Terrorism is not an excuse for the loss of our liberties

Terrorism is not an excuse for the loss of our liberties

By Dark Politricks

The war on terror has been used by the UK government as a battering ram to the rights of the citizens of this country. New laws have been passed including 2 new terrorism acts (2000 and 2006) which have restricted free speech, the rights of demonstrators to protest and have given the police new powers of stop and search and lets not forget the 28 days detention and control orders.

Now you may say "well you have nothing to fear unless you have something to hide" which is a bend over attitude that leads to fascism. I am not a terrorist but nor are most people who have been affected by this new age of fighting terrorism.

Its the thin edge of the wedge which has taken advantage of peoples justifiable fears about terrorist attacks to introduce laws that if only applied to real terrorists would be fine however who can forget the 82 year old Walter Wolfgang who was dragged out of the Labour conference for heckling Jack Straw under the terrorism act in 2005. Or what about Gordon Brown invoking the terrorism act to freeze Iceland's bank accounts during 2008?

Just these two acts alone prove how our government intends to use these new powers for reasons other than fighting terrorism.

Once the public has been forced into a mindset that demands protection from unseen shadowy terrorists and that they must be dealt with severely it then allows the government to widen the scope of what actually constitutes terrorism.

One day you are a protester exercising your legal right of protest the next you are a terrorist trying to overthrow the state with subversive acts. Take a look over the pond to see how the US government is trying to class gun owners, ex servicemen and Ron Paul supporters as domestic terrorists.

It seems that the US constitution is slowly being eroded bit by bit. I never used to understand the Americans fascination with their right to bear guns however the more I have read up about Thomas Jefferson and the other founding fathers and their desire to protect the people against the tyranny of government it makes perfect sense. I especially love the following two quotes that Jefferson made:

"No man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not .warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

I have come to have a renewed respect for the founding fathers of America and the contemporary patriots who want the US government to return to the constitution. The world would be a quieter and probably safer place if it did.

Even though Jefferson and Washington kicked their British rulers out during the war of Independence us Brits must never forget that the father of the revolution was Thomas Paine an Englishman whose books the Age of Reasonand the Rights of Man had enormous influence on the Age of Enlightenment and the revolutions of France and America.

Two new republics were born that decreed that man had inalienable rights that could not be taken away by government. Therefore when people see their government treating their constitution as "just a piece of paper"as George Bush famously called it and trampling over their rights including the right to bear arms as if their inalienable rights were just an outdated idea that had no place in this century then I can see why they get so upset over the 2nd amendment.

Here in the UK its too late as we are currently a disarmed nation since the massacres of Dunblane and Hungerford took our guns away but then unlike the Americans we never had an inalienable right to bare arms anyway.

In fact although the UK passed the first ever bill of rights in 1689 it was never thought necessary for us to have a written constitution like the French and Americans.

I personally think it would be in our own best interests to draw up our own document as soon as possible. Yes we have the Human Rights act of 1998 which the right wing media decries and complains about almost every other day as something that has been imposed on us from Europe. However ridiculous the examples the Daily Mail and Express use to denigrate this act seem we should never feel that getting rid of that act would be in our best interest.

Civil rights have been hard fought and won through years of battle between state and its populace and any document that tries to enshrine our rights for future prosperity should be cherished and held in high esteem. We should also remember that it was British lawyers that drew up the Europen Convention on human rights in 1950, that the act is based on, after the horrors of the second world war. So we should view this act as yet another example of us Brits bringing civil rights to the world rather than Europe imposing some alien concept on us.

From the Magna Carta in 1215, through to John Lockes and Thomas Hobbes social contract between man and the state through to the first Bill of Rights and then the Human Rights act we Brits have been at the forefront of civil rights and we should not let the fear of terrorism allow any of these hard won rights to be taken away as once gone they will probably not come back unless a Liberal Democrat government gets in power which seems most unlikely.

We are slowly walking down the path to a place that I don't want to call home. When George Orwells 1984 starts to become a commentary on modern times then we must all stop and ask ourselves what the hell is going on.

By Dark Politricks

Why we need a new Bill of Rights

Why we need a new Bill of Rights

By Dark Politricks

A recent satirical survey carried out by Mark Dice showed that people were willing to sign a petition banning Christian symbols, Christmas lights, bumper stickers and other forms of expression covered by the 1st Amendment. His bigger coup was showing up the American people for signing another petition banning the first amendment altogether.

It seems no matter what crazy things Mark says to the signers they willingly agree to remove their own freedom. He uses Obama, racism, the Tea Party and even the New World Order to persuade people to sign, not that they need much persuading.

Even when he thanks people for "helping to repeal free speech" or "repeal the first amendment" from the USA they happily nod, agree and then sign on the dotted line.


The people signing these petitions should obviously be ashamed of themselves but it goes to show the indoctrination that has been achieved by politicians and the media.

