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UK Plans To Monitor 20,000 Families' Homes Via CCTV
metrix007 points out a story in the Sunday Express with more surveillance-camera madness from the UK, where the government now wants to place 20,000 CCTV cameras to monitor families ("the worst families in England") within their own homes, to make sure that "kids go to bed on time and eat healthy meals and the like. This is going too far, and hopefully will not pass. Where will it end?"
I spoke to one of my British immigrant friends about the big brother attitude in England, saying I understand it's financially motivated in the U.S., but I couldn't see what motivated it there. He said a large portion of the population has absolutely no sense of personal responsibility and wants some one else (the government) to handle that for them. Of course this isn't everyone.
Let's look at history and see how British citizens who didn't agree with the crown acted and what came of it:
Scotland - William Wallace. They fought a good fight but ultimately failed. They made their point and over time, since people allowed the fight to die with him, it didn't matter.
Quakers, Puritans, other settlers. - Fled to the New World to escape the mainland oppression only to experience oppression by remote control. They eventually rebelled, established independence and we now have the United States. Some time later Canada decided to break free also - a little more peacefully and they still have the Queen on their money. I wouldn't.
It's time for the English citizens to have a civil war. They've already screwed up, they've let their government take their guns away, so it's going to be difficult, but I'm sure they can manage. If enough of the populace proves they're willing to go to war with rakes and shovels it may just get enough attention to prove to the government they're serious and the government may start listening. I'm sure it would only take a few government officials dieing during riots and stealth assassination missions before they agree to consider that 1984 wasn't meant as an instruction manual.
It's very important that the people declare war and actually send over a document declaring such, if they don't it's no better than gang terrorism.
The U.S. proved such a thing can work.
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After reading the article, here are my thoughts:
1. This is not something you can vote on, or discuss. Some goverment official just said "Hey, I have an idea, here's 400 million pounds, go implement it."
2. Youngsters don't get into crime because they have a chaotic family life. They do it, because it's cool, they have too much free time, and they live in a neutered society. They simply have no outlet for violence, which is a pretty basic instinct if you think about it (ever seen a little boy who just starts to walk? The first thing he does is picking up a stick and beating stuff with it).
I know your all going to compare it to 1984, say this is a big brother police state, but to be honest, if you live on an area affected by youths who make you terrified to go outside, who intimidate you if you do, who will not hesitate to key your car, smash in it's windows or even set it on fire, who make it the norm to set of fireworks in the street and even post them through letter boxes, then you wouldn't be moaning about their human rights.
It has to start somewhere.
I live in Britain and I hate those white-trash types. "Chavs", we call them. Funded by state benefits, which become generous when you include the free housing that they live in, the chavs do no work other than producing children, who then live chaotic and deeply miserable lives. Sometimes these children appear in the media, normally when they've been murdered (Baby P) or kidnapped (Shannon Matthews) by their own families; or perhaps when they're a bit older and have entered the petty crime lifestyles of their parents. There is no escape from the chav ghetto.
I always remind people that the welfare state created this problem. By taking away the need to work, the need for self-improvement, it locked these people into their lifestyle. The purpose of welfare is to keep the poor poor, and thus ensure that there will always be jobs for Socialist politicians, who can offer to solve the problem. Not in an 1830s Poor Law sense, i.e. "There are no benefits-- get a job or go in the workhouse", but in the Soviet style, with surveillance technology to keep them in line.
It has to start somewhere. There's a short step between a welfare state and a totalitarian state, because eventually the state has to control who gets benefits and how they are spent. First they came for the chavs. The rest of us are next.
The tao of democracy: the government you can vote for is not the real government.
welfare state created them that is total bullshit.
Without a welfare state they still wouldn't work, or care for their kids, or any of that and the entire family would be even worse off stealing for food, clothes and everything else. What people like to think that it is the government fault however some people are just lazy and they still wouldn't do anything if they had to. The only way to make that group actually work is to force them to go to work. and I do mean Force as those types of people are so lazy that they can't hold a normal job on their own anyways.They won't show up on time, etc.
Just because they accept state welfare doesn't make them lazy, they are on welfare because they are lazy. Learn the difference. as a work chain gang will be the only way to get them to do anything on time.
Welfare keeps them for being even worse off. What is needed is a way to tie welfare into a real job paycheck so you can't get one with out the other. Though that too will create other problems.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
We have our problems, too.
We just have the comfort of knowing that we live on the edges of ridiculously huge tracts of unpopulated, un-cleared wilderness bigger than most European countries into which we can run off and live, (and conduct guerrilla warfare from), should things get really sticky. Our brand of political asshole remains vaguely aware of this fact. I think that's partly why there seems to be a campaign afoot to ensure that everybody turns into a fat, lazy, ignorant, TV-watching, video-gaming idiot. They run slower, have fewer hours in the day to think, and in the end, simply put up with a lot more bullshit.
A hunter isn't scared of the same things everybody else is, because s/he knows that should society crumble, survival isn't a matter of how many digits are recorded after one's name in the local bank machine.
-FL
The ironic thing is the original definition of Proletariat or "Prole" in 1984 in Latin were people who offered no benefit to the state other than raising children. The Proles didn't have Big Brother in their homes, and Winston longed to live like them. Somebody should tell the UK they're not doing it right :-)
Exactly. You have to understand how violent England has become in the last 25 years, and how many completely worthless people exist. I went to a baseball game in Pittsburgh a few years ago, and was amused to see about 10 police from when I left where I was staying, getting to the stadium, and back home again. You'd probably see a group of more than 10 police at the the nearest tube station when there's a football game in the UK. I'm concerned about my liberties in terms of net access, email, right to take photos etc, but if there's some sort of clamp down on the families producing criminals and lowlife who are just going to spend their entire lives living on benefits provided by my tax; stealing my car; making *every* town in the UK a loud, dangourous, smashed up place between 10pm and 2am (when pubs close) then I'm 100% behind it.
I take it you only read the inflammatory article from the Express (for US readers: Think Fox News with more breasts and less journalistic integrity), rather than anything actually containing facts. You can find the government's description of the scheme online. Notice that nothing in this is compulsory. It is an option presented to families as an alternative to being prosecuted. If they think they have done nothing to warrant it, or that a potential custodial sentence would be a better choice, then they are welcome to take that option. Note also that the 24-hour intervention is described as the most extreme case here (while it's the only part of the scheme described in the Express article, with the assumption that it will be applied to all of the 20,000 families).
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You essentially rephrased the "think of the children" argument. And it still isn't morally right.
On top of that, it probably won't work, are they going to put 20000 individual social workers in front of the screens to watch everything? As soon as those kids discover they get away with almost everything, it's back to square one.
But what should society do if mum doesn't care?
What is wrong with community service for the mum/kid?
Reminds me of a story my father, who grew up in Britain in the 1930s and 1940s, told me about a government proposal to put baths in every home. One of the ministers objected to it because the poor would 'just use it to store coal.' Thankfully, that man wasn't listened to.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
There are currently no laws stating that minors must wear clothes inside the house, so tell them not to. Then, the government records CP and they all burn at the stake!! It's flawless!!
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