Big Brother Britain

h/t to LRC blog

What the hell is wrong with the UK? That nation is quickly spiralling down into the abyss of totalitarianism, a complete absence of any freedom, even the liberty to buy and sell quick food like chicken and rice. Look at the photo above. When I saw it my first reaction was to laugh out loud, as if I was reading a story in The Onion (which is now nearly needless as a source of satire and parody), but almost immediately after there was anger and sadness. Look at the cops as they stand outside the little Jamaican cafe, violating the basic human right to earn an honest living providing a product or service that people want. Those pawns that wear the uniform of the State may be low on the totem pole of nanny state insanity, but they are no less culpable than the power mad criminals who create such "laws" in the first place, for they are the enforcers of that evil, and the whole panoply of sick, wicked, anti-life, anti-law, and anti-justice edicts that issue forth continuously from the illegitimate monopoly called government. The police rightly earn that disparaging sobriquet, pig.

The action is intended to combat child obesity by reducing the number of shops selling unhealthy fast food near schools and parks.

Said one of the owners of the restaurant: 'It's ridiculous. They just arrived here this morning and told us they were shutting us down. It looks like we are terrorists or something.

'But all we are doing is selling good food. It's not even unhealthy. We sell Jamaican-style rice and peas, and jerk chicken.

'It is not greasy stuff. And we hardly have any schoolchildren in here at all.'

And if you think that's bad, it gets worse. The government in Britain now wants to give the police and "security" services the power to...

snoop on every single communication made by the public with the data then likely to be stored in an enormous national database.

... even text messages and visits to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter would be tracked.

- (source)

If you live in the United Kingdom, say goodbye freedom, hello Big Brother. Unfortunately we in the United States aren't far behind you, but our Bill of Rights does act as a minor check on tyranny. Too bad the Black-Robed Tyrants that insist on calling themselves Federal Judges refuse, for the most part, to uphold and enforce it.