Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Then they came for my beer

Submit to fingerprinting to buy a drink at a bar? Samizdata points out it is happening already, all over England. The  British newspapers report:


Revellers in the Somerset town of Yeovil, often seen as Britain's answer to the Wild West on a Friday and Saturday night, were this weekend getting to grips with a unique scheme which is more science fiction than Wild West. Customers entering the town's six main late-night drinking and dancing joints were being asked to register their personal details, have their photograph taken and submit to a biometric finger scan.

The Guardian added:

The clubs and Avon and Somerset police, who are supporting the scheme, argue that it is not compulsory. Nobody can be forced to give a finger scan, which works by analysing a fingertip's ridges and furrows. However, the clubs admit they will not allow people in if they refuse to take part in the scheme.

Commentary

I remember the complaints that requiring the fingerprinting of visitors entering the US was a Nazi act. And I've since come to think that the danger of tyranny in the West come not so much from the measures we must take to defend against a brutal enemy, but in the subtler peril of giving up our customary rights "for our own good". Samidata has an evocative quote from CS Lewis on the subject.

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

- C.S. Lewis

15 Comments:

Blogger Teresita said...

Just wear gloves and say it is your religious practice never to remove them, like veils are for Muslim chicks.

10/24/2006 06:25:00 PM  
Blogger Db2m said...

Wretchard said, ****And I've since come to think that the danger of tyranny in the West come not so much from the measures we must take to defend against a brutal enemy, but in the subtler peril of giving up our customary rights "for our own good".****

And, of course, the problem boils down to where to draw the line?

At 2 stories, 6, or 110?

10/24/2006 07:02:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

And then they came for my planet. We have to take America's lifestyle away from America for its own good. Put a certain way, even advocating the end of mankind can be put tastefully.

"If everyone around the world lived as those in America, we would need five planets to support us," Leape, an American, said in Beijing. "On current projections humanity, will be using two planets' worth of natural resources by 2050 -- if those resources have not run out by then," the latest report said. (Reuters/Yahoo)

10/24/2006 07:27:00 PM  
Blogger Meme chose said...

It's much worse than you think in England, because what you can legally do in any building in the land is already strictly regulated and for the most part prohibited by land use and planning regulations. Also the British climate doesn't work for outside activities much of the year, so young people have literally no alternative venues they can legally congregate in.

This is yet another symptom of encroaching gerontocracy. Old people make the rules, and they find they can somehow never get enough of rules which restrict the activities of young people.

Meanwhile an unintended consequence is that they split the country into two 'zones' - the areas occupied mostly by immigrants, surrounded by the sharp barbs of multicultural privilege which any official engages at the peril of their job, increasingly feature the reverse: no enforceable rules at all.

10/24/2006 07:39:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Meme chose harps, but still others go pale and heads ale when they see how draughting a stout measure like this fosters less than beamish behavior and becks drinkers to feel bitter and barley free in ye olde England.

10/24/2006 08:19:00 PM  
Blogger Teresita said...

Meanwhile an unintended consequence is that they split the country into two 'zones' - the areas occupied mostly by immigrants, surrounded by the sharp barbs of multicultural privilege which any official engages at the peril of their job, increasingly feature the reverse: no enforceable rules at all.

Well, when it gets really bad in Old Blighty they can go to Pakistan or something. I sure as sheet don't want the ingrates coming here to America.

10/24/2006 08:50:00 PM  
Blogger 3Case said...

"...but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."


3Case's 3 Rules of Government:

1. The Hall Mointors are in charge.
2. The Hall Monitors are corrupt.
3. The Hall Monitors do not know they are corrupt.


"I did not have sexual relations with that woman...."

10/24/2006 09:36:00 PM  
Blogger Pascal said...

Wretchard, 07:27:27 PM.

Yes. And the drum beat pace is increasing. Yours too I see. Thank you.

10/24/2006 10:04:00 PM  
Blogger tckurd said...

