Our love of government

We never stop being told, and we never stop telling one another, that we live in an age when politicians have never been so despised. Every move they make is seen as self-serving, every statement is presumed dishonest, every policy called a sham

And yet, and yet. Was there ever a time when we screamed so much at our politicians to take more and more responsibility to themselves? When we were willing to let them look into and control aspects of our lives in ways that previous generations would have found either ridiculous of downright abhorrent?

In the UK, the government happily spits at such quaint notions as habeas corpus and trial by jury. But the public cheers Charles Clarke on.

In the US, even more astonishingly, the administration has been caught red-handed spying on its own citizens in apparent blatant disregard of both laws passed by Congress and the clear instructions of the fourth amendment of the constitution. Yet 51 per cent of the US public support the government's actions, considerably more than support the Bush presidency itself.

The New York Times has a choice quote from Benjamin Franklin, the 300th anniversary of whose birth is being celebrated this week:

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety

Comments

[Bill]

I am NOT one of those who is quiescent in the erosion of our liberties which our government seems intent on carrying through. Amusingly, earlier this evening on Radio4 Question Time, Lord 'Charlie' Falconer disputed Jonathan Dimbleby's assessment of an audience vote as being 'overwhelmingly' opposed to the the introduction of ID cards, whether compuslory or 'voluntary' (both questions had already been posed by Dimbleby of the live audience). Lord Falconer had earlier made the bold statement that surveys had 'regularly' showed that most were in favour of the introudction of ID cards. Interestingly one of the other panellists was the political editor of 'The Sun' newspaper who stated that the policy of his newspaper was, generally, to support the introduction of ID cards - he even used the hoary old justification 'if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear'. Anyway, Jonathan went back and asked the audience to vote again and said, in his estimation, it was 90 per cent opposed, at which point Lord Falconer opnied that he thought it was more like 85 per cent! In other words, he was forced to accept that, in this audience at least (in Skegness, for information), his arguements had not convinced. No one I know is in favour of ID cards (admittedly I tend to move in possibly fairly untypical, for Scotland, of Conservative circles - even as a 'renegade' former member), but I am suspicious of people like Falconer who try to pretend that 'most' are in favour, and then have difficulty in accepting that a live audience could be so different from what he wants us to believe is the general view throughout the country, unless Skegness, or that audience, is completely atypical of the country as a whole.

I think a massive spin exercise is being played upon the UK by the government to try and persuade us that its authoritarian agenda is necessary to protect us from 'terrorism'. Bizarrely, I supported (and still support) the actions of the government in involvement in Iraq, almost the only activity where I think the government has acted correctly, because of my own knowledge of the Middle East. My own Conservative instincts (albeit a rebel Conservative, in recent years) are naturally opopsed to what a Labour government might be trying to do, but even so I am perplexed at even a Labour government which seems so hell-bent on eroding our hard-earned liberties. I would love to understand, prior to 9/11, just why Blair reacted as he did, during the civil strife which erupted at the G7 summit in Milan in the summer of 2001 - that for me was the real turning point and I wondered at the time just what was going on. I still don't understand it, but I can only imagine (in an attempt at justification of Blair's actions ever since) that he must have been presented with some intelligence at the time which has persuaded him to act as he has ever since.

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[dearieme]

"In the US, even more astonishingly,..": come now, they have all done it - certainly Clinton's mob did. Less often, they kill their own - but Clinton's mob managed even that at Waco and Ruby Ridge. The rot goes much deeper that the present dud-in-charge. Americans, it seems, never reflect on the fact that all polities are mortal.

[Chris Cullen]

This is scary. If you have a poorly educated and credible electorate you seem to be able to get away with almost anything.