Wednesday 1 June 2011

A sad day for believers in a democratic state

At work today, I got involved in a conversation about general crime in the area (which has been steadily increasing over the past 10 years perhaps). When I mentioned the film "V for Vendetta", a classic, I must add, and described it as "a bleak future of an oppressive regime or police state", I was horrified to find that the person I was discussing this with  said: "That's how it should be." Can this possibly be the way anyone thinks!?


To believe that a Government should be allowed total control and rule over a people without their say is akin to saying that one wishes terrorists to be in charge and to wilfully give our civil liberties away. Can we trust any one person or group to actually hold our civil liberties back and trust that they will not take advantage? No. tried and tested: look at Stalin's Russia, look at what's happening in the middle East at the moment...how can anyone be in agreement with a police state?


It's these small liberties such as freedom of speech and expression that makes a country undeniably strong. If we look towards America, though I think they could use tighter gun control, it's absolutely brilliant that their constitution actually states that every American has the right to "bear arms", due to the way in which the country was reclaimed from Great Britain. Basically, and to quote from "V": people should not be afraid of their Government. A Government should be afraid of their people.


The masses should hold the power, be it though a vote or a revolution. A step further from this would be anarchy. It's difficult to agree with anarchy, however, as it would be near-impossible to organise a people and the fact that the use of the word has been bastardised beyond recognition to include such slogans as "Conservatives out, Anarchists in" in the recent London protests leads me to believe that no, it is not what most would want.


Activist groups such as Anonymous are heroes for the people this day-in age; defending liberty and enforcing justice is one of the most admirable things I could imagine. Again, this is an ideal taken from both the book and the film, "V for Vendetta. Don't let your Government rule you, make your Government be ruled by you.


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