The Road to Serfdom

It's been too long since my last post, but I've just been too busy and, actually, still am. But developments in The Netherlands are showing the political agenda of the state, set to enslave the Dutch, and proclaiming every citizen to be a criminal unless proven innocent, where every rational human being knows that a negative can not be proven.

The Dutch state is on a cruisade to abolish privacy. It wants to ensure that it knows the whereabouts of each and every citizen, as soon as he or she leaves home. Public transport is being changed in such a way that it is no longer possible for anyone to buy a ticket anonymously. Private transport is changed in similar fashion. Roadtax (taxing property) is to be replaced by a toll system (taxing use). Already the intention of abolishing roadtax is being reverted by plans of implementing regional toll, that can 'obviously' not lead to national roadtax reductions. New province-based taxes are also already thought up, to replace the taxes that will be included in the new mileage tax. But it gets worse, much worse.

The intentions of the state are to follow each and every vehicle by sattelite (GPS) in order to be able to determine when and where that vehicle was at any given time, in order to be able to charge it based on the time and location. The stated incentive is to encourage people to drive at 'cheap' times, when the roads are relatively empty, and the only way of doing that is by tracking cars through GPS. This is nonsense, of course, even apart from the fact that the roads are almost never empty anymore, due to willful neglection of infrastructural maintenance while draining car drivers' pockets.

Earlier this year, in Orlando, I saw how tolls were arranged in a purely anonymous manner, either through cash payment or through an e-pass. While in Orlando the rates seem fixed (large fixed signs indicating the amount) it should be very simple to use matrix displays to indicate amounts and change the rates based on the time of day and traffic density. While an E-pass is replenished from a (named) credit card account there's no link between the passing of the gate and the owner of the e-pass, or the license plate of the car: the amount gets deducted, and the vehicle is only photographed (linking it to the location) if the toll was not paid.

But aparently this is too simple and possibly too cheap for the Dutch state. While the systems still need to be developed (with taxpayer's money) the state has already announced the penalty for tinkering with the GPS boxes that must indicate the car's location: a fine of 67.000 euro, or 4 years imprisonment. Murder is cheaper! In the words of Camiel Eurlings, minister for traffic, the severity of these sanctions are justified by the financial implications for the state, in line with (other) tax laws.

This statement says it all. Think of how easy it will become for the state to fine speeding once every trip is monitored and every violation of any arbitrary speed limit will be known. Think of how the state will notice anybody who drives to Luxemburg a couple of times a year, thereby becoming a suspect of having a foreign bank account, out of reach of the greedy Dutch state. Think of the endless possibilities for a governement of knowing all its citizens' whereabouts.

You can get away with murder with less punishment these days. And still, there's no climate for an uproar. This will in great part be due to the fact that in Europe people are not allowed to bear arms, and thus have no real defense against the state, with its power and violence monopoly. Apart from the Swiss, that is. This should again be a warning to all Americans not to hand in their right to self defense, and fight the states that want to abolish the constitutional right to bear arms, or even want to turn it into a privilege. Privileges can be handed out and taken back, at will.

The peoples of Europe have willingly walked the Road to Serfdom for a long time. Before they reach the end, things likely will get ugly, but it can still take quite some time before that happens. People still have too much to lose. They're like frogs being cooked slowly. But for protests to be successful, these protests must be massive, and there's little chance of that. We're too decent, unarmed and not trained to fight. Exactly why the Founding Fathers made the right to bear arms part of the constitution. A criminal government cannot do as it pleases when the people can defend itself. In Europe, governments can do anything they like, and get away with it. And unfortunately, the Dutch government is as criminal as they come.

RealID, anyone?

HitlerJugend, all over again...

The Dutch Government is on track for creating the HitlerJugend all over again, by introducing a new program for youth care, called Electronisch Kind Dossier (EKD), or Electronic Child Dossier, starting from birth. Looking at the plan, a better name would be Einheits Kinder Dienst, or Unified Child Service, as the project aims to monitor and signal all medical and other development of children. Investigators will judge how much of a burdon kids are for parents, and whether or not parents are deemed capable of raising their kids.

This means that goverment officials will get unlimited access to all medical details of all children between 0 and 19 years of age, no more medical privacy. If you happen not to be deemed capable of raising your kids, you will be forced to accept 'help' from youth care 'professionals', which get a golden opportunity for indoctrination from birth, instead of having to wait until children start visiting school. And as it's government who will decide whether or not you're capable, dissidents and members of the Freedom Of Speech and Individual Rights movements will have to fear that their children will be taken away from them, as they will never be raised to be good and obedient socialists. It's a collectivists wet dream, HitlerJugend all over again (Einheit der Jugend in der HitlerJugend means Unity of youth in the HitlerYouth). Boys from Brasil rings a bell as well.

Let's look at what the project's intentions are:

Monitoring and Signaling
This item I covered briefly above

Assess the needs for support
Here we're getting on dangerous grounds already. Given the not-so-good reputation of youth care in NL, who's competent to be the judge of that? We've had numerous cases in the recent past where kids were killed or damaged for life by incompetent parents, that had been guided by youth care for months or even years. So why should we trust their judgement? They're good at criticism of others, but once they're exposed they refuse all responsibility. So who will decide when and what support wil be needed? Not the parents, apparently.

Screening and vaccination
Early detection and prevention of specific medical abberations and the offering of vaccination. This is more or less standard practice already; it's not clear whether vaccination will become mandatory.

Provide information, advice, training and guidance
Both parents and youngsters will be able to obtain guidance and advice, individually or in groups. But it looks like the 'guidance' will be offered, not sought, on the basis of the monitoring's findings. So people that feel they do not need guidance may well be forced into it, because they will be deemed unfit to judge.

Affect external factors that influence health
Environmental factors that may influence a child's health will be evaluated and acted upon. So we may expect even more lunacy on fine dust, power lines, GSM antennae, traffic exhaust fumes, until the entire economy grinds to a halt. And then some.

We may expect that norms will be lowered even further, still more limiting laws will be instilled, until it is virtually impossible to obey them. Already in 1957, Ayn Rand wrote in Atlas Shrugged:

"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

It's a totalitarian statist's wet dream: a full electronic file on every citizen, from the cradle to the grave. Combined with the intended Pay-per-Drive system, which allows for monitoring al that citizens movements whether by car or train, it will provide for perfect scapegoats for crimes whose real perpetrators should not be caught. Total control, you can't even fart without the state knowing all about it. Knowledge is power. But I'm sidetracking here.

This extensive medical file will later on become part of the Electronic patient file, which covers all medical details of an adult. It's a great idea: all information an a person, centrally stored, countrywide available at tyhe push of a button. It cannot get lost, it can be searched, and correlations can be made that will help improve the quality of (youth) health care dramatically. Sounds good, but we know from experience that information like this can, and thus will, be used for purposes that are now claimed not to be the intention. Where it will lead is already visible in the UK: fingerprints, schoolresults, diets and even whether or not parents are a proper rollmodel will be to the file, starting from 2010. And there it is: rollmodel. The creation of unified children, obedient slaves to their government, working for the needs of others without ever complaining. HitlerJugend. It won't succeed, but it'll make life hell for those who are subjected to it.

Privacy is void, autonomy is shot, freedom is out of the window. The information will be readily available for future politicians with even less moral ideas and slavery will be the net result. And it will cost a fortune and probably never work. A fortune as government historically has no control over budgets, initial estimate is 72 million euro, but a 150 million has already been rumored. Never work as historically governments are notorious for failed projects, certainly on this sort of scale. But it'll cost the taxpayer a lot of money, money that could have been used to spend time with the family and drive the economy.