You

[Ralphy]

I value my freedom and space, I couldn't survive under communist rule.

[flammableBen]

I think the amount of "freedom" (in the general, what I can do with my life sort of way) people need to have to be happy is pretty low, as long as the illusion of freedom is there. As long as you make people think they're free and have options, then the majority will be happy doing what they've been told/assigned.

I haven't read 1984 for about a year and a halfish. You can tell when I read it recently because all my posts become a web of Orwellian dystopia references. I don't think I can be blamed, it's a brilliant book.

[Ralphy]

Freedom is going where you want, when you want.

Look at North Korea, those poor people aren't allowed any luxuries or a normal life.

[ghanimah]

Just look at Cuba. No thanks.

Mind you with the potential for us to have these cunty I.D cards, we're going that way. Our potential "I.D. card" system, if it goes ahead, will be more invasive of one's personal right to privacy than that of China's, and we all know where they stand on the political spectrum.

What is actually the problem with ID cards then ?

I have heard many many people talk about how ID cards are an Invasion of Privacy etc.etc.etc. - but how ?

What is so wrong with carrying something that "proves" who you are ?

Surely it is only a problem if you have something to hide ?

Where would you like me to start?

The ID scheme will cost a fortune of OUR money, be vastly over budget and won’t work properly as the way with all of this Government’s IT Projects e.g. NHS,

Our sensitive details are at risk of being lost, as this Government has proven with millions of data being lost with child benefit, DVLA CD’s going missing etc etc

Biometric data is not a 100% guarantee, and if your fingerprint data is compromised (and it’s relatively easy to forge fingerprints on a scanner) how will you prove otherwise fraud is not being done by you – you can’t change your fingerprints!

As for the; ‘only something to hide’ argument, are you saying that only guilty people ever get harassed or arrested by those in authority – ask Fred on this one or Walter Wolfgang – the 82 year old WW2 veteran who was arrested under the Terrorism Act for shouting the word ‘nonsense’ at a Labour Conference.

[pauld]

Freedom is going where you want, when you want.

Like Birmingham airport for example?

[Bushey Boy]

I dont agree with all this ID shit, the government and police in particular should be allowed a DNA database which would erradicate most crime in my opinion

[Reg Smeeton]

I think all Englishmen not necessarily women,, historically have felt a degree of freedom....its not something that hasn't come without conflict, but is enshrined in our unwritten constitution.  

   Unfortunately the paradox at the heart of our freedom, has been the relative enslavement of other cultures....in order that our prosperous lifestyle is maintained..

   ...this pursuit of global hegemony is still  unresolved .

[herthab]

Just look at Cuba. No thanks.

Just for the sake of balance, Cuba does have an all encompassing trade embargo i.e. blockade, imposed on it by our 'friends' the USA, which is bound to affect its economy, despite it probably being self-sufficient by means of sugar exports if allowed.

That's rubbish. It was propped up by The Soviet Union until its demise and is now propped up by tourism, in much the same way it was before Castro seized power.

They'd have never been self sufficient with regards to exports, even when they were exporting to the Eastern Bloc.

Er it's not rubbish, the trade embargo was imposed 2 years before the Soviet's propped up the economy (mainly to persuade the Cuban's to allow missiles on their island)

Are you saying that one of the longest trade embargos in history is not going to have a detrimental effect on a country's economy?

I'm not defending Communism here, just saying you have to look at Cuba's economy in context

I didn't mean the embargo was rubbish. Cuba's economy, before Castro, was based on foreign investment (Mainly American) tourism (Mainly American) and a small percentage on exports, mainly sugar and tobacco.

If the embargo was lifted, it would be doubtful if the Cuban economy could survive on exports alone.

Communism is only surviving in Cuba because its economy is being propped up by tourism, the tourists ironically being the filthy capitalists that Castro despises! That's all I was trying to say.

[Mexicano Rojo]

i think a lot of people here are confusing democracy with capitalism.

[herthab]

I'm not Mex, I read a book once and it had pictures and everything.

I'm edumacated me................................

