Charles Platt wrote:
Since most other "freer" countries (financially speaking) are just as constitutionally impaired as Anguilla, I doubt that Tim May would find them very reassuring either (and neither do I). Thus I am unsurprised that he finds the USA more congenial, despite all its flaws; and the whole debate about what-you-can-really-do-in-Anguilla seems a bit pointless, because it really boils down to a personality thing. Some people like a loose, informal system. Some people feel insecure in such a system--which is one reason why I left my British homeland 27 years ago, where there is no formal constitutional protection for rights such as freedom of speech.
I live in Righthandavia. It's a good life, here, by and large. There is little crime and everyone pretty much agrees on what is right and wrong, and conducts their life accordingly. We're very civilized. We had a lot of left-handed citizens until the purge. Luckily, they were exposed by government investigators and the mass media before they could do irrepairable harm to the country. For the most part, we lived our lives oblivious to the danger posed by the left-handed people in our midst, often living right beside us, and pretending to be just like us. After the congressional hearings, however, and with the new laws in place to deal with the scourge of these people, they were ferreted out and dealt with severely. Many of the left-handers who escaped the purge went underground, and they remain as a threat to decent, law-abiding right-handers everywhere. We have passed strict laws to regulate personal behavior so that it follows proper right-handed social etiquette, and those who object to these reasonable protections are subjected to close scrutiny and watched carefully for signs of left-handed leanings. Intitially, those who claimed ambidexterity were allowed a chance to reform, but it quickly became apparent that these people could not be rehabilitated and must be purged as well. It became clear that there was no such thing as a person who was only 'a little bit' left- handed. Decent, right-handed people who have nothing to hide have no reason to object the the searches and the video monitoring of private and public activity. The only ones who complain are the fanatics and trouble-makers. After all, it's a good life, here, by and large. There is little crime and everyone pretty much agrees on what is right and wrong, and conducts their life accordingly. We're very civilized. -- Toto http://bureau42.base.org/public/xenix/xenbody.html