Hitler in the 21st century

lucky ... i find the more effort and though you put in the "luckier" you become ....as to affording to move .. as i said before .. we moved to a smaller house .. we downgraded one aspect to improve another.. in fact living costs are about the same as to make no difference ... and we planed and economised and save to cover the costs of moving ... its all about what you want .. more time at home in a leesr house or a 2 hour hell driver each day and snazzier house .... life style choices ... btw my hell drive was not due to speed lowering measures just volume of traffic ...may be thats a answer quadruple the number of cars then the congestion will slow them all to what is it 7-10 mph in most busy town/city centers ...clearly you are trapped in your current lifestyle , for many , reasons , so to you more speed control is a unbareable addition , but please do try to thing of the rest of us sometimes .....do remeber that the growth in car travel national heck globally has been unplaned and uncontrolled , historically we have just added more roads and roads that let the cars go faster , i mean we have destroyed houses and shops ect to clear space for new roads , now for the first time we are looking at a wider picture , trying to make the car fit in with everyones need ..so the peterolheads ( an affectionate term i might add ) are on the lossing side for once , but hopefully a better life balance for all can be found ... but like all change some one will feel put out , but try looking from bothsides .. and just like road building plans , no one is giong to get the new plans right every time ....Edited by ikabod, : rewording

Would you say to someone who's being racially abused "you can stay here and receive the abuse or you can move somewhere else"?
Would you say the same thing to someone who's discriminated against because of their religion or sex?Intimidating people into moving out because of their race/religion/colour is called ethnic cleansing. Doing the same thing to someone because of their need to drive a car is called "lifestyle choices". It's a funny old world isn' it ? yes, just volume of traffic caused by ridiculously low speed limits, speed bumps, road narrowing, bus lanes, and other 'traffic calming' measures. They sure calmed you down. Well, it seems the authorities are taking your advice to heart, because that's exactly what they're doing.Then, they'll use the congestion that they created to impose....congestion charges! It all fits in quite beautifully, don't you think? Extreme speed control is an unnecessary addition. Only if you extend the same courtesy to me. No we're not, we're looking at ideology and the politics of self-righteousness. No we're not. We're trying to make the car fit in with the small, vocal, self-righteous minority's need. Getting it wrong once is bad luck. Getting it wrong twice is stupidity. Getting it wrong every single time is a well executed plan.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the bug and some days you'll be the windscreen."

********* Please take this in nthe spirit is writen .. it is not a personal insult , its a considered responce to HOW vyou are trying to make your argument ****************************************************************************......you do realize you a guilty of the same crime as those.. you flame ... you say they just shout out "what about the kids" to stop people answering back ... and what do you do .. you invoke the fear of the Nais and Hitler .. you compare speed bump to ...you have ended up becoming what you are protesting about ... dont sink to there level .. keep your debate clean and focused ...take them on with logic and truth ...to someone who has seen ethnic cleansing in reality you just come across as a fool .....clearly this debate is going nowhere and is in risk of becoming a argument of no value , so i will absent myself from it until it refocuses ..... Edited by ikabod, : rewording

The huge difference being that I'm not trying to shout other people down or shame/guilt them into accepting my opinion. I'm using clear, logical arguments to highlight the practical effects our authoritarian traffic policy has on people and expose the lies and propaganda we're fed in order to accept this policy. No, I don't. Read what I write not what you think I write. I highlighted the hypocricy of tolerating certain types of intimidation and not others.If a person is racially or sexually harassed, noone would dare to suggest that they should move away from the area where they, their family and friends live in order to end the harassment. If this person is a motorist however and the harassment is state-sponsored that, somehow, makes it ok.Bullying people out of their homes/area in the name of some ideology should be unacceptable, regardless of the victims' race, sexual orientation, religion or chosen mode of transport.P.S The debate was focused on the negative effects of our totalitarian traffic policy and the absence of its alleged benefits but you ignored it and chose to go down the "if you don't like it, move out" route.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the bug and some days you'll be the windscreen."

The obvious difference is that all motorists are treated equally."Harassment" implies of somebody, by somebody. In the case of traffic regulations, it's the community deciding what's good for the community. No discrimination, no harassment.

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All motorists are equally discriminated against, yes.On second thoughts, the ones with one or more 'speeding' convictions are forced to pay higher insurance premiums, so I suppose some of us are discriminated against more than others. Yes, harassment of the motorists by a loud, self-righteous, minority through state laws. Oh...bless.. you're making me laugh... The statement above is correct only if by community you mean the small, like-minded set of parish councillors who meet every so often to decide what's best for the rest of us.The real community only learns of these decisions when the new, lower, speed-limit signs are erected on the side of the road. That's when everybody wonders "WTF did they do that for?"That's what a particular community thinks of the traffic-calming measures and their impact on their lives:

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the bug and some days you'll be the windscreen."

