Blairs Minority Report.

[InsaneApache]

You really couldn't make it up. I feel I'm living in a bad dream.

Tomorrow's potential troublemakers can be identified even before they are born, Tony Blair has suggested.

and...

There had to be intervention "pre-birth even", he said.

Blairs brave new world

So, a foetus can now be subject to an Asbo even though they have done nothing wrong or illegal.

Their parents will be forced to comply, even though they have done nothing wrong or illegal.

Let's hope the miscreant is deposed before he decides elections are a security risk and suspends them. I've been warning about this guys attitude towards the populace since the Eccleston fiasco.

[ShadesWolf]

GAH You got to it first........

I was going to post that

[Louis VI the Fat]

At the risk of turning into IA's new mortal enemy, I think it are bold thoughts like these that have made Blair the greatest post-war British PM. The man is a genius, a visionary.

Mr Blair said it was possible to spot the families whose circumstances made it likely their children would grow up to be a "menace to society".

He said teenage mums and problem families could be forced to take help to head off difficulties.

He said the government had to intervene much earlier to prevent problems developing when children were older.

[lancelot]

At the risk of turning into IA's new mortal enemy, I think it are bold thoughts like these that have made Blair the greatest post-war British PM. The man is a genius, a visionary.

Oh please for the love of god say you dont mean that....

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

I think it's a fairly common sense statement, really. He's just saying that due to their family circumstances, some children are more at risk of going off the rails. If we can identify these children early, then more can be done to prevent this.

I don't see what's so abhorrent about it.

[drone]

I think it's a fairly common sense statement, really. He's just saying that due to their family circumstances, some children are more at risk of going off the rails. If we can identify these children early, then more can be done to prevent this.

I don't see what's so abhorrent about it.

So if we know who the criminals will be, we can just apply the solution from this thread:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=68160
and Great Britian is a much safer place!

Or is the NHS is too understaffed to perform government-mandated abortions?



Edit-> added smiley to verify sarcasm...

[Crazed Rabbit]

I think it's a fairly common sense statement, really. He's just saying that due to their family circumstances, some children are more at risk of going off the rails. If we can identify these children early, then more can be done to prevent this.

I don't see what's so abhorrent about it.

You don't mind the government ordering you how to raise your children?

I guess almost all love for the 'animating contest of freedom' is gone from Britain.

Pity.

Crazed Rabbit

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Needless nannying, I dislike. However, I don't have a problem with state intervention to prevent people wrecking their kids' lives.

[Byzantine Prince]

BKS, enforcement would be subjective at best.

[InsaneApache]

At the risk of turning into IA's new mortal enemy, I think it are bold thoughts like these that have made Blair the greatest post-war British PM. The man is a genius, a visionary.

I love that Gallic sense of humour.

Actually, I am amazed that anyone should think that this is a good idea.

How would you feel if Blair and his henchmen decided that it was you and your children that needed the Blair treatment?

Or do you think that this won't apply to you. Once a precedent has been set......

[rory_20_uk]

Either Blair is failing to punish criminals or is creating a Nanny state.

I think that this is rather like the NHS database that is costing billions yet is thought not to work. The people involved are just not good enough to make it work. Look at Google. They some how have a database spanning most of the internet.

This system is another bodge job where ill trained incompetants will have another stream of information that they'll misuse.

[InsaneApache]

Either Blair is failing to punish criminals or is creating a Nanny state.

Criminals? there are no criminals, as they havn't been born yet. (If ever)

Smacks of eugenics to me.

[The_Doctor]

Blair

And there are going to be "repect" squads:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5116426.stm

Smacks of eugenics to me.

It does.

[rory_20_uk]

Well, we've got rid of natural selection - or even turned it on its head. Professionals have fewer kids later.

Eugenics is when parents abort kids with Downs which is OK, as no one uses that word.

[yesdachi]

I watched V for Vendetta the other night. November 5th is coming up, ever consider taking back your country?

[Tribesman]

Oh well , Blair is finally trying to get himself certified as insane , fair play to him .

[Shaun]

Sometimes I think that Blair is giving us the hint that he dosent want to be re elected.

[doc_bean]

I eager await the Blair jugend.

[InsaneApache]

Oh well , Blair is finally trying to get himself certified as insane , fair play to him .

