– then we MUST ban cars! We MUST ban alcohol, in all its forms! We MUST ban bicycles, and vegetarianism!

What’s good for the goose…

“If you have to tread on the freedoms of innocent people to catch the lawless you’re doing it wrong.”

Very nice turn of phrase, that. Reminds me of one of my favourite quotes.

“Any coward can tolerate tyranny. It takes a brave man to live in a free society.”
– Bill Hagness, Deputy Chief, Wisconsin Capitol Police, while discussing security preparations for the upcoming Wisconsin State Fair in 2002

Love Claire Wolfe’s book “179 Things to Do ’til The Revolution”:

America is at that awkward stage, it’s too late to work within the system, but it’s too early to shoot the bastards.

I had to arrive over an hour early and go through all sorts of nonsense.

All because (supposedly) their might be an attack on the ship taking me to the island.

There was no evidence of any such attack you understand – it was ANY ship going anywhere (and any aircraft and …….).

Of course a determined terrorist will get round such checks with ease. The checks basically rely on people playing along. I spotted all sorts of ways to cheat – as I did on my recent air trip to Ulster, I could have got on that aircraft with just about anything. I did not cheat – but I could have, and a terrorist would.

It is not really about catching terrorists and preventing attacks – it is about being seen to “do something” and an excuse for yet more state involvement in life.

The facts are interviews resulted in 8 passport refusals, not 8 passport refusals for fraud. The ‘for fraud’ is actually an unsupported assertion, rather like the one where the Home Office says CRB checks prevented X thousand ‘unsuitable people’ from working with children. The only evidence that they were ‘unsuitable’ is that the CRB check resulted in their barring. This is the solipsistic character of many Home Office stats.

Eight people failed to satisfy the bureaucracy at their passport interview.How many of those were unable to answer questions? How many refused to answer questions? Is an inability to say when and where your parents were born, for example, evidence of fraud?

And then I would point to the Safety Theatre Of Your Choice, and ask why in that case the government gives so much weight to making sure everybody is intrusively checked, and so little weight to making the check particularly relevant to the purpose.

Evildoers who are also eejits are undoubtedly a problem, but perhaps our whole society ought not to be wrapped around the terror of them. Anticipating every possible action of evildoers who are not also eejits can probably be only achieved by shooting all and sundry on suspicion of Original Sin: even for radical reformers, this is a bit draconian.

Our present system, whereby one is effectually barred from blowing up buildings or going all Gary Glitter unless one has passed a sort of impromptu practical GCSE in the subject, is a happy compromise. Evil is still done, but only by qualified evildoers who have demonstrated familiarity with the appropriate government regulations. Thus, a more professional quality of evil is achieved – and though we must all make serious sacrifices for it, at least we will be able to sleep unsoundly in our beds in consequence.

You know it makes sense!