The trouble is, you haven't shown that any of that is true.You haven't shown that the traffic regulations are unjustified for safety reasons. You haven't shown that the public has been tricked/coerced into accepting them. You haven't shown actions by a minority against the majority.You haven't shown harassment. You haven't shown self-righteousness on anybody's part but your own.All you've shown is your own contempt for the democratic process.

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Just because you refuse to accept something doesn't mean I haven't shown it. You must have missed the posts where I displayed the data that demonstrates that the last decade of 'traffic-calming' regulations had negligible effect on road casualties. Try reading through Message 80 again, if you're interested. I've shown you the slogans thrusted upon us day and night through tv and radio ("speed kills", "safety cameras", etc)
I've shown you real-life cases where people attribute any and all accidents to speed -regardless of what actually happened- and demand the govenrnment-proposed solution for their safety without even considering any alternatives. Which is exactly the expected effect of the constant propaganda.I mean, what else do you want to see? I've never attended a "brainwashing 101" course but I'd expect the above to be in the core syllabus. Only in my last post I said :

quote:

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...only if by community you mean the small, like-minded set of parish councillors who meet every so often to decide what's best for the rest of us.

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Traffic policy in the UK is decided by a small minority of people with moral, political and financial motivations:1) Local councils will campaign for traffic measures, after small, badly publicised, meetings where opposition is drowned out with emotional, self-righteous arguments, as happened in my case.
2) Local highway authorities -acting under government guidelines- will consider these measures and possibly request police consultation. As a proportion of the enforcement fines go into police coffers, the police will push for as low speed limits as they can, as this will guarantee them a good revenue, even paying for their Xmas parties.
3) The highway authorities will apply the measures by making an order under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. The order must be publicised for people to potentially raise objections. The minimum publicity requirements -and the ones that are nearly always taken- are: i) Small-font notice on non-free local newspaper, ii) on-site notice.Even the people who buy the newspaper won't always spot the notice and the on-site notice consists of an A4 piece of paper stapled to a tree, which is practically impossible to read as you drive by. Furthermore, you have no easy way of finding out about measures outside your local area but which still may affect you, e.g. at the area where you work.To summarize, the general public aren't properly consulted and are given very little chance to object. So far, I've excused your ignorance as you don't live in Britain. I have now shown you the way things work here.Can you show me, in the process I described above, where is this democratic process that I allegedly despise?

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the bug and some days you'll be the windscreen."

No. The effectiveness if the regulations is irrelevant. Whether or not there has been any effect on road casualties, you haven't shown that anybody was fooled, propagandized, etc. into accepting those regulations. "Real-life cases" are irrelevant. You could probably find real-life cases of people who vote the way the Martians tell them to vote. That doesn't indicate that the overall vote is effected by individual "real-life cases". Irrelevant. I could say that I expect the sun to rise tomorrow if I watch Big Brother tonight. Whaddya know, watching Big Brother causes the sun to rise.Show cause and effect. As you detailed yourself, there certainly is a consultation process. The public failing to inform itself doesn't constitute a propaganda campaign on the part of the government.(You see a lot more consultation over traffic regualtions than about most issues.) Things have worked here in a similar way for a long, long time - say, since the 1920s. That's hardly a crisis situation or even a minor revelation. In the election of the councillors and in the consultations.Edited by Ringo, : Added second "in" to last line for clarity.Edited by Ringo, : Spellings.

