Home Secretary John Reid has called for human rights laws to be rewritten to protect people against terrorism.
BBC NEWS | Politics | Reid urges human rights shake-up.
Here we go again, John Reid crying “wolf” and seeking to undermine our liberties with it.
Remind me, just how many terrorist successes have there been in the UK since the Northern Ireland Peace process put an end to the Irish Republican bombing campaign? Oh, yes, that’s right… one. And because four disaffected young men took their own lives and with them around fifty others, we must all sacrifice our liberties to the state? I don’t think so.
Human rights are not for the state to grant; they do not belong to the state. They are ours by right and the right to live free is somewhat more important than the “freedom from terrorism” proposed by Reid and his Stalinist philosophy. Indeed, when he talks of “freedom” what he means is slavery; subservience to the state.
In a speech in Venice to ministers of the six largest EU nations, he said the current situation was unacceptable.
Indeed it is and the sooner he disappears into well deserved obscurity the better.
Mr Reid said neither the law governing war nor civil law was well-suited to dealing with terrorism inspired by al-Qaeda following the September 11 attacks.
These people are criminals, so criminal law is entirely the right tool to use; alongside effective intelligence gathering. One thing Margaret Thatcher recognised was that you do not give terrorists the comfort of being treated as a political movement nor as soldiers. They are neither, they are criminals and criminal law must be used to bring them to justice. In so doing, we do not need to clamp down on the freedoms of ordinary citizens in order that we may deal with an inflated terrorist threat. Yes, there is a threat, there always will be from some group or another that thinks it has been hard done by and hates our society, our civilisation and our freedoms. You do not defeat such a threat by removing the very thing they rail against. To do so is to appease them, to hand them victory without a shot being fired. Only a fool would appease a terrorist. But then, Reid is a class one twenty four carat fool.
“The right to security, to the protection of life and liberty, is and should be the basic right on which all others are based,” he said.
This is a classic piece of authoritarian double speak, twisting language to mean the opposite of the words’ original meaning. Translated into plain English, this obnoxious control freak is telling us that we must give up our liberty so that we may enjoy the safety and liberty that can only be granted by the state. I don’t think so; if giving up liberty is the price for such security, then the price is too high. Better to live with the danger of the jungle than in a gilded cage protected by an overweening benevolent captor.
Four bombings, don’t forget the neo-nazi thug David Copeland. That said, making the country into an authoriatrian hell of the kind so beloved by thugs like Copeland is any way to stop others like him.
I agree that we should not treat terrorists as if their political message has any relivance. They are simply murdering criminals. It was the internment period where the IRA was treated as prisoners of war which helped them become so strong and organised. We cannot keep our freedoms by locking them up in box like best china to be brought out for the responsible adults (that is the political class) on certain supervised occasions when the children (that is us) aren’t around. We keep our freedoms by living them. Like you I would rather have the jungle than in a gilded cage protected by an overweening benevolent captor. Especially as I have some serious doubts about the prospective dictator’s benevolence.
Damn, forgot about him…
The point overall still stands, though.