Sorry, but you should know that if you attempt to intervene when a violent crime is being committed you can be sued for thousands of pounds by the perpetrator. It's enough to make anyone hide behind their car.

That, and there are stories all the time in the meeja about people who interfere ending up dead. Were it not for the fact that it isn't worth losing so many civil rights, I'd argue social cleansing is in order.

Thirdly, prisons are overcrowded because of idiotic politicians too concerned with auctioning off the NHS to the lowest bidder to notice that the prisons were filling up. If they'd done what the US had done (like they normally do) then this wouldn't be a problem, but apparently, the penal system is not an "exact science" (despite the fact that the US government used... science to determine what was needed).

EDIT: All these non-lethal weapons appear extremely distasteful. The ADS uses microwaves to create the sensation that you are being hit with a blow torch. What fun. Also, tasers are actually more dangerous than 'real' guns: you start throwing the phrase "non-lethal" around and everyone suddenly becomes trigger happy, believing that there will be no consequences. What was intended as a 'safe' restraint for dangerous criminals is now an indiscriminate compliance tool.

Edited by - The Evil Thing on 4/6/2007 11:15:44 AM

well whats the state of democracy, when there isn't an immediate offering and confirmation of good-sam shield laws (the U.S. contrary to common belief, will not let you kill everyone who steps foot on to your land.) in response to incidents like that?

also, i wouldn't look toward the US prison system for anything scientific(gruel formulas maybe). in fact the prison system is so large now that it has formed its own "Industry" (what do they produce? better criminals?) with its own political lobby. disgusting that politicians would warehouse criminalized citizens in increasing cramped conditions just to raise a little campaign cash, but one can see the operative logic: outlaw drugs, people who do not agree (radicals?) will be arrested eventually (with drugs in their possession) and stripped of their right to vote for weirdos like the Green party or Libertarians. win win for everyone involved, except the yeomanry and citizens who just want less crime and could care less if others decide to self destruct on narcotics(if thats how you choose to pursue happiness, its no one's business). not to give anyone the impression that people vote here, thats patently false - the majority of people don't vote, and a very large minority have no vote left, and the rest would only matter if they weren't so blindly partisan that they could look beyond entitlements-vs-taxes and red-vs-blue. heck, i'll vote for a socialist or communist, if it can help break the strangehold 2 party politics has on my 'homeland' (i find that word very distasteful for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the reminiscence of nazi sloganeering)

technology will enable new exploitation of the governments monopoly of force. we are at a dangerous precipice now with RFID, DEW, biometrics, flea sized sensor networks, microchips that can harvest energy from blood with fuel cell technology, machines that can "read" thought, data-mining that invades your privacy and frankly i think we have only seen the tip of the iceberg, and far worse impositions on our rights await.

abnegate cecity - initiate and concatenate change in this corridor of chameleons

Edited by - Cold_Void on 4/6/2007 6:38:35 PM

Perhaps, but - correct me if I'm wrong - the US has not just had to hire old prison ships that had effectively decommissioned in order to house the inmates our gaols simple don't have the capacity for. Maybe the US penal system is the embodiment of our corrupt, Capitalist system but it's not completely full yet.

I don't know if you've heard yet but the Commons voted a while ago that the Lords should be fully elected. They appear, as usual, to have completely missed the point of the Lords in the first place. It's like making the US Supreme Court a wholly elected body, only stupider. What will be interesting is that any formal legislation will have to go through the Lords first.

I haven't quite worked out what the government's love affair with ID cards is all about. They don't appear to solve any of the problems they are supposed to and merely cost the nation involved £1000 x every head of population. And each citizen has to pay £250 for the pleasure of getting their biometric information put on a central database which - given the government's IT track record (*cough*NHS*cough*) - will be as secure as the Iran-Iraq border.

*cough* you can't figure out what they're so hot for RFID and biometric ID? it's called control - you don't go into government, and particularly politics, unless your a control freak (generalizing...pft whatever dang guvmint). oh yes, i know theres a new hobgoblin called terrorism, and people are running in circles and burying each other's heads, but seriously, the hijackers identified themselves with their actual names, which were already on terrorist watchlists, along with their pictures. if that's not enough to keep them off a plane, no new gizmo is going to do it (what they're looking for is called Competence - something the government fails to demonstrate repeatedly).

its interesting...(as borat would say) Na-OTT! what's the difference between a Lord and a Senator, really? its pretty much impossible to lose your seat after winning as an incumbent, in the fed Senate. I imagine Lords and Senators have quite a lot in common... like their great distance from the public, their total lack of experience outside of government, their disproportionate age difference from the median... correct me if i'm off the mark here basically this change would put Senators and Lords in the same boat - of course, i imagine there are lots of people waiting to take advantage of such a change....so the immediate effect would be to roll some new logs in, but logs nonetheless.

a sad note to add - another wild eyed visionary has been taken from us

Kurt Vonnegut dead (BBC)

a short clip


Edited by - Cold_Void on 4/13/2007 6:27:45 AM

Privacy... in a public location?

