Civil Liberties: They Just Got Interesting
by Why are so many people talking about civil liberties all of a sudden, and what does it mean?
In a world where you are confronted by troublesome issues left, right and centre it seems easy to forget that you’re not alone. When the media portrays to its viewers a world of celebrity and disaster and your wallet is suddenly empty every time you have to fill the car up – not even considering the state of your bank account – it all seems like it’d be better if you could just hibernate until it sorts itself out. It won’t. Nothing sorts itself out. At least, nothing sorts itself out in a way preferable to you in specific. Not unless you intervene, at any rate.
Issues: there’s a veritable plethora of the things. Amongst the many resides one over which debate is slowly heating, stoked by the various reactions of an increasing number of people: civil liberty.
It’s not been a much discussed thing in the past but nowadays it’s becoming increasingly apparent that people are worried about what’s going to happen in a western world that’s becoming ever more insular in its way of thinking. That is to say: in one protecting itself from terror, drugs, illegal immigration, general crime, etc, but whose governments are, as a result, simultaneously becoming more controlling of their populations.
The phrase “nanny state” is being thrown around in both the UK papers and in university bars, and there are an increasing number of people campaigning against such propositions as the ID card and the latest government craze for databases. Equally, coffee shop conversation in the UK leans more frequently than ever before to themes last expressed in Orwell’s novel, 1984.
But why are people up in arms about it, and why are there more than ever before?
It is partially a result of the openness with which both the UK and USA governments have made recent moves against terrorism and fraud by proposing such things as increased detention time, security chipped passports and ID cards. It is partially a result of the recent media attention which these matters have generated. It is partially a result of people’s questioning the incentives and motives of two governments – as is now common opinion in their respective countries – that potentially went to war with false agendas.
The latter of these is perhaps the most important cause of so many people’s sudden desire to question their government’s moves. In many ways it is good that they do; after all, a democracy is meant to be “run” by its people, is it not?
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