One of Britain’s greatest gifts to the world is our part in developing the philosophy of liberty and freedom under the law. From both good causes (the British colonists’ exportation of education, debate and free thinking to the colonies) and ill (the spur to freedom given by overweening, unrepresentative government), that development played a great part in the thinking and philosophy of the founding fathers of the United States. A direct line can be drawn from Magna Carta to the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Sensible Britons are proud of that and of America’s development of and championing of those freedoms.

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There is scope for debate – and innumerable newspaper quizzes – about who was the most influential public figure of the year, or which the most significant event. But there can be little doubt which word won the prize for most important adjective. 2009 was the year in which “global” swept the rest of the political lexicon into obscurity. There were “global crises” and “global challenges”, the only possible resolution to which lay in “global solutions” necessitating “global agreements”. Gordon Brown actually suggested something called a “global alliance” in response to climate change. (Would this be an alliance against the Axis of Extra-Terrestrials?)

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Rookie Democratic congressmen are reportedly afraid that Obama will stubbornly press ahead with his unpopular plans for Health Reform, even if they, his unwilling Kamikazes, get voted out of office in 2010 as a result.  As a dedicated Obama watcher, I for one am not surprised by this development. In fact, I am now betting even money that our president is not particularly concerned about his own re-election in 2012, and that he will enact as many of his programs in health reform, energy conservation, arms reduction and income redistribution as he can before his current term expires, and then try for higher goals. My hunch is that he is already getting restless in his present job, and that he seeks a promotion to an even greater status.

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When George Orwell wrote 1984, he probably never imagined that society would actually become that oppressive. Yet in some nations of the world it has. In fact, in nations such as the U.K., “Big Brother” controls have now been implemented that are so bizarre that Orwell could not have possibly envisioned them during the time in which he lived. The most intimate and personal details of the lives of millions of people in the U.K. are tightly monitored and controlled by a technocracy that would have been unimaginable just a few decades ago. The following are some signs that the U.K. has now become one of the most controlling Big Brother societies on earth…..

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To Democrats, there are only two categories into which fit all places, people and things.  There are those inside of government and those outside. If something is inside, it needs to be nurtured, protected and subsidized.  If something is outside, it needs to be regulated and taxed.

 (And, please, no e-mails about the US military. Liberals see it as an illegitimate appendix to government and treat it accordingly.)

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The European Union is spending millions of pounds developing “Orwellian” technologies designed to scour the internet and CCTV images for “abnormal behaviour”.

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In George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel 1984, government propaganda constantly says: Big Brother is watching you.

In Britain today, he certainly is. Britain has 1% of the world’s population but about 20% of the world’s CCTV cameras; there is at least one camera for every 14 people in the country (and that’s an old statistic). Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) does exactly as the name suggests — logs the registration of vehicles on motorways via a series of cameras, so the state can recognise, log and retain information on the trips we undertake.

Recently, a friend of mine stopped his car in a deserted street to drop off his girlfriend. He was there long enough to open the door, get out and close the door — perhaps 30 seconds. He was in a designated parking bay, but the car’s rear tyre was about eight inches over the line. It posed no danger to anyone, nor any inconvenience. Still, he received a letter with a photograph of the car and a close-up of the offending tyre and a demand from the state for £60. I asked him why he paid. “It’s not worth the hassle,” he replied.

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Social-media messages go into archives

The White House is collecting and storing comments and videos placed on its social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube without notifying or asking the consent of the site users, a failure that appears to run counter to President Obama’s promise of a transparent government and his pledge to protect privacy on the Internet.

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Remember that proverbial frog in a pot of water? It finally died, since it didn’t notice the slow-rising heat.

Few saw the early signs of the Neo-Marxist ideology that has invaded our schools and universities. But back in Teddy Roosevelt’s days, who would have guessed that a major goal of Dewey’s “progressive education” was to weaken the traditional family, trade freedom for collectivism, and replace Christianity with an evolving form of “spiritual” solidarity?[4]In his 1908 article, “Religion and our Schools,” Dewey wrote that “dogmatic beliefs” were “disappearing.” Decades later, while presiding over the American Humanist Association, he co-authored the 1933 Humanist Manifesto. Notice how his words reflect today’s emerging churches?

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White House spammer-in-chief wants contractor to track critics

The White House is hiring a contractor to harvest information about Americans from its pages on social networking websites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.The National Legal and Policy Center, or NLPC, revealed the White House New Media team is seeking to hire a technology vendor to collect data such as comments, tag lines, e-mail, audio and video from any place where the White House “maintains a presence” – for a period of up to eight years.

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