Job well done it seems! These people are almost too eager to sign their freedoms away.

Here in the UK we don't have a written constitution and our bill of rights (1689) which was inspiration for the USA is more concerned with limiting the power of the Crown, ensuring that our parliament is regularly elected and that the people we elect to it have the right to speak freely without fear of retribution from the Crown.

Remember that this was one of the first documents of its kind in the modern world so it's nowhere near perfect and it followed the English civil war in which we deposed and killed our monarch and then replaced him with a quasi-religious military family dictatorship or what historians call a "Protectorate".

This was a bit like North Korea today along with a puritanical religious nature and it involved a dictatorial dynasty i.e Oliver Cromwell and then his 3rd son Richard. The Cromwells, along with the military and their "Godly Governors" ruled the country until the monarchy was restored later in the century.

However our bill of rights, the preceeding Magna Carta, the writ of habeas corpus and it's codified version in law the Habeas Corpus Act plus the writings of many enlightened English philosophers of the time such as John Locke and Thomas Paine, helped inspire and create the US Bill of Rights.

However, whilst this bill is something to be proud of, and US school children are taught from an early age that the Constitution is the primary law of the land and no other law can supersede it, it seems nowadays that either the US Government doesn't preach what it teaches in its public schools or just believes, as George W Bush famously did, that it's just a piece of paper.

Since 9.11, laws such as the PATRIOT ACT have removed many rights enshrined in the constitution and many local courts in the USA have actually found it and the FISA court to be in blatant violation of the provision that prohibits unreasonable searches in the Fourth Amendment.

As Judge Andrew Napolitano explains about the recent NSA Prism revelations that the US/UK governments are conducting massive surveillance on millions of people without a warrant, the mass spying of Americans, whilst allowed by the PATRIOT ACT breaches the constitution which trumps it in law, or is supposed to!


With Obama now being able to act like a king with the NDAA (The National Defense Authorization Act of 2013) behind him, and the country still be ruled under emergency laws enacted after 9.11, he is now able to do such things as:

-allow for the "indefinite detention of American citizens without due process at the discretion of the President." (Section 1021)

-to allow force (and military detention) against not only those who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks and countries which harbored them, but also anyone who "substantially supports" Al Qaeda, the Taliban or "associated forces" (Section 1031)

-mandates that all accused Terrorists be indefinitely imprisoned by the military rather than in the civilian court system (section 1032)

Therefore, he can now, if he so wished, declare you a terrorist or "domestic extremist" by using NSA hovered up and illegally obtained data, and then if he so wished either detain you without due process indefinitely, or if you lived abroad, send a drone to kill you and your family in the manner he dispatched Anwar al Awlaki and his son in Yemen.

The bill also basically dispenses with Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution, which says that nobody can be punished for treason without heightened due process requirements being met. Lets wait and see what happens to Edward Snowden. Is he a traitor for exposing massive and illegal spying by the NSA or a traitor for letting the people know what the Government is doing to them?

Therefore with free speech under attack due to massive state surveillance and unwarranted search and seizure of property such as any electronical private effects e.g emails, direct message tweets or text messages. And as Mark Dice has shown, a populace all too willing to just "sign a petition" abolishing their rights without second thought I am asking you today what you think our rights should be in this modern-day and age.

Do we need extra protections from government surveillance?

Is the requirement for a well maintained militia and the bearing of arms still needed when the US military is the largest on earth and a few handguns wouldn't last long against the local police force let alone the US military - not that you can tell the two apart lately.

What about limits on free speech? Should you have the right to be offended or can I be racist, sexist, anti-religious and homophobic to you all without fear of punishment?

Taking a well-known section of the European Convention of Human Rights - Article 3, which prohibits torture, and "inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".

Do Americans need to incorporate this into a bill after their water boarding, Abu Ghraib and Gitmo "enhanced interrogation" escapades?

What about Article 11 that supposedly protects the right to freedom of assembly and association, including the right to form trade unions.

This seems to be trumped by local laws such as "free speech zones" in the USA or the much hated English Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 which banned people assembling to "rave" i.e party.

This law also and allowed for courts to make certain inferences if a defendant remained silent in custody or for the police to take intimate body samples on arrest and keep them whether or not the accused is ever convicted in court - an act that has been found to violate European law multiple times.

It seems that in this modern day and age people on all sides of the Atlantic need a Bill of Rights that protects them from their own government. What I'd like to know is which rights are most important to you.

Some of these points cross over and in a new bill they would be sectioned together. Therefore you may want to vote for more than one but I want to know the right that you feel is most important to you in your daily life.

For example is your right to speak freely without fear of being bugged and arrested more important than a theoretical chance that you might overthrow your government with your firearms?

If something important is missing just add it in the other section and feel free to use the comment section to expand on your points if you do.




View the original article "A New Bill of Rights" at www.darkpolitricks.com.