Giving away what blood won

Do you deserve your civil rights? Obviously not, given a sample of today's news reports; Italy, Australia and the UK are in the process of instituting a series “anti-terrorism laws”. Even South Africa, which should know better, has been in on the act, not wanting to feel left out, or, more sinisterly, using terrorism as an excuse to tighten up the law, enable greater repression.

What will these laws do? They may stop future terrorist acts, then again they may not (even after Israel subjected entire areas to military control, posted guards at bus stations, built bloody big walls, and implemented a thousand other security measures, determined individuals were still able to enter Israel and blow themselves and others up). But what these laws will do—you can take this to the motherfucking bank and deposit it—is erode civil liberties. Everyone will have a little less privacy (assuming that we have a measure of privacy to give away) and a little less protection against the organs of the State, while those organs (the police, army, security forces, hello my friends in the NIA and the CIA) will be further empowered. They be able to fulfill their wet dreams, the ones where they are the gestapo, breaking down doors and torturing without fear of exposure, jackboots with blank cheques.

This is not a matter of disagreement in the public debate. Nobody is stating that civil liberties won't be weakened. Nobody is saying that you'll be freer because of the Patriot Act. That kind of spin is still to come.

What is being said, over and over again, is that this anti-terrorism legislation will keep you safe; we're gonna pass these here laws and you're gonna be safe, no bad jihadi is gonna rise up and kill you. What is being asked of you is to trade in some of your civil liberties for an increase in the measure of your security.

What a fucking bad trade.

For a start, the only guarantee here is that you will lose some of your civil liberties. That's for certain. You'll be moving away from freedom, not towards it. But will you be safe? No sir. Given enough dedication, time, know-how and money, just about anyone can do anything, as the situation in Israel clearly demonstrates. The only way you can be safe is if you employ the Mongol method, slaughter everyone and everything else. Barring that, your immediate future is uncertain (over the long-term, your future is clear and without doubt, you will die) and threats to your life will be constant and ever-present.

But, even if they were right, even if their laws could make you safe, it would still be a fucking bad trade. Quite possibly, over the thousands of years of struggle, billions have been dying for freedom. People have given their goddamned lives so fuckwits like me can blog, and people are dying now, being fucking tortured in dank ass cells, because they want to live free (and, please, not the freedom to be a corporate slave that Bush et. al. push like desperate dealers of dodgy smack). Why? Why are people dying to be free? Why not just do what they're told, keep their heads down, and focus on the things that matter, like family and spirituality? Fuck family and fuck spirituality. What use are they if you're in chains?

And some of you want to hand whatever freedom that's been won, in blood and gore of ordinary people, over to the authorities (the very same fuckers who've been in the repression business since Jericho) just because some idiots let off a few bombs? Because you're scared? Fuck you. I'm scared of the police states that you're turning our countries into.