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No, the effectiveness of the regulations isn't irrelevant, because only in your previous post you said: To which I responded, as above. So you can't now change your mind and say it's irrelevant. Modern traffic regulations in Britain are unjustified for safety reasons. Real-life cases demonstrate the effect of propaganda and brainwashing. Just like real-life cases in Nazi Germany help to demonstrate the effect of anti-Jewish propaganda. I have. Repeatedly. You just choose to ignore it. Here goes one more time,
Cause: Constant indoctrination that "speed kills" and that cameras and speed bumps are there for our safety.
Predicted Effect 1: People will attribute fatal accidents to speed, even without sufficient knowledge of the circumstances.
Predicted Effect 2: People will demand more anti-speed measures in order to feel more safe.
Observed Effects: exactly as 1 & 2 above. Now you're just being silly. Watching Big Brother has no predictive value. Other than perhaps making one dumber. Furthermore, we already know the cause of sunrise.Propaganda campaigns have predictive and measurable value. We can see how effective they are by observing people's behaviour. Why is this so difficult for you to accept ? A nominal one. Which I already showed is designed so as to involve as few people as possible. And I never said that it did. The propaganda campaign is there to influence the nominal consultation process, not as its side-effect. And as long as no authoritarian measures are being taken, then there's not much to worry about, despite the flaws in the process.It's just that in this country, in the last few years, this process has been used to apply measures that are unfair, unreasonable and unjust. Measures that cost people their livelihoods, freedom of movement and quality of life. I've already showed you that the consultation is for decor only, designed to involve as few people as possible. And noone has elected the traffic engineers, highway officers and policemen who ultimately decide what measures should be taken. So your only valid point would be the elected local councillors. But as I've already told you before, naming a certain Adolf as an example, being a democratically elected representative doesn't preclude one from being a fascist. When they put their own morality and ideology above the common good then they're no better than any dictator, democratically elected or not.In a nutshell, your argument comes down to this: anyone who opposes decisions and laws passed by their elected representatives, no matter how ridiculous or dangerous they might be, shows contempt for democracy.Maybe you should be saying this to any surviving Germans who opposed the Nuremberg Laws. Yes, maybe you should lambast those bitter democracy-haters, how dare they oppose laws that their elected representatives voted for!I hope you now realize how absurd your argument is and retract your statement about my showing contempt for the democratic process. I yearn for democratic processes, if only we had one...

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the bug and some days you'll be the windscreen."

Fair enough. It's possible that some of the regulations may not be justified for safety reasons alone. However, it's still irrelevant to the topic. You've been claiming that propaganda tactics have been used to fool the people into accepting the regulations. You haven't shown that. Real life cases only illustrate, they don't indicate. Again, you can't use individual examples to "prove" a trend. You have to show evidence of a trend. Your "Predicted Effect 1" begs the question. You're assuming that people are indoctrinated.Your "Predicted Effect 2" contradicts your notion that people are being led down the garden path. Who's leading who?And both "predictions" are after the fact, so not real "predictions" at all. Only the propagandist can assess the effectiveness of his campaign.You're claiming that there is a propaganda campaign without showing any evidence of it. You're claiming to predict the outcome without specifying any clear motive for the campaign. And you're claiming that your "predictions" are accurate without knowing what the desired outcome was supposed to be. Again, you have no possible knowledge that the consultation project was "designed" for any such purpose. (Are you familiar with the concept of "illusion of design"?) Exactly.There have been flaws in the process from Day One. Some flaws have been ironed out and, no doubt, some new flaws get introduced from time to time. It's an on-going process. You make it sound like slavery. Oh, wait, it was the same process that did away with slavery, wasn't it? No you haven't. You've made an empty claim. And again, a point that you've ignored repeatedly: When your local Nazis start running openly for council and being elected en masse and when the people willingly accept the mayor as their Fuehrer, you'll have a point. So far, you're just crying "Wolf!" No. In a nutshell, my argument comes down to this: anyone who claims that all the other voters made their choices because they were fooled by propaganda, shows contempt for his fellow voters. Anyone who thinks that the process is "designed" to exclude people from the process has contempt for the process. You have it backwards. The Nazis were the democracy-haters and the German majority who elected them were democracy-haters too. They only made use of democracy to destroy democracy. You yearn for a process that never was. Rebel without a clue.

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Legend -I haven't answered your last post to me mostly because of constraints on my time lately, but partly because I don't see how I can begin to reply to you. I concede the point that some of the traffic measures you say are being imposed in the UK may very well be unfair or not very well thought out and may not even work (hopefully the ones which don't work are weeded out in the future), but I don't think it is a systematic, planned, nefarious campaign to take away the rights of drivers or a significant part of the larger pattern of stripping away our rights (driving is not a right).That said, I do see your overall point. I have been doing a lot of research this past year into various forms of authoritarianism and the current events which suggest a movement in that direction and I am writing a dystopian style novel depicting an authoritarian theocratic regime in the US. So, I have connected a lot of dots, but I have also learned to distinguish between the real dots and the imaginary, hyped up or at the very least not very pressing or relevant ones. Ringo is right, IMO, to say that you are "crying wolf." Raving like a lunatic about perceived slights on your liberty to drive the way you (and apparently many others) feel is safe and responsible and comparing safe driving propaganda to anti-Jewish, Nazi propaganda distracts people from the larger issues we are facing in our respective countries.It is OK to feel bitter about having to drive slower and to speak out against lazy thinking on the part of the voters and their elected officials (who are probably influenced by a citizens group in turn), but to draw such extreme parallels usually just makes people roll their eyes and ignore your larger point. I remember you having a larger point, but just look where comparing traffic laws to Nazism got you. Nowhere.I, sadly, fell for it, too and when I have more time maybe you and I can discuss the more important issues at hand, which I believe do stink of fascism.

