Comment by foldr
Enforcing bad legislation that was enacted through the democratic process doesn’t make a country a police state. It’s just the rule of law. That has always included the enforcement of bad laws as well as good ones.
Enforcing bad legislation that was enacted through the democratic process doesn’t make a country a police state. It’s just the rule of law. That has always included the enforcement of bad laws as well as good ones.
> The UK locks up political dissidents under draconian 'safety' laws.
We used to just out and out shoot them.
We used to demand that they have their voices literally overdubbed by an actor.
We used to round people up and jail them for being too irish.
We used to be in a civil war, up until the 2000s.
You're just having a cyberpunk wet dream. Don't get me wrong, the OSA is an abomination. but you are being a hyperbolic child, especially as actual authoritarianism is happening in the USA, without anything as a peep from the same blowhards talking about the OSA.
You don’t refer to any specific cases so I can’t offer any specific response, but the key phrase is
> under ___ laws.
A police state is one where the police arrest whoever the government directs them to arrest (rather than enforcing the law). Keir Starmer is not phoning up Police chiefs to get people disappeared.
> whatever the UK's kangaroo courts decide
I mean there isn't a UK court. There's the supreme court, but one can still appeal to the Hague to get you out of a jam. But yeah, you keep thinking that. Its not like with have a shadow docket going on, undermining the constitution.
> It's a total police state.
I can still, on record call Starmer "a massive fucking prick".
I can do that on TV.
I will not get arrested, I will not have an ICE raid called on me, I won't get death threats.
I won't lose my job[1]
So no, its not a police state, because the judiciary is still working, more or less
[1] not my current job anyway
> the democratic process
There's no such thing. There are many different processes that some people consider democratic and others don't. But "democratic" has no other meaning than rule by the governed. It is not a description of a specific political process. Especially one that bans leading opposition candidates, which is clearly as undemocratic as anything that can occur in government. If a population wants to vote in somebody who is currently in prison for crimes they are obviously guilty of, preventing them from doing it is a direct repudiation of democracy.
Even killing opposition candidates is marginally more democratic, because at least that only lasts for an instant. Saying that people cannot vote for the government of their choice is a restriction on the governed, not a restriction on people who want to govern.