From the Guardian:
Government defeated again as Lords block compulsory ID cards by 'back door'
Tory and Liberal Democrat peers last night defeated the government for the second time in a week by opposing attempts to introduce compulsory identity cards "by stealth".
Members of the House of Lords voted 227 to 166 - a majority of 61 - to ensure that passport applicants will not have to enter their details on the national identity register.[snip]Parliament's two chambers now face an extended battle over ID card and terror bills as they attempt to hammer out their differences.
So our only protection from a government voted for by a minority of the country is the unelected House of Lords. Bloody hell. What kind of a state is this country in?
Reading people's responses to the post on US freedom is scary. Really scary.
Purple Dragon mentioned something we've touched on before here or somewhere else: that children now are just pumped full of information, and never taught to understand it, or wonder what it means and how we can tell if it is true or not.
For instance, we all learn about Mary Queen of Scots, or Elizabeth I. We learn about all the plots that went on, all the traitors and so on. Yet in all the horrible debate about whether torture should be used on terrorist suspects, no-one mentions that torture is worse than useless. Yet we should know from school. We should know because we learned about all the 'confessions' from witch hunts, from 'Popish Plots', from the murder of Darnley: from endless poor sad bastards who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. People will say anything to make the torture stop, so there's never been and never can be any excuse for it. Anyone who disagrees is one sick individual, and any state using torture is a sick society.
That's us, folks.
