'nother petition

"Austin Shackles" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Let's be honest, petitions are useless. Especially when confronted by a dictatorship.

If we're being honest, why are we saying we're in a dictatorship?

Because our Glorious Leader keeps slipping through legislation without consulting parliament.

It's not just me................!

Richard

It's still not a dictatorship, or a police state. It's no utopia but nowhere near either of those two despite the paranoid rantings of the "where will it all end" brigade.

I say dictatorship because it feels that way to watch your freedoms being removed daily. Just my opinion though.

History tells us that a democracy can become a dictatorship by a series of small steps, each considered insignificant in themselves so accepted by the unthinking majoroty, so the "where will it all end" brigade have a perfectly valid point. Greg

I don't like it either but we're not there yet, and the "where will it all end" brigade seem to spend their time telling people that there's no point in doing anything because we're already a dictatorship. Which we're not, so it is worth trying to make yourself heard using whatever means possible, despite the frequent sneers of the WWIAE brigade.

We're nearer than people like to accept because the creeping loss of rights has been going on for decades and it's only now that people are waking up to it. I remember the miner's strike when the plod were choosing which cars were allowed to cross county borders with a merry "oi, you lot might be pickets so bugger off back home or we'll lock you up", or more recently coach loads of families going to a match being escorted back home with similar threat by plod who felt like flexing their muscles.

Now they have the universal justification of "anti-terrorism" there's little stopping them, anyone who wants to protest against anything that offends the government can be controlled with the sweeping anti- terrorism laws and people are being locked up without trial. Greg

Indeed, and we need to do something about it, not just whine on about how it's useless because we're a dictatorship or a police state. That's just defeatist nonsense.

People have been locked up without trial for ages, on remand.

There's no mass arrests or shootings of protesting crowds like you'd expect in a proper police state like China. You're prefectly free to protest, they've tried to implement laws around the houses of parliament themselves because of Brian Law IIRC, and they're justifiably getting stick about it, if this was a dictatorship or a police state then there'd be a lot more than that stopping people from having their say.

Those who just wring their hands and shout about us all being doomed and there's nothing to be done about it, well they should use their passports to get out "while they still can".....

there's

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merry

there's

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Be even worse when the 'part P' electrical police start recruiting ! How goes the training?

AWEM

True, the difference is they are entitled to a trial at some point, not any more though, people accused of terrorism are being locked up indefinitely with no right to a trial.

The arrests tend to be limited to dozens rather than thousands but they are still happening, hundreds of thousands have protested in recent times, fortunately the shootings have been limited to one or two people though hundreds of protesters have been shot in Northern Ireland in the past.

Tell that to the people locked up for protesting against arms sales on the grounds they were terrorist suspects...

that stopping people from

It's a slippery slope and we are well and truly sliding down it. Greg

We're very close to the top, we're nothing like China or even Russia, which is certainly sliding back at the moment. We're not even as bad as France or the US. If you want to give up then fine, give up.

Why do you feel the need to put words into people's mouthes?, I'm not giving up, I'm trying to wake people up to what's going on around them!. Greg

Now the government has backed off with the seller's pack idea, or at least watered it down to the point it's just an excuse for the estate agent's to charge you even if it doesn't sell, it doesn't look like it's getting policed much in the near future. The only people having to take it seriously are those having to get planning permission as the building regs department inspects them.

I got my inspector's qualifications a while ago now, though all I've done with it is land lord's certificates as the day job is still paying the bills. Greg

I'm moaning at those in this group who insist that there's no point doing anything, or those who think we're in a police state or dictatorship *now*. If you're not one of those two then quite how we got talking about this I don't know ;-)

I like this: "We must measure what is important, not make important that which is easily measured - and you can't measure safe driving in miles per hour".

Agreed.