Be safe, be secure

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Our safety and security first and foremost is down to each and every one of us ourselves and we must get that message across to the governments also and we must take responsibility for it (and be allowed to do so).

People, however, have abdicated their own responsibilities to the government, local and central, and ask for more and more liberties to be taken away from them so that they can feel safer.

Crime prevention is the job of each and every one of us and should not be farmed out to some agency. It used to be that way. The law and its enforcers should only come in as a last resort.

That means that we must deny any potential thief or burglar the opportunity to commit a crime against us and the same goes as far as attacks, such as robberies and muggings are concerned.

Walking about town and country with earplugs in and listening to an MP3 player or iPod not for safety makes. In fact it makes you vulnerable as you are no longer (fully) aware of your surroundings and any potential attacker realizes that as well.

After the leaks, in June 2013, about the NSA and FBI, even in the UK (and elsewhere), spying on people using the Internet the President of the USA, Barack Hussein Obama, states that in order to have the security required people have to be prepared to give up (some of) their freedoms. That is how the powers-that-be have gotten to us already in that people have, as said, abdicated more and more of their freedoms to the governments because they, the people, are not prepared to be responsible for their own security and safety. Not that many governments will even permit that anymore.

In a ruling some years back the US Supreme Court stated that it is not the job of the police to prevent crime but that it is the police's job to enforce the law and this is more and more the case, done by methods the Nazis would have been proud of.

So, if crime prevention is not the task then why the CCTV and all that jazz which is supposedly there to fight crime? Because all that surveillance stuff is only there so they can spy on the people.

In a statement a US official said that they are not using CCTV and other methods to spy on all American but only on anti-government Americans. And how precisely are the cameras and other electronic eavesdropping devices distinguish between a “good” and a “bad” American? Think, people, think. Government does not have our safety and security at heart with all those measures but the total control of the people.

The protection of ourselves and that of our loved ones rests with us and we must wrest the powers back from the governments in order to be able to provide for ourselves in this, and other, departments.

The state is not our friend when it comes to safety and security; the opposite rather. More and more the state is reducing our own ability to defend ourselves more and more under the guise of needing to provide security and safety for all, by more and more methods of control over the means at our disposal.

A people who can, and who are prepared to, take care of themselves are a threat to the powers-that-be, that is to say the state and those that rule from behind the smokescreen, and it is for that reason that any attempt of the people to do things for themselves is being undermined.

A free people have the right and the duty to defend themselves and to look after their own affairs without anyone lording it over them. However, the people themselves, in the majority, have abdicated their rights to the governments by demanding more and more protection which they, the people, are not prepared to provide for themselves and thus we have all those restrictions to our liberties that we have no, with more of them in the offing.

In Britain self-defense has more or less become a thing of the past and people are told to call the police rather than to take actions themselves. In fact, defending against an attacker or burglar, who then may end up getting injured, could land the victim in jail rather than the perpetrator and this is purely and simply wrong.

While the law states one thing the interpretation of it by the prosecuting authorities and the judges more often than not is a different thing altogether.

Theoretically civilians can defend themselves and even arrest, by use of restraints, such as handcuffs even, a criminal, the practice often is very different indeed with the victim having to defend his or her action rather than the perpetrator being taken in, no questions asked.

Going prepared for defense is seen as carrying offensive weapons, even if this is just a stick or cudgel though there was a time when this was the way everyone went about their business in Britain, including in the cities. The cudgel was a common accoutrement of the gentleman and trader and it was the same in the countryside where every man and boy did carry such as defensive tool and it was accepted that this was the case.

City areas where patrolled, even when the police was already established, by vigilance committees, armed with cudgels, in order to provide security for residents and most able males were enrolled in such committees. What is more, it worked. Then the powers-that-be decided that it was the job of the police, and only of the police, to provide security for people and ever since then we have had problems.

It is up to each and everyone of us to do what is right and to claim back our powers that rightfully belong to us.

© 2013

FREEDOM IS NOT FREE!

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Freedom, yours and mine, is not free, even though the word free freely forms part of it. Far from it.

Freedom comes at a high cost in effort and sweat and often in blood and hast to be fought for tooth and nail and that time and time again.

At this very moment in Europe we are on the best way of loosing many freedoms that were hard fought for during World War Two against the Nazis and the first country in line trying to – once again – abolish them and demanding that they be demolished all over the EU, is... and you guessed it right, Germany.

All across the European Union freedom is under attack.

Already a year or two ago the German government instigated the “Bundestrojaner” (Federal Trojan) with which they, legally, can infiltrate anyone's computer and not just discover what an individual (or organization) has on the computer. Nay, they can even alter, destroy, remove or substitute files, folders and programs, and all written into the appropriate laws.

Germany would like to have the entire EU adopt such measures in the same way as it is Germany, and one or two other EU member states, who presses for the introduction of “Vorratsdatenspeicherung”, which means the retaining of all Internet data for individuals and companies via their service providers for several years. And this includes every email, every website visited, every contact made via social networks and every post, etc.

France and Italy have enacted laws against (foreign) Gypsies on their soil and rumor has it, via a number of Russian news agencies, that the EU has been or is in discussions with the government of the Russian Federation (and the Ukraine) to take all of Europe's Gypsies. It would appear that the EU would like to ethnically cleanse its member states of the Romani People.

Now, after the attack by a right-wing extremist in Norway the German government once again in the forefront calls for restrictions to the Internet use and for total surveillance of where people go, what they do, etc.

Italy already tried to, basically, outlaw Bloggers some two years or so ago when it dug up the old postwar law that made it illegal for all but government-approved journalists and newspapers to be reporting and writing news and editorial pieces and, according to the government a Blog was, therefore, an unauthorized newspaper and thus illegal. When governments head into that direction we know they are running scared of the people, in the same way when they try to disarm the citizenry.

Freedom is not free and we must always fight to retain our freedoms but too many have decided that they would like to have more security and as soon as that demand is made freedoms go out of the window.

Demands for more security and “peace of mind” to governments always seem to be a license – or so at least they see it – to put in more and more surveillance and more and more restrictions to freedoms until those freedoms, hard fought for, no longer exist. Then it is too late.

We must demand from the governments not more security but the right to defend ourselves against those that may wish us harm and those that wish to steal from us, and those that wish to destroy our freedoms. But, alas, too many people are not prepared to think and do for themselves. They want their governments to think and do for them. After all, they say, that is what they pay taxes for; to have everything done for them.

Do not sacrifice freedoms for peace of mind and an illusion of security. Fight your own fights and demand the right to defend yourself and your own neighbourhoods. The police always is reactive anyway. We must be proactive and also proactive as far as our freedoms go.

© 2011