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"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." -The Iron Heel by Jack London

I can see the trend myself, as I can compare community reactions to accidents 20 years ago to present day reactions. I can dig up maybe a dozen recent cases where accidents cause the same, knee-jerk reaction. Would that be enough for you? How many would constitute "evidence of a trend" to you?

quote:

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Cause: Constant indoctrination that "speed kills" and that cameras and speed bumps are there for our safety.
Predicted Effect 1: People will attribute fatal accidents to speed, even without sufficient knowledge of the circumstances.
Predicted Effect 2: People will demand more anti-speed measures in order to feel more safe.
Observed Effects: exactly as 1 & 2 above.

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How so? The 'normal' reaction to an accident would be to first to establish its cause and second see if you can prevent it. The current reaction is to assume that it was speed-related and demand anti-speed measures. The current bombardment of anti-speed logos has exactly this expected effect.if you keep telling people that speed causes most accidents then they'll attribute most accidents to speed irrespective of the real causes. How's that not making sense ?! Not following you. If you keep telling people that speed bumps are there for their safety, they'll demand more of them each time they feel unsafe. How's that not making sense ?! True, they're more of post-hoc rationalizations. Still valid, though. They're the expected outcome of the observed propaganda. That's demonstrably false. If that was the case, the only way to assess German or Soviet propaganda effectiveness would be to look at Goebbels/Stalin's manuscripts. Instead, we can easily tell the effects but looking at the change in people's behaviour, both in Germany and the Soviet Union. I've told you many times before, tune in to any British public radio/tv station and start counting the slogans. Don't take my word for it, see for yourself. I've repeatedly stated that the government is trying to criminalize and control people while making some extra money on the side. I've shown you the why and the how. Do I need to change the typeface or something, for you to notice ? We can infer the desired outcome based on the overall policy and other actions of the government, just like we've done in Nazi Germany, Soviet Union and other regimes with big propaganda drives. I don't think Goebbels ever wrote down exactly what he was trying to achieve by the 'Jews as vermin' films he was making, but we can take an educated guess based on his and his regime's actions, don't you think ? Ok, I don't know if it was "designed" to exclude people or if it just happened by accident. The fact remains that it does exclude the majority of people. First off, I'm not claiming that people voted for someone/something because they were fooled by propaganda. I'm claiming that they are accepting certain authoritarian measures partly because they're fooled by propaganda and partly because they're intimidated by it and by the vocal, self-righteous minority.And if by claiming this I'm accused of showing contempt for fellow voters, that sounds to me like just another way to intimidate/shame anyone who points out something different to the 'accepted' opinion. Not very democratic altogether. Absolutely. Any process that excludes people from decisions that directly affect them is authoritarian and should be shown contempt. You only have to look at Athens 2500 years ago. All citizens voted daily on all the issues. You may have a clue but you seem to be lacking historical knowledge. Looking at 1930s Germany and 5th century BC Athens it's not hard to tell which one we're closer to and which one we're miles away from.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the bug and some days you'll be the windscreen."

Of course not. Where's the correlation between the claimed "knee-jerk reaction" and acceptance of new traffic regulations?Of course people are going to have a certain reaction to traffic accidents. It's human nature to try to figure out The Cause™ and eliminate it.What you haven't shown is that that knee-jerk reaction has any effect on people's long-term willingness to accept more stringent ("draconian") regulations. What you're missing is that there is no guarantee that people will come up with the "right" answer - with or without government "propaganda". Even if the "speed kills" message is wrong, you can't assume that people are swallowing it hook, line and sinker. Over here, at least, a lot of people will reject a message just because it comes from the government. It ignores the fact that people think for themselves. Again, you're assuming that people swallow government propaganda without evaluating it.And you really need to learn to be more precise with your language. Make up your mind whether people are demanding more speed bumps or having them shoved down their throats. They're indications of confirmation bias. The change in people's behaviour is meaningless without information on what caused it. The only way you know that Goebbels' propaganda worked is because you know what he hoped to achieve - compliance of the German people, acceptance of hardships caused by the war, etc.You're claiming a propaganda campaign on the part of the British government without any knowledge of the supposed goal. What compliance are they trying to achieve and why? What is the British government planning on doing that requires compliance? And what's your evidence? Since when is "see for yourself" evidence? Go and look at the Grand Canyon. You can see for yourself that it's only 6000 years old.How about presenting some evidence? For a start, you could show us how many traffic-related slogans the British government broadcasts and compare that to other governments around the world. Then you could compare the results in the different countries. So, what is the desired outcome? Is Britain planning on invading Poland? As I've said before, Goebbels had no need to convince anybody that the Jews were vermin. The German people, and most people in general, already believed that. He needed to convince the German people that solving the "Jewish problem" was reason enough for them to send their sons off to war, to endure starvation, bombing, etc.Similarly, the British government has no need to convince anybody that speed kills. People already believe that, whether it's true or not. If they are using a propaganda campaign, what's the underlying motive? No, that's still not a fact, no matter how many times you repeat it.Some people aren't interested. Some people don't bother to find out about the meetings. Some people put a higher priority on other things.Those people exclude themselves.The thing about democracy is that you can't force people to participate. That's one reason why we elect representatives to participate for us.The oppurtunity for direct participation is still there, even if we don't always get our way. A measure isn't "authoritarian" just because you don't like it, and especially not when it's brought in by elected representatives. And if people are intimidated by a vocal minority, that's their problem, not he government's. Clearly, you don't know what "authoritarian" means. That example would be a lot more impressive if women and slaves had had the vote. Since nobody had a vote in Nazi Germany, we're obviously closer to ancient Athens, though far ahead of them in many ways.Edited by Ringo, : Changed tense for clarity.Edited by Ringo, : Pluralized "women". Who knew there were so many of them?