However, hope you haven't read about the cameras that have got loud speakers installed in them... so that operators can berate the miscreants.


"Number 2369761, do your morning star jumps.... NOW!"

yes you should have privacy in a public location to some degree! why do you think the news always cuts off or blurs obese peoples heads in stock footage? or people have to sign waivers for their likeness to be used on tv? when you enter a sports arena or private establishment, they also have to give notice. there is an expectation of SOME privacy in public, like if i have to pick my shorts out of my crack, i shouldn't have to put my back to a wall to prevent some leering government perv from making a joke at my expense. (no, celebrities do not have this guarantee because blahbity blah public has a right to know about public figures who are publicly scrutinized all the time)

i'm watching as my own country lays down for the deficit multiplying real ID act. oh yes, our city just got several new camera-enforced traffic lights... its very fair *smirk*- like a Schrodingers Cat of justice.

and how do you accuse a machine of being wrong and place the burden of proof on the state? won't they just bring in a technician or a janitor in a tech's labcoat to say 'nope the machine's never wrong' - bah! tried, sentenced, and fined in the blink of an eye... yay for the city's revenue.
they spend it so well after all, i don't mind giving them more money to put in more traffic circles with radiuses less than my car's length, or unnecessary dividing islands that block traffic from making free left turns. of all the gimmicky ideas they've tried, like cobblestone sidewalks and the chrome palm tree, this is the worst because it's actually obstructing traffic for pedestrians and drivers... ok rant out


Edited by - Cold_Void on 4/13/2007 6:52:08 AM

check out this web site earthcam.com and see cameras live from times square.

of course there's such a concept of privacy in a public environment. when you go to the bank or post office, you are actually requested to respect the privacy of the person in front of you at the counter. similarly, on public transport for example where you are uncomfortably close to other people, you can still reasonably expect to not have your paper or book read, or the contents of your bag stared at. there are limits of private space even in a public environment, and personally i think this extends to a right not have snoopers watching your every move, whether oit be cctv operators, plain clothes coppers, or council officials trying to catch us evil tobacco smokers.

i could go on for hours about this topic, one of my favourite bugbears, but I ain't got the time (gotta go create some personal space at the bank) but I have noticed that increased surveillance and bureaucracy go hand in hand, yet crime goes up and public spaces become less safe. so who is the increased surveillance really benefiting?

sorry Taw, I can't respond to such things today (of course you're spot on again)... I am so pissed off about this week and what i watched happen live on tv monday morning. I am tired of the government BLAMING MY RIGHTS for ITS FAILURES. We live in a country of MILLIONS of police, in fact the highest percentage of population on EARTH, and what are the cops good for? HIDING BEHIND TREES IN BULLETPROOF VESTS! I HATE THE PIGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!


and i especially hate david 'reach-around-rove' gregory after what he said on meet the press. ok, honestly 1st segment of meet the press is seriously pissing me off. it's just a reach around for the VT admins, police, and the feds now assigned to "investigate" their own complete failure to act at any level. these people are guilty of manslaughter, folks.

(from dictionary.com)
involuntary manslaughter
: manslaughter resulting from the failure to perform a legal duty expressly required to safeguard human life, from the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to a felony, or from the commission of a lawful act involving a risk of injury or death that is done in an unlawful, reckless, or grossly negligent manner —see also reckless homicide

(P.S. update on 'REALID' act - Gov. Christine Gregoire (yay!) ratified a bill the state passed, to reject the unfunded federal ID program.)

Edited by - Cold_Void on 4/22/2007 6:57:36 AM

It would probably help matters if you folks weren't so utterly obsessed with carrying lethal weapons. The only reason you cite is that "it's your right".

And you wonder why the government is suspicious of you.

