It’s just been a bad week.
Like most of you, I lead a quiet and peaceful life happily paying my taxes and smiling contentedly as I do my bit to keep the UK public sector juggernaut on the road. I am not active politically and rarely write any more. I am still a libertarian but I no longer try to explain the concept to others because I now know it is almost certain that they won’t understand. They will just look at me a bit strangely in future.
No, since the Tories took over from the appalling New Labour a few years back, the anger I used to feel has largely left me. If Chris Mounsey couldn’t sustain the venomous rage, how should I be expected to? Anyway, we’ve got the internet- it will guarantee our freedom, won’t it?
And then we get a week like the last one.
First, the Met Police decide that it is unlawful to view a video. Google and Twitter fall into line and close the accounts of “offenders”.
Then the Government announce their intention to introduce a statute giving the police and courts powers to interfere in personal relationships. So if I argue with my wife in future, I could end up in jail. The opposition say the proposals don’t go far enough.
Finally, text messages are put into the public domain and two men’s careers are ruined for privately expressing views that are judged to be politically incorrect.
So am I consumed with indignant rage at these events?
Not at all – it’s just been a bad week.
However I have to say it’s quite nice to be reminded how good it felt to be absolutely fucking livid….
Image credit: Tim Lenz
Libertarian Home 
The situation is not good. How economic bankruptcy (which is on the way) will effect the civil liberties side (such as freedom of speech) I do not know. Traditionally economic collapse has made things worse – but things are getting so bad that perhaps taking the pack of cards and throwing them up in the air will lead to something better.
By the way – even now telling people “I do not believe in using violence to take people’s stuff or order them about” does not make most people look strangely at me. They actually say that they agree with me – but that I take the principle “too far”.
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I have to agree with you again Paul. Economic turmoil can precipitate extreme ideology and if ‘capitalism’ is blamed for this then we are at risk of a lurch to social illiberalism and economic collectivism. My hope is that it’s possible to have market based structures, ideas and solutions ready for when this occurs.
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Zach – being so depressed about the state of things, I nearly welcome the coming throwing of the whole pack of cards into the air (even though I know the result could be horrific).
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Try telling them you want to abolish the welfare state, taxation and the NHS. Then watch their eyes glaze over.
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That “racist banter” is fair game. If Cardiff or the FA don’t want someone with that personal trait working with them that that is a matter for tthem to decide, according to whatever process suits their institutions.
What worries me is the legalistic language: “dossier”, “evidence”, “submitted to”. It is as if a case was being submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service, not a body responsible for football games.
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Yes – they talk like police (the bad sort of police). Clubs and societies are being coopted into the state,
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Simon
What made this bad for me was that private emails were trawled for under a quite different pretext then the damaging ones gratuitously publicised.
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Yep, it is all getting a bit Orwell making love to Huxley
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