You would have been thought mad 20 years ago to have predicted that it would be a crime for people to smoke on an open-air railway station in the middle of the countryside, smack their children on the leg, hunt foxes, own a donkey without possessing ID for the animal, recite a poem without a licence, possess a.22 calibre air pistol for sporting purposes, engage in teenage canoodling, or set off a firework after 11pm.
and
Twenty years ago you would also have been regarded as barmy if you had said innocent people would have their DNA held on a database for criminals; or that there would be one CCTV camera for every 14 people; or that children would be fingerprinted and their records held, as though they were all potential victims of abuse; or that it would be unlawful to stage a silent, one-person protest within one kilometre of the Palace of Westminster without permission from the police; or that trials would be held without juries; or that microchips would be placed in our dustbins; or that there would be 266 separate provisions granting power to enter homes without permission, a symptom of the expanding role of the state in the lives of citizens.
If you wish to be secure, to lock your timid self into a police state, feel free. Start a subdivision where surveillance is omnipresent. Have security guards that you and your spineless neighbours pay for patrol the streets. Fingerprint and record the DNA of your hapless offspring.
Just do not try to take me with you. Unlike you, I value my freedom more than my life. I will use every legal means I know, and I know how to play politics, to fight you to the bitter end. And ask yourself, if you have any imagination at all, is a life like that ever worth living? Is the relentless pursuit of safety an activity worth doing?
For further reading, check out this.
Parting epigram: "In a world of wolves and sheep, I would rather live as a man."
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