<sigh> my last post before it's back to working away again

isn't the oft-quoted 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution actually refer to "the right to bear arms" as part of a regulated militia, and not necessarily as an absolute right of the private citizen?

ah, here's the article in question; "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Quite how such an amendment can realistically be interpreted in modern society as a carte-blanche to stock up on assault weapons bought in the local store or Wal-Mart, I really can't imagine. I also find it an incredible dichotomy that on the one hand, people will quietly acquiesce to the erosion of their genuine liberties as part of an erstwhile "war on terror" yet scream to the high heavens in defence of their supposed freedom to carry lethal weaponry around. I really just don't get it at all. I'd rather have effective civil liberties and no guns. (ok guns can often seem to be pretty cool but they're not a very good thing to have freely available for any psycho who wants to go on a rampage, are they?)

*sigh*

ignorance is bliss for sheep, not me.

1. we have background checks, conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigations, for every firearm purchased in a store. (this was the case)

2. there are plenty of areas (and states) where guns are "not allowed" (as if unarmed people can..nvm- to continue) one of these was the VT campus

3. a militia, being necessary for the FREEDOM and SECURITY of a state. guess what? our "militia" is constantly deployed elsewhere - ever since being nationalized they are far too busy to guarantee our freedom and security. regulated? we have more gun laws than you do! (heh) as far as "regulated" goes any constitutional scholar can tell you that the common usage meant REGULAR as in someone who attended community organized drills (usually bribed to show up with some small beer ) and shot their rifle; not someone who had a bureaucrat's flashlight up his ****ole

4. ahem - hyperbole detected! walmart doesn't sell "assault rifles" and the murderer in question used pistols with 10 round (legal) magazines. only the police and licensed gun dealers can *legally* carry fully automatic weapons.

5. i don't recall police ever stopping one of these incidents, do you? yet sometimes, the gunman does not escape through suicide, how is that? i'll tell you how: your citizen stops him! charles whitman, the texas A&M sniper, was stopped when regular joes armed themselves, rushed to the campus and pinned him down with continuous aimed fire. people save people - not police - generally police conduct murder investigations not murder preventions...

6. inarguable fact: many more children are harmed by the medias 24/7 coverage of such events, and such coverage only gives the killer exactly what they wanted (notoriety). although these occurences stick in your mind, 10 times or more people are killed each year by car accident, plane crash, fire, poisoning, flu, electrocution etc etc. * anecdotally, a dozen college students were killed and seriously maimed here in Washington just the other year by a drunk driver who went onto the shoulder doing seventy.

7. the media doesn't report when we defend ourselves by apprehending meth ridden robbers, shooting mad dogs, and the like. believe it or not, that's not ratings worthy.

what defines a "private" citizen anyway? my father was in the marine corps; would you tell him that he's a mere private citizen? and wtf is a 'private citizen' anyway -

its a dichotomy i don't think a society with feudal roots could understand; We The People. WE - THE PEOPLE. the government is not just some foreign body(in theory), it is us. all of this is enshrined in our natural philosophy, which most people are not really aware of, or at least not how radically different it is than any other foundation for government like divine mandate.

"It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from his government." ~ Thomas Paine.

"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion."
~ Thomas Jefferson

"Probably all laws are useless; for good men do not want laws at all, and bad men are made no better by them."
~ Demonax, Roman philosopher circa 150 A.D.

---

{May 18, 1927 Bath, Mich.}
40 people were killed when farmer Andrew Kehoe, angry over his tax bill set off dynamite at the local school. As parents and residents rushed toward the blast, Kehoe drove back into the school yard. He motioned school Superintendent Emory Huyck over to his car, spoke to him briefly, then aimed a shot from his gun into the back seat, setting off more dynamite.
By the time the roar from the two explosions faded, 38 children, the town’s postmaster, a retired farmer, the superintendent, two teachers and Kehoe himself were dead, the body of Kehoe’s wife was found where he had apparently killed her the morning of the blast.

---

its horrible, its bloody and tragic, but somehow i can't make myself cry and tear at my hair over it while literally hundreds of people aged 0-90 are being murdered every day on tv. and if you think the government cares either, you're wrong; nobody is accountable for their performance anymore, if they ever were in the first place. damn the FBI, damn virginia's mental health care industry, and damn virginia tech's mr steger and flinchum for not doing anything. why do our police have m16's and bulletproof vests anyway - and was 'hide behind the trees' in VT's "Near School Shooting" policy i wonder... phaw$%&%$!

* sometimes the system does work, in its slow and backwards way.

Edited by - Cold_Void on 4/29/2007 5:08:22 AM