Saturday 22 January 2011

Is this really how an enlightened society behaves?

"Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom."
F.A. Hayek

Roger Helmer, Conservative Home, posts further on his "infamous" tweet about what became known as "curing homosexuals":
"One constituent was so incensed by my Tweet, that she wrote to the Derbyshire police accusing me of a “hate crime” (although how she managed to find any hatred in the Tweet is beyond me).  A Police Inspector Gan replied that in the police view no offence had been committed, but he was recording the event as a “hate incident”.  The law apparently defines anything which the victim, or any other person (my italics) regards as motivated by prejudice or hate, as a hate incident. So if I met you and shook hands and we said “Good Morning”, and if I felt that your “Good Morning” was expressed in a surly and confrontational tone, and reported it to the police, it seems that that would be a “hate incident”, merely because I chose to see it that way.  The police apparently have no discretion to throw out such a complaint, however trivial."
Is this really the nadir to which our society has sunk? That because someone says something that is considered  disagreeable, the first reaction is to go running to authority and complain? Is this really how far the political elite have managed to control the method by which people think and behave? Is there not a hint of irony when one compares how the politial elite legislate to control the mind-set of the people, when compared by their behaviour during PMQs? Is there not that same hint of irony in our political elite enforcing our nation's membership of the European Union on their people, whilst at the same time assuring us that they, the political elite, actually "govern" us?

Tyrants are usually considered to be those who usurp, by force of arms, the right of their people to make their own decisions and to stand on their own two feet, yet it is all too obvious that this can also be accomplished through the ballot box.

Is it any wonder that some believe our nation's idea of democracy needs a re-write?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

By encouraging everyone to complain about perceived insults and slights from anyone else and go grassing to the old bill to seek arrest it just enlarges the power of the police force and shuts down the free expression of ideas among the people. It also turns everyone into a potential criminal for any imagined reason, thus keeps individuals more on their toes and has the same effect as shutting down discourse. The smoking bans didn't do enough to discourage congregation and discussion, more needs to be banned and made illegal in order to shut down individual thought processes that lead to expressions of freedom for the controlling forces to remain in power. That's what it says to me.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

Anon: Agreed!