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European Countries Seek Sweeping New Powers To Curb Terrorism
New submitter cooler-than-ice (3981829) writes with this story from the Washington Post: Belgian leaders on Friday sought sweeping new powers to monitor and punish their citizens for involvement with terrorism, joining France in an effort to rewrite laws just hours after dozens of arrests across Europe offered dramatic evidence of the threats security officials say are facing the continent.
From the article: Apart from expanding powers to strip citizenship for dual nationals, Belgian leaders on Friday proposed devoting an additional $348 million to counterterrorism efforts. They also said they wanted the ability to take away identity documents to make it more difficult for people to travel to Syria and elsewhere. ... “As a result of the events in Paris, combined with what happened yesterday in Belgium, the political unanimity is quite great,” said Rik Coolsaet, a terrorism expert at Ghent University. “It is a bit of 9/11 syndrome.”
France is also charging forward with attempts to expand government powers to monitor threats — and to punish those who praise or do not readily condemn terrorism. Leaders this week called for new legislation to significantly bolster domestic intelligence agencies.
I was hoping your be the ones to bail us out when the U.S. went full fascist. Alright, New Zealand, all eyes are on you. No pressure!
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
'Cause the Patriot Act worked out so well for us.
Never mind worrying about the terrorists winning, it's the fascists who are doing the winning
France is also charging forward with attempts to expand government powers to monitor threats -- and to punish those who praise or do not readily condemn terrorism.
WTF? R'ing TFA... not a whole lot, but here's a bit more from the article:
France is also charging forward with attempts to expand government powers to monitor threats -- and to punish those who praise or do not readily condemn terrorism. Leaders this week called for new legislation to significantly bolster domestic intelligence agencies.
Another law, a fast-track judicial process for accusations related to terrorism, was on the books as of November but had not been widely used before the Paris attacks. In recent days, however, prosecutors have filled the dockets with more than 100 cases that are speeding through courtrooms. People who have expressed support for the attacks have been sentenced to as much as 15 months in prison.
A top French opposition politician, Eric Ciotti, said this week that the government should withhold social benefits from the parents of children who failed to observe moments of silence in schools.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Wouldn't it make much more sense to devote some effort and expense to promoting the values of the enlightenment? In particular, devoting some educational effort towards eradication of irrational beliefs. Why not actually treat Islam (and Scientology, and Christianity) as the mental equivalent of a public heath hazard, where those who believe need to be helped to overcome it?
I think we make a serious mistake in our public discourse, by considering that:
violent minority = extremists = misinterpretation of scripture vs. peaceful majority = mainstream = correct interpretation of scripture.
whereas it would be more intellectually honest to consider:
violent minority = literalists = correct interpretation of scripture vs. peaceful majority = reformists = those who wilfully mis-interpret their scripture.
In other words, while almost all humans (of all faith and of none) are decent, good, tolerant peaceful people, they are decent to the extent that they discard their holy books, not to the extent that they follow them. The holy books themselves are beyond redemption, and should be considered to be "on the side of the devil".
Consider the spectrum of belief: (a)Secular humanist ---- (b) "Moderate" religion ----- (c) Extremist religion.
Position (b) involves belief in gods, prophets, and veneration of "perfect" scriptures. Position (c) is a very small step beyond, namely to actually read those scriptures, already considered perfect, and interpret them the literally, as they are written. So, if we want to prevent Islamic terrorism, the most effective argument is not detailed discussion of which Koranic verse overrides which other one (an argument which the moderates can never win), but instead, to argue for the wholesale abandonment of holy books.
Education, science, secular values, and human rights are the most potent weapon we have against faith, and yet politicians refuse to deploy them! If we took the money from the security services, and put it into schools, I think it would be far more effective.
France belongs to the French
Germany belongs to the Germans
Sweden belongs to the Swedes
Italy belongs to the Italians
In other words, they are the indigenous for their ancestors, for thousands of years, have settled in that place
And immigrants ? No matter if they are 2nd / 3rd / 4th or whatever generation, once they have decided to harm the indigenous they should be kicked out, immediately !
America belongs to...
Australia belongs to...
Ah, never mind.
Donate free food here
Multiculturalism only works when everyone agrees to the same rules of the road.
The big trouble here, is that a disturbingly large number of Muslims hold opinions that are complete anathema to open and free Western societies. They are only too happy to benefit from the freedoms afforded them; yet, as we've seen in the last week, they despise with every fibre of their being, other people exercising their _own_ rights in a free society.
This hypocrisy is going to tear Western societies apart unless something is done soon. The solutions, as I see them: 1) we let Muslims impose their culture on us; or 2) we impose our own culture while we are still a strong majority -- and then force the minority to pick sides.
Something has to give.
Because terrorism is a red herring, and this looks like a shiny new power they can grab without much hassle from the rabble. Fear is a great vehicle for stripping away liberties. Freedom is *far* more at risk from our own governments than it ever was from terrorists.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
America belongs to...
. . . the rich.
Australia belongs to...
. . . the largest concentration of deadly, poisonous critters and creepy-crawlies on the planet.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Disclaimer (for benefit of the knee-jerk-reactionaries): I passionately hate Al Qaeda, the so-called 'Islamic State', and all pseudo-religious nutcases who, for some reason, think 'God' (whoever the fuck that is) wants them to cut off people's heads 'for offending the Prophet', throw acid in little girls' faces/kill little girls because they have the audacity to want to go to school/learn to read/learn history/learn to do math/learn in general, and all the rest of the bullshit these fucking assholes are out there doing/condoning/supporting. I think they all desperately need to be brought to justice for their innumerable crimes, no question about it.
..now, that all having been said:
If you don't, for more than a second or two, think that these 'sweeping powers' they want to grab (and make no mistake, it's a power-grab) are going to end up being grossly and indiscriminately mis-used to further political agendas that have nothing to do with anti-terrorism, then you are incredibly, unbelievably naive, because that's exactly, precisely what's going to happen. Euros, you need to clamp down on this shit right now, because once they get this kind of power, they will not let go of it, ever, and they will ironically enough use it to destroy whatever freedom of speech you have in your country. Mark my words.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
But when your response as a supposedly free country is to limit people's freedoms, you have failed to uphold the principles you're supposed to aspire to and have become the enemy of liberty. I'll take freedom over this kind of 'safety.' If they want safety, they have to do it in a way that doesn't violate our freedoms and privacy.
A lot of muslims are ethnic Persians, which are anything BUT brown. Related: Iran changed its name from Persia in reference to it being the "land of the Aryans" with the Persian word for Aryan transliterating to English as Iranian.
So you can't trust government when it comes to stopping people with a demonstrated and announced desire to poison, shoot, or blow you up...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”