Bloodless Coup

it'd be even better if we had footage of unarmed Bobbies running into tenement flats to arrest these people. wait, you mean arresting terrorists doesn't require suspension of all laws and liberal use of AK-47s?

Um.

Do you have a link to support the assertion that the guys who did the arresting here were "unarmed Bobbies"? I certainly wouldn't go after these sorts of bad guys with nothing more than a truncheon and a royal writ, and in the absence of hard reporting to the contrary I would bet heavily that Scotland Yard etc. wouldn't either.

Oh, and it's the bad guys who use AK-47s. Good guys (at least the US-funded ones) prefer more expensive, less reliable, less powerful, more Buck-Rogers-looking weapons.

i have no reason to believe it was "Bobbies," and i'm sure it wasn't, hence the use of that whimsical subjunctive "It'd."

i'm still giggling over your AK-47 comments.

yeah but "it'd" only refered to possesing footage.

And law enforcement can only be as good as the laws you enforce and you tool you give yourselves to enforce those laws. heance the patriot act and NSA.

George W. Bush, helping to keep America safe once again

thank you, [blank], for explaining to me that my glib joke was actually a deadpan statement. it's always helpful to stand corrected as to one's own intentions.

if we're using the tool analogy, the patriot act is a sledgehammer in a china shop (the bill of rights, kiddo) and the NSA, well, that's more of a category error. it was there before the patriot act, it will be there for many years to come, and it's a tool only as effective, and discrete, as the hand that wields it. i'm sure it's lost on you, but the current administration is waving the NSA around like blowtorch in the National Archives. and there are some pretty important documents in there. you're a big fan of the rule of law, aren't you?

speaking of category errors, a law (patriot act) can't be a tool for effectuating the law (um, the patriot act), without leading to the sorts of bootstrapping that lead us down a road to fascism. have a nice trip, but please take it somewhere else. i'm sure north korea would treat a red-blooded american defector like a visiting dignitary.

Uh, no: "law enforcement can only be as good as the laws you enforce".

That's just plain wrong. Clearly wrong. Look at China or Soviet-era Russia: they were very bad laws, but they were enforced very well (if you define "well" as large numbers of people adhering to the the actions the laws enforced). Law and enforcement are not necessarily related.

Or Cuba. Where the law (the constitution) looks lovely and democratic, and the enforcement is "good" (i.e. consistent and wide) but the outcome is anything but good.