OK. Here we go again.

The shroud of democracry and so called freedom falls. Those who would surrender freedom for security deserve neither. And so, yet another of our cherished freedoms falls. Now they can stop and search you at any time (as my brother well knows), and, should you not be carrying an expensive, and unnecessary ID card, no doubt they will fine you. If you can't pay the fine, then no doubt you will be imprisoned.

I can't think of any easier and faster way to clean the streets in a Hitlerian fashion than to, say, I don't know, stop every homeless person and imprison them for not having an ID card?

Yeah, I'm being paranoid, but only a paranoid really knows whats going on. That old cliche.

In the meantime, in the face of mass protest, flying firmly, obscenely in the face of public opinion, mass protest, and articulate response, the Government once again spits on the will of the people, fervently believing that it knows better than we do, as it always does, because we the people, are dumb and stupid and need ruling. (We elected them, right? How dumb and stupid, could that be).

Tony Blair said this in 1997 : (or something very like it, I have it on my hard drive, but can’t find it right now).. “We have been givena mandate to represent the will of the people and we will not forget it. We know that those that have given us power by voting, can also take that vote away”.

And yet he ignores the will of the people. His job is to represent the people. If he does not, we will represent ourselves. 2,000,000 people in the biggest public protest of all time, protesting against an illegal war that was started on a lie. 1,400,000 people (no matter how wrong they may be), protested against the abolition of fox-hunting. He ignored them too. Not he, They. The Government.

The arrogance of The Government to think that they, and only they are right, and more than that, to fly firmly in the face of mass, enormous public opinion, shows clearly that They are failing. That they are not representing the will of the people.

Now tell me this : what will an ID card prove? What will it prove that a driving licence, a passport, a bank card, will not? We’re already swimming in cards and identification documents. An ID card is just another piece of useless crappy plastic we don’t need and we will be forced to pay through the fucking nose for. Not only that, I do not think that an ID card will help us catch one terrorist. How could a database that stores my entire personal details, my name, my address, my facial dimensions, my fingerprints, my iris scan, stop terrorism, people trafficking, drug smuggling, and bad weather? It can’t. It won’t. No matter how clever the Government think they are, the sheer number of smart people who do not work for the Government means that the system will always be circumvented, counterfeited, and useless. In fact, if anything, the ID card has just created a new boon for counterfeiters… identity forgers… criminals.

Well done, Her Majesty’s Government. You fucked yourself. You gave our freedoms away for nothing. FOR NOTHING. Just like the war. Your utter contempt for the human beings that you claim, laughably, to represent, is apparent. A Government that thinks that a reasonable question is something like : “Would you agree to ID Cards instead if being blown to bits by evil robot terrorists?”

The Urban Fox has an excellent post on it, as does Swiss Toni.

I used to work for the Home Office. I’m glad I don’t. I couldn’t tolerate working in a place where they blatantly didn’t give a shit about anyone and anything except lucrative government contracts, a distorted sense of idealism that has perverted every left-wing idea ever in favour of a right wing, oppressive bullshit state, and a nation lead by fervently rabid religious zealots who oddly enough, only mention that Jesus is their co-pilot AFTER they are elected. We’ve lost so much already : the right to telephone and internet use without being monitored (hello GCHQ! How is the weather in Cheltenham?), the right to a lawyer, a fair trial, a reason for being arrest, the right to trial, the right to freedom of movement and association, the right to walk down the street without being stopped, searched, and harrassed. (And don’t dare thinking of answering back, the Democracry Robots have no sense of humour). We’ve also now lost the right to walk down the street without identification. What next? Yellow stars? Arresting and fining the homeless who can’t get ID cards? Any other of Adolf’s ideas you like, Mr Blair?

“Paint me a flag and tell me I’m free”.

- posted by Mark @ 7:15 pm