Civil Liberties

So Now it is a Plague???

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Many years ago, before the charity course kicked into high gear, I asked my friend Kathryn if I intimidated her. After all, I was a guy who had a lot of guns, I went to the range frequently, and I was always thinking about self defense options. This put a lot of people off, but not her. Why?

“Don’t be silly!” she said, laughing at my idiocy. “You are a protector!”

That is the best compliment I have ever received.

This op-ed discusses how a male in Great Britain cannot stop to talk to a child in public without facing arrest. London Mayor Boris Johnson claims that this is due to the “pedophile plague”.

So the incidence of pedophilia in the UK is so great that it is considered a scourge on society? I can’t seem to find any statistics concerning this, and even the author of the op-ed uses US statistics on page 2 of her article to make a point. But, if it isn’t a problem, then why would a male who is seen to be conversing with an unattended child be snatched up by the police and bundled down to the precinct house for some hard questions? Maybe it is a case of public perception run amok, seeing monsters where few actually exist.

One thing is for sure. The threat of arrest, of having my good reputation smeared by suspicion even if no criminal charges are ever brought before a court, would cause even me to pause before helping a child in distress. And that means actual stranger pedophiles, those who snatch children from public areas, are given an open field. The greatest protection a child could have in those circumstances, that a passer by would intervene, is much reduced.

What the hell is going on over there in the UK?

(Hat tip to Glenn. I cross posted this at Hell in a Handbasket because the readers over there are more involved in self defense and crime prevention.)

More on the UK DNA Database

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From a comment by UK libertarian Ian Parker-Joseph, in response to this post by James Rummel on the UK government’s DNA database:

In isolation, it may be argued that DNA retention would be useful to the Police in their work. However, put it against the background of everything else going on in the UK, and it becomes impossible to ignore the more sinister overtones of dictatorship.
 
It is very easy to formulate an argument for single items, for things that only affect a very small proportion of the population, which is how the salami slicing works.
 
However, when we put it all together, 26,000 new laws, 3000 new criminal offences, then the laws are not for the good of the people, or for their protection but for the good of the state.
 
That is the balance that needs to be redressed.

Read the whole discussion.

Spending Money Hand Over Fist

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Most of our readers here at The Chicago Boyz not only hail from the United States, but also identify themselves as Libertarians. You guys don’t know how good you’ve got it.

Why do I say that? Libertarians, big “L” or otherwise, seem to be concerned with keeping civil liberties intact. Vigilance must be eternal in order to keep the government from overreaching and trampling on our freedoms. For example, if the FBI insisted on taking and filing the fingerprints of everyone, including newborns, it would be seen as an infringement of privacy. There is just no reasonable justification for the expense and trouble of compiling a database of average law abiding citizens.

All well and good in the good ol’ US of A, but there is a rather alarming development in Old Blighty that has caused me to sit up and take notice.

It seems that the Home Office in Great Britain has compiled the largest DNA database in the entire world, not only in raw numbers but also in the percentage of population which has been included. According to the official figures found on the government webpage linked to above, “By the end of 2005 over 3.4 million DNA profiles were held on the database…” This dwarfs the approximately 1.5 million profiles that are to be found in all the DNA databases in the United States, even though we have about five times the population. The Home Office proudly claims that 5.2% of the entire population of England now has a copy of their DNA filed away in their database, and it might well be over 8% by now.

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“Patriotic Germans Are Proud to Show How They Vote”

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I’ve read that in Nazi Germany, sporadic “elections” were held, featuring the above slogan prominently displayed on a banner.

I’m not absolutely sure that this is correct–with the exception of this Wikipedia article, I can’t find definitive evidence that any elections, even fake ones, were held in Nazi Germany. (Although fake elections were certainly held in the Soviet Union.)

But as a thought experiment–imagine that when you go to vote today, there was a big sign with the words “Patriotic Americans are proud to show how they vote”…and that 95% of the people were voting out in the open, at a long table where everyone could see which candidates they had chosen. Wouldn’t you feel a bit intimidated? Especially if you lived in a community, or worked in a professional environment, where your views were distinctly in the minority? I certainly think that many people–perhaps most–would feel at least somewhat intimidated in such circumstances. Even if there were no apparatus of State repression in place. Even if there were a few voting booths provided for those who absolutely insisted on voting in private–with the knowledge, of course, that their identities could be easily observed.

This is, in essence, the evironment that the Democratic leadership wants to create for workers.

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The Choice

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A vote for Obama on Tuesday is not just a vote for Obama himself, but rather a vote for the triumvirate Obama-Pelosi-Reid…a vote to transfer enormous power to the leadership of the Democratic Party.

I’m convinced that across multiple sets of issues, the country will be far better off with a victory for John McCain and Sarah Palin. Here are some of the key factors as I see them:

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