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And looking at it only from the traffic regulations point of view, you'd be right in saying so. It's only when you start to observe the wider set of rules, laws and regulations that you start to discern patterns of regulatory behaviour. Like the traffic laws, many of these other laws are grossly oppressive and non-sensical and have no practical impact on the problems they're intended to solve.In the last ten years alone, the government has legislated more than 3000 new offences, that's about one new crime invented every day! The 'crimes' range from the petty ones like "selling grey squirels" or "failing to nominate a neighbour to turn off your noisy burglar alarm", to the hugely vague and open-ended ones like the recent anti-terrorist laws. Furthermore, even more worryingly, is the creation of thought crimes like the "not betraying a family member's terrorist activities" or the proposed anti-sadomasochistic sex sites regulations. I used to read about thought crimes in Orwell's '1984' and dismiss them as science fiction but now they are real and part of our everyday lives. All for our 'own protection' of course!The main pattern emerging out of all this is the establishment's desire to control and micro-manage every aspect of the citizen's lives. The traffic laws and enforcement I've been 'whinging' about in this thread are but a small facet of this pattern.The 'modus operandi' can also easily be discerned:1) Relinquishing individual responsibility to the state - Observed by the thousands of micro-managing laws, from banning smacking children to controlling the speed you're travelling at, the message is clear: "the state knows better than you, so let it manage your life for you, there is no need for you to think or make decisions!".The myriad of Health and Safety regulations are but a fine example of how every aspect of one's life falls under some petty rule or regulation, it's all for 'Health & Safety' you understand. Traffic management too, you don't need to look after your child's safety, that's what 'safety cameras' are there for!The criminal justice system also reflects this methodology. Everyone is a 'victim', noone is responsible for their own actions, only for someone else's. If I trip and fall it's not because I wasn't looking at where I was going, it's the council's fault for not straightening the pavestone. If, however, a drunken idiot in a kilt jumps out on the bonnet of my car (as happened a few yrs ago) it's my responsibility because I was driving a 'lethal weapon' and he was only wearing a kilt!2) Criminalisation of people and creation of climate of fear - I've already explained how this is achieved by oppressive 'traffic-calming' but for the non-driving public there are also the new anti-terrorist laws, suspension of habeas corpus, blanket surveillance, DNA collection from all and many, many others (also see criminal justice system paragraph above).3) Suppression of free speech - I'm not allowed to call my black colleagues 'black', my old colleagues 'old' and my pretty colleagues 'pretty'. There are dozens of no-free-speech laws coming under an 'anti-racist', 'anti-sexist', 'anti-something' cover. Let's not forget the "incitement to terrorism" laws, which would probably cover this post as it could be seen by someone as incitement to terrorism, it's just that vague. We also have the self-righteous brigade ready to drown out any voices opposing the holy causes, e.g. traffic calming, health and safety, equal opportunities, environment et al.So, please don't rush to dismiss my traffic regulations case in point as an exaggeration, it's just one small aspect of a very worrying trend that's only getting worse. We're not Nazi Germany yet, hopefully we'll never be, but let's just make sure this never happens.Like any good shepherd will tell you: start calling help as soon as you see the wolf approaching, for when he is upon you it will be too late.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the bug and some days you'll be the windscreen."