[flammableBen]

(My days, I'm going to try not to turn this into an essay. If wrote as many words a month as I do on the TEF but elsewhere, then I'd have written a several novels. They'd have been shit. It's always after a few glasses of wine I go of on one. This might be an exeption though because I'm not really arguing with anybody, just investigating a way of thinking about government, but with words. )

Anyhoo....

The level of freedom you have is sort of indirectly proportionate to the level of rights you have. There's simple stuff like having the right not to be murdered/mugged/burgled, which you accept with the pay-off of not having the freedom to go and murder/mug/stab. Lets call this (1.)

There are less direct ones. As a nation (as have most nations and most nations as a group ie. the UN) we've agreed that we have the right not to starve. There's other rights we have like that; a right to an education, a right to a certain level of health-care. Let's call this (2.)

Rights in (1) and (2) are a bit different. Loosing my freedom to starve to death, my freedom to die from a treatable illness and my freedom to be illiterate, are freedom's that I can't see anybody really wanting. Yet the freedom's I'm giving up in (1) could be advantageous; It might well work in my favour to rob some bastard who's got more money than me, or gun down the cunt who's been fucking my Mrs.

The first important point (a) to make is that there's no point making the rights vs. freedom pay-off yourself, if your neighbour isn't doing the same thing (espcially with 1). This is this same whether you're living in a post apocalyptic anarchist state, you're a 7th Centuary Saxon King or you're an elected ruler of a European Nation.

The second and sort intermediate point (b) you have to make is that I'm simplifying completely here. All the rights vs. freedom's pay-offs choices for a nation are intertwined hideously. Which is where government comes in....

As this giving up freedoms for rights only work in big groups (see point a, size of the group depends on isolation), then you need people to police it. Particually examples from point 1.

This police takes organisation and money to run. Then you've got the examples from 2.. Education, not letting people starve and health care also cost money to run. Which ends up balanced by a negative right, the right to pay tax.

This is where government comes in. To sort out a and b. You need to work out who's in charge of organising these rights that everybody now has,.

Of course we don't live in a 1:1 on all this. You don't lose your entitled rights, even if you've broken your freedom limitations. (not going to get into that on this post, it's long enough)

But basically government is all about balancing out these rights and freedoms, or something. Fuck knows. I've written a fucking essay again.

[Simon Pieman]

I dont agree with all this ID shit, the government and police in particular should be allowed a DNA database which would erradicate most crime in my opinion

If you get charged with an offence the police take all your DNA anyway. Is there a need to do it for every person when the majority don't commit crimes?

[Ralphy]

Freedom is going where you want, when you want.

Like Birmingham airport for example?

Exactly.

You couldn't get pissed up in a boozer, climb on a Mini's roof, get refused entry to a football ground, go to the nearest airport and fall asleep and then get a taxi home in North Korea could you  

[Simon Pieman]

I thought it was a Metro

[Colin Todd]

Just look at Cuba. No thanks.

Mind you with the potential for us to have these cunty I.D cards, we're going that way. Our potential "I.D. card" system, if it goes ahead, will be more invasive of one's personal right to privacy than that of China's, and we all know where they stand on the political spectrum.

What is actually the problem with ID cards then ?

I have heard many many people talk about how ID cards are an Invasion of Privacy etc.etc.etc. - but how ?

What is so wrong with carrying something that "proves" who you are ?

Surely it is only a problem if you have something to hide ?

Where would you like me to start?

The ID scheme will cost a fortune of OUR money, be vastly over budget and won’t work properly as the way with all of this Government’s IT Projects e.g. NHS,

Our sensitive details are at risk of being lost, as this Government has proven with millions of data being lost with child benefit, DVLA CD’s going missing etc etc

Biometric data is not a 100% guarantee, and if your fingerprint data is compromised (and it’s relatively easy to forge fingerprints on a scanner) how will you prove otherwise fraud is not being done by you – you can’t change your fingerprints!

As for the; ‘only something to hide’ argument, are you saying that only guilty people ever get harassed or arrested by those in authority – ask Fred on this one or Walter Wolfgang – the 82 year old WW2 veteran who was arrested under the Terrorism Act for shouting the word ‘nonsense’ at a Labour Conference.

And dont forget the biggest piss take of all, they want us to pay £100-odd quid for the privelidge of having one!