2005 Britain / 1936 Germany.

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Any voting population that condones the creation of the tools for a police state is on a slippery slope. For example they may seem like a good idea now, helping defeat terrorism etc. However in the future circumstance changes and maybe the government is not one that you agree with.

To give a practical application of this the census carried out in europe during the 30's had a question asking peoples religeous views. No-on ethought twice about answering (what harm does it do, nothing to hide etc). Now along comes Nazi Germany, the census was used as a list of known Jewish people. It facilitated the rounding up of many thousands of Jews.

PS. I'm not saying that a census is a bad thing I'm just using it to show that even the most innocent of government "tools" can be perverted for a false and unjust cause.

Reply 21

Weejimmie

qeboy

Personally I think that in terms of anti terrorism bills we are far worse than nazi geramny in 1936, we are officially sanctioning a police state which is unanswerable, with a presidential style of government at the top.

There is much that is dubious about the use of the royal prerogative and the powers of the PM, without the checks and balances incorporated in other countries, but take a look at the actual powers of the nazi [and the soviet] states, especially the extrajudicial powers given to agents of the ruling parties, and you will see that there is an enormous difference of kind. The judiciary have powers over the proposed laws- that is why they are proposed laws, which must be carried under due process and supervised.
That's not a reason for thinking many of the policies used or proposed aren't likely to be dubious and ineffective and have bad effects beyond their aims, but it is wiser to attack them for good reasons than bad.