How Free is Britain?

Social Affairs Unit ^ | Feb 22 05 | Anthony Daniels

[deaconjim]

Frankly, I don't care to do any of those.

While I understand your point, there is a large difference between not being able to drink beer on a beach and not being able to deliver a Biblical sermon.

[MadIvan]

That's always been my policy, of course, Maddy old boy. Since about the first time you initiated an unprovoked flame-war with me, as I recall...(and it had nothing to with the U.K., either, for those of you wondering).

Excuse me, but you start in on my country, playing fast and loose with the insults: if a British person said similarly on this board, they'd have their head handed back to them. I respond in kind. Then there is a space of months when I say absolutely nothing to you - and then you drop in on a thread uninvited with your abusive behaviour. As this thread shows, you continue this abusive behaviour towards my country and countrymen. I have noted that generally speaking, unintelligent insults backed up with a supposed "chuckle" appears to be your modus operandi. I don't want to speak to you - you have nothing worthwhile to say. I have not made it a point of crossing your path to continue a "flame war"; you have made a point to insult the UK at every opportunity you spot, and further to that, be extraordinarily abusive to any British person who speaks up, and even be abusive to people like Miss Marple.

I don't know what motivates people like you to behave like you do. I don't care. From my perspective you're just a someone with a chip on your shoulder and a bad attitude and thus best avoided.

Ivan

[bobdsmith]

There are other indications that Britain is not free:

- Drive while drinking alchohol and you will be arrested
- Drive without a license and you will be arrested
- Collect child porn and you will be arrested
- Grow marujanna and you will be arrested
- Try fighting in the street (with a consentual sparring partner) and you will be arrested

How all freedoms have been eroded in Britain.

[oursouls]

This is all true I'm afraid.

And worse still...we can be arrested for taking the life or property of another person!

I mean can you imagine! Not being allowed to rob and kill at will?

Freedom eh?

However, we are still allowed to cross the street without harrasment from the law unlike some places (jaywalking is it called?)

[agere_contra]

we can be arrested for taking the life or property of another person

What? Damn ... hang on, I have to go and bury something ...

[bobdsmith]

You'll have to get a council permit if you want to do any burial

[A Jovial Cad]

Excuse me, but you start in on my country, playing fast and loose with the insults: if a British person said similarly on this board, they'd have their head handed back to them. I respond in kind. Then there is a space of months when I say absolutely nothing to you - and then you drop in on a thread uninvited with your abusive behaviour

Cute, but it doesn't wash and is simply another in a long line of semi-slanders you've attempted to push in my direction--only to find, much to your disappointment I note, that some folks push back.

The implication in those three sentences is that, at some misty time in the past, I "started in" on the U.K. and a hero arose to defend her honor: Maddy old boy Ivan.

We both know that that implication is as untrue as the day is long.

Indeed, it's another semi-slander; but my posting history is open to one and all whom wish to retrace those steps and invest the time to read it, as is yours. Suffice it to say (and again, we BOTH know this; you're not kidding anyone but yourself) that you fired a posted, unprovoked shot across my bow in an attempt to impress someone you apparently perceived needed "rescuing" or "help" in that opening sally between us; you got taken to serious task in the subsequent flame war and came out looking somewhat ridiculous in the aftermath; and that's where it ended--at least as far as I was concerned.

Fast forward to now: I post a comment to a thread, not even thinking about you or that past entanglement or anything else, really, and suddenly Maddy old boy is back on the warpath again.

ALL of this--every bit of it--has been initiated by you, for whatever reason (Paging Dr. Freud...). That said, as long as you want to keep it up, I'm game. Pathetic as it continues to make you look with every outing...

[MadIvan]

I am sure the mods are watching. If they examine the record, they'll note I said nothing to you for months on end. You decided to leap in on a thread I posted a couple of days ago with your rude and insulting behaviour and you've been determined to be rude and insulting ever since. I realise you have an exaggerated image of yourself, but your smear attempts will not wash.

I have nothing further to say to you.

Ivan

[lowbridge]

3. Every few months, I receive a letter from the TV licensing agency, who do not believe that I do not have a television. Once again I am threatened with a £1000 fine, and also warned that my house will soon be spied upon unless I buy a licence.

That could explain number 1:

1. The other day, at dawn, a large council vehicle parked outside my house with a very tall crane-like attachment, from the top of which photographs were taken of the neighbourhood, including my house. No one had felt obliged explain why, or for what purpose the photographs were to be used. The city is the council's and the fullness thereof.

[Bombay Bloke]

Yes, those both make sensible tests of a nation's freedom. The freedom to make idiotic, racist remarks and the freedom to have easy access to the means to kill fellow citizens. Britan scores badly on both of those. But I would also propose another test - are you allowed to see images of naked men and women - and their genitals - on terrestrial TV channels?

Here I think Britain has the edge.

[weegie]

Whether you care to do them or not is irrelevant. Frankly I do.

[dhuffman@awod.com]

Armed men are citizens. Disarmed men are subjects.

[Lazamataz]

BAN BRITAIN!

[A Jovial Cad]

Exactly--I couldn't have possibly put it better myself.

[pau1f0rd]

Another test may be to evangelize at a homosexual event. Oh, sorry that's America. ;-) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1335699/posts

[pau1f0rd]

However, we are still allowed to cross the street without harrasment from the law unlike some places (jaywalking is it called?)

Is that true that in parts of America you're not allowed to cross the road except at a government-approved crossing point? Seems like an odd rule.

[Abundy]

You are comparing the UK to the US on some sort of freedom index with regards to how free the UK is?

If you have to have a license to own a TV you don't even have a frame of reference to answer the question.

End of discussion.

[weegie]

ooooohhh - - -good one ;)

[weegie]

Am I free to disagree?

[pau1f0rd]

Armed men are citizens. Disarmed men are subjects.

Yes, I've slowly come to realise that this is what some FReepers colloquially mean by those terms, even though the usage isn't widespread enough to be entered in any dictionary I've seen.