Britain becoming totalitarian police state
- Thread starter Gary K
- Start date
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
An interesting consideration of the term:
Mexico
Greece
France
Spain
https://www.businessinsider.com/poli...-capita-2011-5
Try telling someone in North Korea, or Communist China that Britain is turning into a "police state".
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
Neither of those two nations made it onto the list that Business Insider compiled.
Ah, so clearly North Korea isn't a police state. Or BI isn't quite right...
Idolater
"Foundation of the World" Dispensationalist χρ
This is the link to the source that the source cited:
https://resources.law.cam.ac.uk/privatelaw/Freshfields_Lecture_2020_Government_by_Decree.pdf
From the above source:
Emphasis mine.
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
How many police does North Korea employ?
Easy enough to find - 177 "security forces" per 100,000 people.
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
It would have been nice if any of them would have actually addressed the points raised in the OP by Lord Sumption.
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
I think they're drawing a distinction between a police state and a totalitarian state.
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
Number one on their list - Egypt, with 1493 cops per 100,000 citizens. One cop for every 67 citizens.
annabenedetti
like marbles on glass
Thanks, I understood that. Why do you think Breitbart might be interested in what the conservative Lord Sumption has to say? The comments below the article at Breitbart summoning Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage might give you a clue. Because Lord Sumption has an aura of respectability and education about him doesn't make him correct. His flavor of self-first, community as an afterthought isn't going to mesh well with any community trying to do battle with this disease. If only the risk to exposure was only borne by the person willing to risk the disease... Lord Sumption seems to have forgotten about those who can't afford the risk but have the exposure inflicted on them anyway.
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
Boris just announced a one month lockdown.
Arthur Brain
Well-known member
Exactly. Like any other disease, it doesn't play favourites and one voice like Sumption is hardly to be taken as sacrosanct.
Arthur Brain
Well-known member
To address this part:
"The British public has not even begun to understand the seriousness of what is happening to our country. Many, perhaps most of them don’t care, and won’t care until it is too late. They instinctively feel that the end justifies the means, the motto of every totalitarian government which has ever been."
This is patently ridiculous. It's hyperbole and arrogant assumption. Nobody likes lockdowns and if anything the current administration has come in for public criticism for not enacting a second one sooner instead of trying to contain the situation with tier level, regional measures. The figures have gone beyond the the worst case scenario, government predictions. Scientific and medical advisers have warned about how serious a second wave of this virus was likely to be and common consensus is that this is going to be worse this time around.
There's no doubting the seriousness of this virus. Anyone who's seen inside reports of what front line care workers are dealing with in hospitals or know people who work in them (I do) can attest to that. On the flip side, you have pebble brained cretins who deny that Covid-19 even exists.
I'm not looking forward to the second one coming in next week in the UK and I think the government has been inconsistent with its measures and handling of it, personally. But to argue that Britain is effectively turning into a totalitarian state because of a nationwide lockdown due to a worldwide pandemic is just a soundbite. One that will appeal to dopes and downplayers of Covid-19 but not to people with a functioning cerebral cortex. I don't enjoy wearing a mask every time I go shopping or enter a public establishment but I understand the necessity of it. It's hardly an infringement of civil liberties as some argue. I'd love for this virus to be gone and everything back to normal but for the forseeable we're stuck with it. So life is different.
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Idolater
"Foundation of the World" Dispensationalist χρ
Exactly. That's exactly right. So whenever we see a similar pattern, anywhere, with anybody, that same truth holds. It doesn't matter if it's Joltin Joe Biden or Obama or Newsome or Fauci or any PhD or MD or DD or JD or what have you.
Fact is that every discipline, every university department, every domain, has its experts, authorities, and it's just so simple to know when that pedigree contributes to the claim or when it's irrelevant. It has to do with whether or not all the doctors agree, is what it boils down to. If they all uniformly agree, then you can bank on it, but if the doctors themselves dispute and contradict each other, then the question remains open.
This matter is an open question. Not all lawyers or political philosophers or even self-identifying liberal thinkers agree on the restrictions that governments are imposing upon civilians. It would be helpful I suppose if at least all the medical doctors agreed on what to do, if mankind were imagined as a zoo, and the zookeepers just want to make sure all their property (animals /specimens) survive an outbreak, but we don't even have that.
But even if we did that wouldn't justify infringing or abridging our basic and universal rights. That's the idea from the source's source. That's the idea of all liberals who take rights seriously. If an authenticated doctor of jurisprudence who's ascended in the profession to anything like a supreme court is also a liberal who takes human rights seriously argues that human rights ought to be taken seriously, that doesn't prove that he or she is right.
The trouble with searching for certainty through an appeal to authority is that sometimes people just resist. For example slavery, in Antebellum America. All the experts in the world might have said that slavery was fundamentally illiberal, they all might have said that Blacks were just as much persons as whites, but DEMOCRACY said that the slave states were going to be slave states. They were never going to voluntarily outlaw slavery. That had to be imposed upon them, and not through the mere enacting of a law, it had to be killed out of them. They were killed until they surrendered unconditionally.
Is anybody talking about imposing upon people that they not lockdown? No, talk is of imposing upon them lockdown. Hopefully violence is not needed. I would suggest at this point that what's done is mask mandates that are not enforced, so that government makes its most grave plea for compliance, but doesn't revoke basic human universal rights like breathing and walking around and leaving your home whenever you feel like it.
Idolater
"Foundation of the World" Dispensationalist χρ
Clean up your language and I'll reply.
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
My position all along - if you want to hide under your bed and cower, go for it. Nobody is going to stop you.
Arthur Brain
Well-known member
There was no profanity so either reply or don't.
So the queen of disinformation and believer in all kinds of conspiracy theories says I'm a conspiracy theorist.... That's laughable. That the article I posted came from Brietbart makes it unbelievable is laughable as 90% of the article is the direct quote from Lord Sumption's statement. It's not taken out of context nor cut up to say something Sumption did not say. It's too bad the "brain of Britain" has now become an outcast because he tells the truth. That tells me lies are now more wanted than truth. I can't think of anything sadder than that.
Here's a few links for you.
https://www.gkg.legal/lord-sumptions...march-30-2020/
https://www.aier.org/article/lord-su...n-our-history/
https://www.legalcheek.com/2020/05/w...s-human-rights
That none of you can see that the "cure" is far worse than the disease is a very sad thing. It says to me that your thinking is so narrow you're incapable of thinking big picture.
Here's a few links for you.
https://www.gkg.legal/lord-sumptions...march-30-2020/
https://www.aier.org/article/lord-su...n-our-history/
https://www.legalcheek.com/2020/05/w...s-human-rights
That none of you can see that the "cure" is far worse than the disease is a very sad thing. It says to me that your thinking is so narrow you're incapable of thinking big picture.