Posted on 02/24/2005 12:32:34 AM PST by ijcr
A former colleague of mine was involved as an expert witness for the defendant in a civil case not long ago. A short time thereafter, he bumped into the judge at a golf clubhouse, who half recognised him.
"Are you a doctor?", he said.
"Yes", replied my colleague.
"And weren't you a witness in a case recently?"
"Yes".
The judge then asked him what he thought of the outcome. My colleague replied: "I think that the defendant would have received a fairer hearing in a kangaroo court run by generals in a South American military dictatorship".
I need hardly say that this remark brought the conversation to a close. But as reported, it set me thinking about the nature of our own freedom: how much freer are we than the citizens of a South American dictatorship (in the old days, where there were such things)? How free, exactly, are we?
I don't want to indulge in any self-pitying false comparisons. We have neither Gestapo nor Gulag, and it is an insult to all those who have experienced such things in their own flesh and blood (or bone, as they say in Spanish, perhaps more accurately) to compare our small tribulations with theirs. Irritations are not tragedies.
Nevertheless, I think we are less free than we used to be. The weight of the state is making itself everywhere felt. In my former professional life as a doctor, for example, I was obliged more and more to obey the dictates of ministers, rather than those of my medical beliefs.
Whereas when I started out on my career all that was necessary to continue in practice was that I should be qualified and that I should refrain from behaving in an egregious or outrageous manner, by the time I retired this year I had to fulfil all sorts of requirements, all of which (in this age of evidence-based medicine) were quite without evidence of use or efficacy. But that is not the real point of such requirements: they are not there to improve the quality of medical practice; they are there to let us all know who is boss. And even if they were effective, which is intrinsically very difficult to prove, they would still represent a loss of liberty.
The fact is that the requirements laid down by ministers and their bureaucrats now take up fully half the time of senior doctors, when they could be doing clinical work, and this at a time of shortage of medical manpower. Most doctors, except for the apparatchiks among them, are profoundly unhappy about this, and are taking retirement as soon as possible.
An increasing proportion of medical graduates never practice medicine, because the career is now so deeply unattractive to them, and they can do better elsewhere. Having brought this situation about, the government has launched its Improving Working Lives initiative, still failing to realise that it is the sinner, not the saviour.
There are other ways in which the state (by which I mean all agencies vested with public power) weighs increasingly heavily upon us, quite apart from the fact that we spend nearly a half of our working life paying for it. Here are a few random indicators:
1. The other day, at dawn, a large council vehicle parked outside my house with a very tall crane-like attachment, from the top of which photographs were taken of the neighbourhood, including my house. No one had felt obliged explain why, or for what purpose the photographs were to be used. The city is the council's and the fullness thereof.
2. Once a year, I receive through the post a letter marked with the exhortatory words, "Don't lose your right to vote – register now". Added to this is the warning, in case I don't feel like exercising my right, "Failure to comply could lead to a £1000 fine". This is like being accosted by a beggar in the street who simultaneously appeals to your charity and menaces you if you don't cough up.
3. Every few months, I receive a letter from the TV licensing agency, who do not believe that I do not have a television. Once again I am threatened with a £1000 fine, and also warned that my house will soon be spied upon unless I buy a licence.
4. When I drive out in my car, I am immediately in the presence, every few hundred yards, of cameras. (The British are now the most heavily surveyed people by CCTV in the world. There were more than fifty CCTV cameras in the hospital in which I worked, most of them hidden.) I don't want to drive like a lunatic, and in fact conduct on the road is the one aspect of British behaviour that is still superior to that of most foreigners, and was so even before the cameras were emplaced. Even if they are effective, and reduce accidents, they add to the pervasive feeling of being spied upon by the state.
5. Our police now look more like an occupying military force than citizenry in uniform. They are both menacing and ineffectual (quite an achievement), and even law-abiding citizens are now afraid of them. If you want to ask the time, don't bother a policeman. I know from medico-legal experience that the police are far more interested in preserving themselves from the public than from preventing or investigating crimes, up to and including attempted murder. This is not because, as individuals, they are bad men and women; it is because of the same kind of bureaucratic regulation imposed on them as it has been imposed on doctors and other professions.