Hehe... Tribes I've been saying this for years. Then, I was regarded as a bit deranged and obsessed....

I always felt disappointed that 'others' couldn't see through the man.

Still as Winston said.....

[IrishArmenian]

Blair...now dummer than I ever thought humanly possible.

[Louis VI the Fat]

I think it's a fairly common sense statement, really. He's just saying that due to their family circumstances, some children are more at risk of going off the rails. If we can identify these children early, then more can be done to prevent this.

I don't see what's so abhorrent about it.

Exactly, BKS! It's all very simple really. Plain common sense combined with a bold vision. Ask yourselves a simple question: which unborn runs a greater risk of encountering social problems later in life: the baby born to a single teenage mother on social welfare, with an absentee father with a criminal record? Or the baby born into a loving, stable, double-income household with university educated parents?

There is a huge, huge gap in the starting position these two children have. We all know who has the greater chance of turning into a law-abiding model citizen, and who is more likely to turn into an unemployed high school drop out with a criminal record and a drugs problem.

So why wait with adressing this problem until the first time they are brought before court? By that time, it is too late. It is turning a blind eye to problems one could've seen coming all along. You're limiting your policy to damage control if you wait untill it has reached this stage.

We can engage in all sorts of Orwellian nightmare scenario's about this. Or we can accept what common sense dictates us: that we can with great accuracy pinpoint problem families at a very early stage.

Now I personally consider 'common sense' to be the two most dangerous words in politics. Nevertheless, there must be a way to turn the huge advancements that have been made in the fields of sociology, psychology and criminology into instruments of policy.

[InsaneApache]

Unappropriate response.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Well Louis, you've convinced me. Silly old me, not seeing the great enlightenment that is modern Britain.

I'll go right now and sign up for further gov't control of my life. I'll turn in my motorcycle (what a dangerous machine!) and start eating what the gov't tells me to.

I'll listen to them tell me what to do, because they are smart, and who am I but a worthless peasant. They are the betters, the enlightened, those who by right of their intelligence should rule mankind.

I, after all, have no claim on my own life. If there's a NHS to take care of me should I become ill and survive long enough to get treatment, the gov't should have a say in what I can do.

And in this case, the gov't has determined who is at most risk for being bad in the future. Is it not right to allow the gov't to do what is best for the future?

Just don't make the chains too tight, please.

Crazed Rabbit

[Louis VI the Fat]

Well somebody's got to do a JAG on this sort of threads.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I can't tell whether you are doing excellent satire or if you really believe it.

Crazed Rabbit

[Louis VI the Fat]

I can't tell whether you are doing excellent satire or if you really believe it.

I was riling up InsaneApache a bit with my comments about Blair in post #3. Post #21 was serious. Post #24 whimsical.

I honestly believe this could be the basis for some excellent new policies. Not for criminal repression but for social prevention.

[Kanamori]

You can't know that someone is going to be a criminal. That is the reason why people should not have junk like this thrown on them. Being sent to programs, or wasting my time on correctional classes, before I even did anything wrong, would be enough to push me over the edge and favor violent things indefinitely.


...Blair... isn't it about time that more people in Labour start actively rebelling instead of staying in their offices when votes are called?

[Papewaio]

Well you could go for the old policy:

Qantas Economy...
£830.40 x 1 adult = £830.40
£642.20 x 1 child = £642.20

And send the cretins to Australia

[Duke of Gloucester]

There is one sentence in the report that actually makes sense:

But experience from other countries suggested people were willing to get support if they knew where to get it, he added.

There is no problem with offering help and even targetting that help where you think it is most needed, but forcing people to act in a particular way is actually punitive because it restricts your freedom. If you agree with BKS and Louis then you need to make it a crime to be young, poor and pregnant. If this seems wrong to you then you have to accept that the idea of punishing people because they don't bring up their children in the way you think best and those children might become criminals is unacceptable.

Of course any child might grow up to become a criminal. By all means target help, but you need to keep compulsion out of child-rearing.

[Tribesman]

Well you could go for the old policy:

Qantas Economy...
£830.40 x 1 adult = £830.40
£642.20 x 1 child = £642.20

And send the cretins to Australia

But could Australia really use a cretin like Blair ?