You know, I find it bizarre to read about fascism descending on America, when (as always) it always descends on Europe. Well at least of you consider the UK part of Europe, which the people behind these civil rights monstrosities would like to.

We live in a country where young boys - one was just seven - are taken aside and questioned for trying to knock conkers out of chestnut trees on public ground. Where a grandmother whose neighbour accused her of not returning a ball kicked into her garden was arrested, fingerprinted and required to give her DNA. The police went through every room in her house, even her daughter's drawers, before letting her go without charge or caution.

Where two sisters can be arrested after a peaceful protest about climate change, held in solitary confinement for 36 hours without being allowed to make a phone call, then told not to talk to each other as a condition of their bail. As this paper reported, their money, keys, computers, discs and phones were confiscated, their homes searched.

There is much more, all of it enabled by Blair's laws and encouraged by a vindictive and erroneous contention that defendants' rights must be reduced in the pursuit of more and quicker prosecutions. Our prisons are full, problem teenagers are, by default, exiled to a kind of outlawry and every citizen becomes the subject of an almost hysterical need by the authorities to check up on and chivvy them.

US citizens are being held without trial,
without charge, without right to counsel,
solely because someone in the bureaucracy
has declared them an enemy combatant.
Neither the geneva convention nor the
constitution are being upheld.

I don't believe the cases are not comparable. Pleas be more specific.

Yes, it's always worse here, isn't it, Anonymous?

Funny parallel...I was talking with someone just this morning about the hysteria from the left about the U.S. imminently turning into a Christian theocracy resembling that of "The Handmaid's Tale" -- and the complete obliviousness to the point-by-point similarities of that fictional world to the very real world of the Sauds, Taliban, and Iranians...whose threat they deny, dismiss, or offer apologias for.

(PS: isn't the old saying 'fascism is forever descending on the US but always seems to land in Europe instead'?)

And then there's this:
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/225/225346_schoolgirl_questioned_over_racist_remark.html

A 14 year old girl was arrested and put in jail because she asked to be moved from one study group to another. The reason she gave was that the immigrants in the study group she was assigned to were speaking their native language and she couldn't understand.

Ironically, it's the radical Muslims who can pretty much say what they want and get away with it. Which shows that the real problem in Britain is with the citizen sheeple. These laws would disappear in a matter of months if any large fraction of the population got fed up and demanded their rights back. I'm not holding my breath, however, waiting for that to happen.

anonymous: I agree with you. Any US citizens who are being held without trail should be given one ASAP. Then either shot or hung immediately if found guilty, as provided for in the constitution.

T. L., whatever the saying may be, fascism has landed on every continent (well, ok, Emperor penguins aren't fascists, afaik, and John Howard doesn't count either). We've avoided it both because of the enlightened design of our government and because people get rightously pissed off when they see hints of rights being curtailed.

I'm glad to see people indignant about the lack of counsel, habeas corpus, etc., irrespective of what the suspect stands accused. That perennial fight is what prevents the stinky turd of fascism from landing here as well.

...and every citizen becomes the subject of an almost hysterical need by the authorities to check up on and chivvy them.

...unless of course that citizen involved are non-Anglo. In Europe they have a need to let the inmates run the asylum every few years. The only difference in 1932 and 2006 in Europe is the native language of the fascists.

The rhetoric is the same, as follows, "it's for your own good, we know whats best for you, the Jews are the problem, yadda, yadda, yadda".

Thank God there are still people like Danny who know the law and understand that part of its fragile essence is the respect for the rights of the innocent citizen when confronted with authority.

And if you don't know or stand up for your rights, you deserve to be searched, "kavities" and all. (I know kavities is misspelled, it got kicked out with a "C")

I always enjoy the irony of the most vocal self-styled "anti-fascists" also being the most lockstep advocates of Big Government. Supporting and advancing the cause of Der Staat is how one fights fascism on Bizarro Planet.