a good maxim to steer by.
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It is. The problem here is that they are all corrupt – before they get it.
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Here too, that’s why we haven’t figured out a solution either.
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The problem goes beyond politics. Not even sure what national politicians can do against big global corporations.
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About the only thing I can see, and I do recognize the problem, is to quit giving them any breaks at all. It would take a brave politician though. (oxymoron alert!)
The banks are the worst of all, i think.
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Aye, I agree. But of course, some sucker will always give them a break.
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And that, I fear, is correct!
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A steady erosion of people’s rights, perhaps?
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Yep, boiling Frogs (and for once I don’t mean Frenchmen)
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No, those Frogs jump right back into the pot after you take them out. Not too bright.
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Yepper 🙂
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Is this an attempt at atonement for 500 years of colonialism having bought “annoyance” to millions and millions of people around the world?
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Could be 🙂
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laws gainst Christ will get worse. Jesus said these things must be, but the end is not yet.
Dont worry. None of YOU will be convicted of being a christian.
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As that won’t be an offence, you may, for once, be right.
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i am never right.
let god be true and every man a liar.
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God is always true 🙂
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Well I’m OK over hear I can annoy all of you as much as I like but you Brits had better not annoy me what a great advantage for a blogger and also for a b…er!
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You’re far from annoying, Rob 🙂 – and I look forward to the post.
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Well, Britain is different, the mind set except for the chattering classes is that the realm will muddle through, whatever comes, it will pass, I do not see a violent revolution in the mind or the soul of Britain. The bias of the BBC is seen but it does not effect political thought, Torie or Labour, the administrative state is safe. More then half of the laws are made in Brussels by a system that is not subject to the voting public, It is a strange system far closer to the USSR government then the oldest Parliament. If anything Britain is a post-christian country. I hope the muddling through will result in freedom, I somehow doubt it.
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