6. I own a flat in London and have recently learned that I must replace a boiler, not because it does not work or because it is dangerous, but because the regulations have changed, for reasons that it would be impossible to discover, except that they obey the rule of Keynesian economics to stimulate demand and keep it stimulated. And this in practice would mean that, if I still want gas heating, I have to put a new boiler in my living room.
And so it goes on – and on. Very rarely nowadays do I feel myself free of the state. Its power has increased, is increasing and ought to be decreased. But I am not the man to do it. By retiring, I have withdrawn myself from it as far as possible. Il faut cultiver notre jardin.
Hmmm, don't know the gentleman's real name, but this particular article is a warning to us all, everywhere, and I hope he tends his garden well. He surely has a green thumb. (Saw a tv commercial on cable last night exhorting South Africa tourism. My hair stood on end.)
Guess that's in the same steep decline as stiff upper lips and basic human liberty out your way too, eh?
Your "anti-British bigot" bilge is, besides being nonsense, the textbook definition of laughable. What I am is an "anti-Mad Ivan nonsense & smarmy half-truths" bigot. To that charge I happily plead guilty...
Britain is doomed.
You really can't help yourself, can you? This whole act you put on, gaining gratification by being abusive to people online, is pretty pathetic.
Ivan
The Brits rejected the Idea of a Constitution of the Sovereign U.S.A.,....and they are today 'still' opposed to that U.S.A. citizen 'Sovereignty'
(That ain't very free......The British peoples are still 'subjects'...?)
/EU's U.N.
As an American living in the UK, I can vouch for the fact that the title of this article is quite incorrect -- one feels quite free to do what one wants in the UK
The spirit that animated Runnymede is certainly dimmed, but I don't think down-and-out for the count just yet--and may well be ripe for reanimation. Time will tell.
"Pathetic" it 'tis, indeed...
You done yet?
Ivan
"The Brits rejected the Idea of a Constitution of the Sovereign U.S.A.,....and they are today 'still' opposed to that U.S.A. citizen 'Sovereignty'
(That ain't very free......The British peoples are still 'subjects'...?)"
Thanks for an illuminating post. The 30 seconds or so you spent thinking about this subject was time well spent. Where can I catch one of your lectures, professor?
Theodore Dalrymple is his nom de plume. He is published quite a bit in City Journal among others.
Only as free as the United States of America backs them.
Any Questions?
"what is Dr. Daniels' nom de plume?"
C3-P0?
It doesnt end till YOU decide to end it.
Dont succumb to the impotence of the herd.
Recently, a minister friend of mine from England was visiting, and attended church with us. We heard a very good sermon, but afterward my friend informed me that, while he agreed with the sermon, he would have been arrested for giving that sermon in England. My guess is that England is NOT very free.
Just to test the issue of England's freedom, publicly express the opinion that Islam is an evil religion of hate. Another good test would be to try and find your local gun shop and buy yourself a handgun for protection.
I remember the "good old days" when those buggers made us drop pounds shillings and pence and go decimal. I believe it was Feb.1971. Until then we were paid in Guineas ie one pound and one shilling.
Before that date, you could buy a newspaper for a penny and a decent bar of chocolate for 3d.
As an aside you could not exit the country with more than 10 pounds in cash and it was recorded in your passport.
O, Lord above, send down some doves.
With beaks as sharp as razors.
To cut the throats, of them there blokes,
that sells bad beer to sailors.
Alternatively try drinking a can of beer in a New Jersey Park (I did, I nearly got jailed). Light up a cigarette in an NY restaraunt or have your wife go topless on a Californian beach.
Your Welcome.
......a 30 hours series forthcoming on EXACTLY what 'happened' to the British subjects' Middle-Classes economy?
/citizenship sovereignty?
That's always been my policy, of course, Maddy old boy. Since about the first time you initiated an unprovoked flame-war with me, as I recall...(and it had nothing to with the U.K., either, for those of you wondering).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.