I must be at the wrong site. This morning I woke up to see Wretchard post that he's worried about Western tyranny through the misuse of
'defending the population,"

but even worse, he's started using that new Hippy Math as it relates to the cult of environmentalism. (And you thought Greenpeace was just a fun activities club.)

My favorite quote from that hunk of crap passing as urinal literature, paraphrased,

was at the point we were using 25% more capacity than already available since 2003. Now, in Hippy Math, if you overshoot capacity by 25% each year for 4 years, it still takes 43 more years to need 100% more than the planet can provide.

Ok, but if you've overshot capacity since 2003, wouldn't we be at 3/4 of the way though consuming the entire planet? I rode in one of those fancy aereoplanes back in July - flew all the way up the East Coast of the US - saw lots of farms and greenery - not the locust scowered surface the Hippsters imply is left. I mean I expected nothing but dirt left based on this article.

What have you people done with Wretchard?

It's harder now than ever to be a conservative. Requires some sort of secular faith, I heard someone say recently.

Might as well start growsing as a libertarian (the chosen party of lifetime Whiners and Complainers), or worse start throwing around Liberal slogans. Might be able to get the multiculti audience.

Don't you people know there's good money to be made at Tradesports betting that the GOP will retain the House? Oh thats right, you voted AGAINST internet gambling. But I'll bet you'll go there to see who's gonna win.

10/25/2006 04:26:00 AM  
Blogger 49erDweet said...

Well poured, mugged.

10/25/2006 06:12:00 AM  
Blogger StoutFellow said...

From Wretchard's link
The average Australian used 6.6 "global" hectares to support their developed lifestyle, ranking behind the United States and Canada, but ahead of the United Kingdom, Russia, China and Japan.
"If the rest of the world led the kind of lifestyles we do here in Australia, we would require three-and-a-half planets to provide the resources we use and to absorb the waste," said Greg Bourne, WWF-Australia chief executive officer.


Gee Wretchard, you Aussies are hogging almost as much resources as the evil Americans.

Here's a modest proposal to solve the problem:
1) Outlaw the production and use of all anti-bacterial and anti-viral drugs. 2) Setup a special UN committee to study the governing methods of those who require only a tiny ecological footprint. Good starting places might be Darfur and the Taliban controlled areas along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. Also, North Korea for their admirable management of electrical energy consumption.

10/25/2006 06:58:00 AM  
Blogger Paul said...

Yes, but first they come for your cigarettes!

10/25/2006 08:55:00 AM  
Blogger Cosmo said...

"If everyone around the world lived as those in America, we would need five planets to support us,"

Yeah, well, if everyone around the world was as productive as those in America, people on this planet would be many times richer.

I get tired of such trite, sackcloth and ashes exhibitionism.

People who moan on about the U.S. consuming 1/4 the world's energy or producing 1/4 the world's garbage never bother to complete the equation.

The U.S. generates around 1/3 of the planet's economic activity -- activity upon which tens of millions around the world, particularly in developing countries which the terminally concerned claim to care so much about, are utterly dependent.

Self-appointed arbiters of morality see an American maxing out the plastic at Wal-Mart as greedy and wasteful, while some worker in Guangdong province sees it as his future.

Ethics with all the fortitude of a hothouse flower.

10/25/2006 01:10:00 PM  
Blogger Baillie said...

‘What’s all this?’ said Frodo, feeling inclined to laugh.

‘This is what it is, Mr. Baggins,’ said the leader of the Shirrifs, a two-feather hobbit: ‘You’re arrested for Gate-breaking, and Tearing up of Rules, and Assaulting Gate-keepers, and Trespassing, and Sleeping in Shire-buildings without Leave, and Bribing Guards with Food.’

10/25/2006 03:21:00 PM  
Blogger Mike H. said...

I think that you're right Wretchard, the intrusion bothers me too. The one thing that is positive out of this mess is that they are in the self extinguishing mode. After a certain number of drinks all of their customers will commit some faux pas. It's sorta stupid, they make money off the drunks and they don't like the drunks.

They could take the market approach and raise the price of a drink and cut the amount of alcohol. Then they wouldn't have the fights.

10/25/2006 04:55:00 PM  

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