http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/nov/05/asset-seizing-powers



Its all to keep you safe from the terrorists. Big Brother loves you.

You seem to be committed to being an insane conspiracy theorist. With any
luck, you'll be committed for being an insane conspiracy theorist.

I like that you have the decency to post your topics in what the heck.

Just because Kyupol is a committed conspiracy theorist doesn't mean he's not right some of the time.

This is in fact a case of people going a little too far in Britain and hopefully those powers will be curbed. They run contrary to people's civil liberties.

Sadly there have always been those who want to curtail civil liberties and governments (both national and local, right wing as well as left) seem to have a perverse interest in knowing and controlling everything. At the moment, those people are using the threat of terrorism as an excuse to push through a whole range of measures which people have already made it clear they don't want.

Whether it's seizing assets or holding people without trial or introducing identity cards, the government knows these measures are unpopular and, although no one in their right mind actually believes that any of them will actually do anything to curb terrorism, it's much easier for a government to get the necessary legislation passed if they can pretend it's part of anti-terrorism package.

I don't think all this amounts a huge conspiracy because I don't believe there's a single over-riding objective behind it. (Governments are, generally speaking, far too inept for that!) Each example is pursued by different individuals for different reasons, cynically using whatever tools are at hand. It just so happens that labelling something as an anti-terrorist measure is currently the best tool they have.

People are such SHEEP!

All you have to do is label something a 'conspiracy theory' and the majority will not believe it not matter how factual. Governments are not inept, they are corrupt. There is no right or left wing among politicians, at the end of the day it's like pro wrestling: they're all friends behind closed doors.

No matter who is in power, right or left, the direction everything has been taking has been singular: more government control of individual lives, less privacy, more taxes, and less regulation of the big corporations.

See, this is what I was talking about! Kyupol posts so much useless, misinformed garbage that when he posts something actually debateable it's hard to take it seriously!

Over here in Texas, USA, cops can literally rob you and it's ok. The items they take (cash jewelry etc) go to Forfeiture Court, where the judge (who gets a percentage) will declare your cash etc forfeit. Then the prosecutor takes his cut, too.

Welcome to fascism. Thanks, liberals!

good analogy. i can see them all body slamming eachother in the congress and then relaxing and smoking cigars with champagne.
politicians are very succesfull at what they try to do. it just theyr not trying to do what the pretend. they are mainly trying to increase their personal wealth. and at that, they are unstoppable.

Kyupol, is that you? You know that double accounts are against forum rules, right?

I've gotta wonder how that specifically ties back to liberals. Surely this isn't what they talked about publicly with whatever movement resulted in this law passing.

that's an oxymoron.Some politicians actually do behave that way. That's not what politics is about though and it definitely doesn't describe them all.

Politics is about governing a community in the interests of a community. The way it works in most countries is that in order to do that you have to make deals and compromises with others who have power- businesses, other politicians etc.

People who become politicians do so for many. many different reasons depending on the person. An idiot like George Bush Jnr did it for status because JB snr held the post, also to further the interests of his ideological clique who believe in making lots of money and furthering the global power of the USA. - and failed at both objectives...
Then there's someone like Tony Blair who was motivated more by idealism- trying to help various groups and make the world a better place. But with the people he had to make compromises and deals with (among them Bush jnr), he ended up achieving the exact same crap that Bush Jnr did.

That sort of negotiation and compromise is what can lead to problems. But it's the only way to govern... mostly. Even kings and emperors who have absolute power also have to govern that way because certain land holders and families always have a large amount of power.
Probably the only departure is some kinds of communist dictatorship (not all by any means), like the old Chairman Mao Chinese model for instance?

FTFY.

In the one story relating to this that I read, it sounded like "the Others" were being targeted by this terribly misused law, and not so much like the police were roaming the town, looking for assets they could seize:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-texas-profiling_wittmar10,0,6051682.story

Of course, that darn "liberal menace" just keeps getting more and more out of control. Next thing you know, the government might actually mandate affordable, comprehensive health care, and taxes on the upper income classes will be almost as high as they were during the Nixon administration!

I can dream, can't I?