statism watch

The ‘Optimum Population Trust’, a privately funded foundation in favour of a ‘voluntary’ two child policy (which, it regrets to inform us, may have to become mandatory, just like in China), releases papers questioning the rights of parents to have children, and generally spends its time decrying the existence of our species on the planet. Mr. Attenborough will be keeping some interesting company in the OPT – Paul Ehrlich, who wrote The Population Bomb in 1969 – and infamously predicted that the world would starve to death somewhere between 1970 and 1985 – is a fellow patron.

Flashback: UK population must fall to 30m: Optimum Population Trust | Useless seniors burdening the state have duty to die: British Baroness | Do Swiss parents need a childrearing licence? | Population control thinktank to Britons: Have less children | The evolution of baby-making

BBC News
April 13, 2009

The broadcaster Sir David Attenborough has become a patron of a group seeking to cut the growth in human population.

On joining the Optimum Population Trust, Sir David said growth in human numbers was “frightening”.

Sir David has been increasingly vocal about the need to reduce the number of people on Earth to protect wildlife.

The Trust, which accuses governments and green groups of observing a taboo on the topic, say they are delighted to have Sir David as a patron.

Fraught area

Sir David, one of the BBC’s longest-standing presenters, has been making documentaries on the natural world and conservation for more than half a century.

In a statement issued by the Optimum Population Trust he is quoted as saying: “I’ve never seen a problem that wouldn’t be easier to solve with fewer people, or harder, and ultimately impossible, with more.”

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Whether or not you agree with this sort of thing, there is no way to get around the fact that it is state-enforced servitude. And that is a direct frontal assault on your right to your own life. The idea is being floated simultaneously in the UK, Canada, the US, and probably elsewhere in the former commonwealth states as well. At the end of this road is the regimentation and militarization of Western culture – all it takes is one generation of indoctrination by ‘National Curriculum’

Flashback: US Senate Rubber Stamps National Enslavement Bill | UK Home Secretary unveils civilian anti-terrorism security force | US Congress passes mandatory national service bill | Time to emulate Roosevelt’s New Deal and create green jobs | New World Order Crony Gary Hart Calls for “Civic Duty” | Justin Trudeau introduces National Voluntary Service motion | US Democrats Introduce Public National Service Bills

Kirsty Walker, Daily Mail
April 13, 2009

Every teenager will have to do at least 50 hours of community work before the age of 19, Gordon Brown has announced.

The Prime Minister believes youngsters would be less likely to turn to crime if they had a sense of citizenship.

The scheme, a form of ‘national service’ for teenagers, will ensure they spend a minimum of 50 hours working with charities and vulnerable groups such as the elderly or disabled.

Forming part of Labour’s next election manifesto, it will be woven into plans to make everyone stay in education or training until the age of 18 by 2011.

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CBC News
April 13, 2009

Villagers in Afghanistan’s Kunar province say an air strike killed six civilians, but officials with the military alliance deny the charge.

The district police chief in the mountain village of Wat Pur said two children, aged three and 10, were among the civilians killed during Monday’s strike, said Reuters.

He said another 16 people were injured and three houses were destroyed.

However, officials with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said as many as eight militants were killed in the strike.

Civilian deaths caused by American or NATO forces have long been a sore point for President Hamid Karzai.

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Who are the terrorists again? Citizens exercising their rights to own firearms? A state’s power is derived from the people, while a disarmed populace is on the road to serfdom. Understand that, even though as Canadians we’ve been trained to fall down convulsing in fear at the mention of a firearm, possession of defensive means is an important check on state power. Forget the propaganda from the media and the controlled opposition (NRA) both.  “Free men have arms, slaves do not.” – William Blackstone

Flashback: Military readies reservists for threats to ‘domestic front’ | Military may patrol bar zone in Barrie | British Secret Service, Army Alert on Bank Riots | US Urban Warfare Drills Linked To Coming Economic Rage | Military and police practice integration during Olympic security exercises | Canadian military getting 1,300 new heavily armoured trucks for ‘domestic use’ | Army ‘Strategic Shock’ Report Says Troops May Be Needed To Quell U.S. Civil Unrest | SWAT Teams raiding Amish, Food Co-ops in Rural US | Two More U.S. Military Units Assigned For Homeland Security | Troops in the Streets: Army Brigades Standing By to Assist in Disasters, Help Quell Dissent | Machine Gun-Toting Officers To Patrol NYC Subway | Canada, U.S. agree to use each other’s troops in civil emergencies

Paul Joseph Watson, PrisonPlanet.com
April 13, 2009

Intelligence document says extremist radicals “stockpiling” weapons and ammunition in fear of Obama gun ban

A Department of Homeland Security intelligence assessment equates gun owners with violent terrorists and states that radical extremists are “stockpiling” weapons in fear of an Obama administration gun ban.

This newly uncovered document is just the latest in a long sordid line of training manuals in which the federal government characterizes millions of American citizens as potentially violent terrorists who are a threat to law enforcement.

The document is entitled Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment (PDF link) and was released just a few days ago. The paper is labeled Law Enforcement Sensitive and states, “No portion of the LES information should be released to the media, the general public, or over non-secure Internet servers. Release of this information could adversely affect or jeopardize investigative activities.”

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So Obama’s not for gun bans, and it’s all Internet rumour-monging. And we’re expected to believe this when in 30 seconds you can pull up a list of the gun control legislation quietly working its way through the US legal system?

Flashback: My gun, my right. We’ll see | US Urban Warfare Drills Linked To Coming Economic Rage

Chris McGreal, The Guardian
April 13, 2009

At the Guns and Ammo Warehouse they are reluctant to admit Barack Obama is right about very much. But customers enjoy the thought that his controversial campaign comment, that “bitter” small-town Americans are clinging to their guns, has proved more true than the president could have imagined.

Firearms sales have surged in the six months since Obama’s election as millions of Americans have gone on a buying spree that has stripped gun shops in some parts of the country almost bare of assault weapons and led to a national ammunition shortage.

The FBI says that since November more than seven million people applied for criminal background checks in order to buy weapons, a figure excluding the many more buying at thousands of gun shows in states such as Virginia, without facing any checks.

Gun-shop owners and the National Rifle Association say the surge is driven by worries that Obama is planning to ban many types of firearms and that the deepening economic crisis will fuel a crime wave, as witnessed by the string of mass shootings in the past few weeks.

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