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Story: Bletchley Park faces bleak future

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Re: Pride

On the subject of the need for the next generation to understand just exactly what a war is REALLY about, I could not agree more. I've never been in a war zone, but I have had an education, I have friends in the military and I have sufficient imagination to know that I don't want to be in one, and I REALLY don't want one to come to me.

Today, war is just a word used in death match video game titles. It has no reality for the huge majority of the younger generation. Some of them sign on the line and get an object lesson, but the rest just keep on hitting the buttons on their handsets and making "war" on whoever the enemy of the day happens to be.

So I'm with the previous correspondent all the way until:

[[ Of course this government, in particular, has assaulted our freedoms, values and choices like no other democratic government before it, but we cannot turn back the clock. We must move on to 'a brave new world', one that would not seem entirely worthy of these sacrifices.]]

Absolutely and emphatically NO.

Just because this bunch of headline obsessed control freaks has decided to make freedom of assembly conditional, free speech a matter for interpretation and habeas corpus a corpse, doesn't mean we can't get the next lot to turn this round and at least take the thorns out of these laws, if not repeal and replace them with something more fitting.

Phrases like "Civil Liberties" and "Our ancestral Freedoms" are now greeted with derision by Joe public as if to believe that such things are important is missing the point and that "The Threat of Terror" (yuk) is far more important than such nonsense. I even heard one genius say, in all honesty "If I hear one more mention of Civil Liberties I'm going to flatten someone. They could blow up my kids you know!".

We now seem to have be more concerned about non-freedoms; like "How about the freedom to not be blown up"; and non-rights "Does anyone worry about the right not to have our kids preyed upon by drugs dealers and criminal gangs." ... "Never mind your *Civil* *Liberties*, how about that sort of stuff." .... Sadly, anyone who's consideration of these matters doesn't extend past the end of the headline is not going to be particularly receptive to hearing that it's a wee bit more complex than that. They're not taught how to do "complex" any more, just how to pass tests.

I'm sure many people in this country of my generation had relatives that they deeply respected that fought in World War 2. Well folks, if you indeed respected them, think about how they would feel now, that the horror they suffered has been made trivial for the sake of a headline and a vote or two.

For shame.

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