In a far off country that is:

Video has emerged from North Korea showing handcuffed teenagers being publicly denounced for the crime of enjoying foreign films and music. Clips broadcast on South Korean television show teenage girls with heads bowed in some kind of tribunal. One of them, whose name and school are identified on screen, stands weeping in front of a microphone as she makes her confession, before being roughly led away by uniformed soldiers
….
In a second clip, a young soldier confesses to similar crimes. ‘Using my mobile phone, I watched 15 American movies, 17 South Korean puppet movies and 127 videos and listened to about 160 puppet songs,’ he says…. A voiceover comments: ‘There is a phenomenon by which impure recordings are purchased, viewed, stored and distributed using mobile phones. In the process, even text messages are exchanged in the contaminated puppet dialect. We must consider the fight against this malignant tumour as a matter of life and death.’

So far, so Communist, with the added unique touch of North Korea. But The London Times would be better off looking closer to home:

The counter-terrorism unit shows up at this girl’s door, takes a replica sword from her, demands to know about her politics, and then tells her to watch her mouth online.

That is not a free society in the least.

Moreover the Merseyside Police had no problems acknowledging what they did.

The message is clear: We can do all this and get away with it so watch your mouth.

In debating about totalitarianism, arguments have often been made against the soft assumption that “it can’t happen here” in the West by pointing to what a well educated, high class, developed civil society Germany was.

The same arguments may well be made about “Great” Britain in the future.

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See Also:
We Are Fair Cop (Website and Twitter)
Britain really is Airstrip One
Should The Government Issue a Travel Advisory for New Zealanders Travelling to Britain?
One Prime Minister. Two Standards. No Nation
America and Britain Joined by a Common Word: Stasi
Airstrip One Must Have Its NKVD