Still traumatized by the ISIS terror attacks in Paris, the French public is largely looking the other way as the government moves to dramatically curtail basic freedoms the Republic has enjoyed for generations in an increasingly open-ended “state of emergency.”
Police are now free to search people and houses without warrants on suspicion of “conspiratorial activity,” and despite the implication that this was supposed to target terrorism, officials are already using it to raid the homes of people suspected of drug possession and the like.
Likewise, the government is free to place people under “house arrest” and to detain people in an open-ended fashion without charges on any government perception that they may conceivably pose a threat.
Rights groups are understandably up in arms, but they’re finding very little interest among the public, with recent polls showing some 84% of French voters are eager to accept “certain limitations of freedom” in the name of increased government control.
You don’t need to ask the government twice to take away your freedoms, and both houses of parliament have unanimously pushed through presidential proposals for further limits on individual rights.
Incredibly, the Hollande government is using France’s historic claim to be the “birthplace of human rights” as a justification for the new crackdowns on individual liberty, with Prime Minister Manuel Valis insisting security is “the first of all freedoms,” and Hollande insisting that the government’s right to “resistance to oppression” under the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen allows them to carry out such crackdowns as they see fit.
Though the state of emergency which is granting a lot of the most onerous restrictions is nominally only extended for three months, rights groups say they expect police unions to fight hard for further extensions, and that having extended beyond the initial 12 days France may find itself in this state more or less forever.
It's not just the American populace that is moronic. The vast majority of the earth's population is. Same script every time. It just works.
This is an overreaction that exceeds that of 9/11. The propaganda unleashed by all governments over the last 14 years must have taken hold. I am sickened.
We've entered the fascist-corporate-imperial coup d'etat. If people suck up the propaganda soup they're being fed, then the model being tried out now in France and Belgium will very soon be applied all over.
The media have turned the people into frightened sheep.
It's the exact same trick the Nazis pulled with the Reichstag fire, and it's going live once again, 83 years later.
Why are so many bloggers, including this one, so upset by the (entirely foreseeable) reaction in Europe? What exactly did people expect?
ISIS is a fake (terrorist) organization created by the USG/EU whose
plan is to create a global police state. I wouldn't be surprised in
the least if the brutal attacks in Paris were staged, and blamed on
ISIS. Look at the crackdown taking place in Europe. Repug flunkies
have already banned Syrian refugees from entering the US. It won't be
long before USG citizens will have to apply for National ID cards.
The so-called 'Free Press' should do it's damn job, and provide
honest, non-bias information to the masses, instead of being a
mouthpiece and stenographer for the corrupt establishment.
"It won't be long before USG citizens will have to apply for National ID cards."
That's already pretty much the case. ID cards are still formally issued at the state level, but the REAL ID Act standardizes them and requires IDs that meet those standards for various purposes. The final phase, requiring a federally approved ID to board an airplane, is scheduled to implement on January 1st.
If the attacks weren't carried out by ISIS but were balmed on them, don't you think they would have denied them?
Who would believe them, even if they denied it?
ISIS did the attacks but the bigger question is who is really behind ISIS?
It won't be long before the French police are killing three people a day, just like their Uncle Sam.
In proportion to population, they've been duing just that for as long as I've been in contact with France and that goes back 40 years. The French police have always been very heavy-handed. Americans are too inclined to think that we Europeans are just Americans who talk funny!
This will surprise only Americans. On the one hand, our European societies have always been more control-oriented than American society but also, people are aware that there were many draconian restrictions on personal freedom during the two world wars, even in countries that remained neutral, but that they all vanished once the crisis was over. That's what people expect now. If your house is burning, you don't obstruct the firefighters!
Prime Minister Manuel Valis insisting security is “the first of all freedoms,”
He did not ask Ben Franklin, who reminded us that this emphasis means we don't deserve either security or freedom.
There is no such thing as complete security, and almost anything is more likely than death in a terrorist attack in the West. (Every four days a woman in France is killed by her partner. )
Fearmongering and hatred make things worse in a land with people from all over the globe who thought they were in a democracy. I live here, and was not part of the 84% who allegedly approve this loss of freedom.