UK's Prime Minister declares government should control citizens' lives, political activities even if they obey the law

(NaturalNews) In the age of Barack Obama, big corporate banks, militarized police and the surveillance state, the world's Western leaders -- those who have been responsible for all of the above -- appear ready to make their final push towards authoritarianism.

Early on, they made their plans known in mostly small ways, such as via a policy change here or a piece of legislation there. However, Britain's newly elected prime minister just made an incredibly creepy statement that ought to give UK citizens pause as well as everyone in Western "democracies," including the United States.

Couching his comments in new measures aimed at "battling terrorism," Prime Minister David Cameron said the following in his post-election Queen's Speech:

For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone. It's often meant we have stood neutral between different values. And that's helped foster a narrative of extremism and grievance. This Government will conclusively turn the page on this failed approach.

As noted by Michael Krieger over at the blog Liberty Blitzkrieg:

This statement, and others like it, are a huge deal. This isn't how the leader of a major civilized Western so-called "democracy" speaks to the citizenry. It is how a master talks to his slaves. How a ruler addresses his subjects.

Shades of Big Brother

He notes that a tweet sent by investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald summed it up nicely: "This is really the mentality of Her Majesty's Government RT @akaSassinak But now it is not enough to obey. You must LOVE BIG BROTHER."

The Guardian reports that the new measures are the products of an extremism task force established by Cameron and proposed in Parliament in March. were largely vetoed by Liberal Democrats worried about their implications to free speech. However, they have been revived by majority Conservatives led by Cameron.

The Guardian further reported:

The measures would give the police powers to apply to the high court for an order to limit the "harmful activities" of an extremist individual. The definition of harmful is to include a risk of public disorder, a risk of harassment, alarm or distress or creating a "threat to the functioning of democracy."

In other words, the measures aimed to restrict democracy in order to save it.

The paper continued:

The aim is to catch not just those who spread or incite hatred on the grounds of gender, race or religion but also those who undertake harmful activities for the "purpose of overthrowing democracy."

Any time such measures are adopted by the UK, the U.S. or other alleged democracies (the U.S. is actually a representative republic with democratic tendencies), who gets to decide the meaning of key phrases and passages is where liberty generally suffers. The "who" is always some government agency or leader and can extremely arbitrary depending on the authoritarian tendencies of the Chosen One at the time.

It's not paranoid to be concerned about tyranny

Other provisions of the new measures, according to The Guardian, include a ban on broadcasting as well as a requirement to submit to police in advance any proposed publication on the internet and in social media or print. The measures include plans for banning orders for extremist organizations seeking to undermine democracy or use hate speech in public places.

"It will also contain new powers to close premises including mosques where extremists seek to influence others," said the paper. "The powers of the Charity Commission to root out charities that misappropriate funds towards extremism and terrorism will also be strengthened."

Keep in mind that to liberals in the U.S., "hate speech" can amount to just about anything a conservative says on any given issue. Will "climate deniers" be accused of hate speech? How about anyone who believes on religious or moral grounds that marriage should only exist between a man and a woman or that abortion should be banned?

It would be nice to believe that men like Cameron, Obama, and George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld before them "have our best interests at heart" and are merely talking about hate speech that might be directed, say, at Christians or Jews as groups by Muslims (or vice versa).

However, given the broad latitude inherent in such rules, being concerned about how broadly they will eventually be applied is not paranoid but justified, especially when you hear a leader talking about a country having been "passively tolerant for too long."

Sources:

http://i100.independent.co.uk

http://www.theguardian.com

http://libertyblitzkrieg.com