I Love This Country, But The Union

In A Democracy It Is Ultimately For Us, The Citizens, To Judge Where To Place The Balance Between Security And Privacy, Safety And Liberty. It's Our Lives And Liberties That Are Threatened, Not Only By Terrorism But Also By Massive Depredations Of Our Privacy In The Name Of Counter-terrorism. If Those Companies From Which Governments Actually Take Most Of Our Intimate Details Want To Show That They Are Still On The Side Of The Angels, They Had Better Join This Struggle For Transparency Too.

One Thing, However, I Know With Certainty: Violence, Or The Direct Threat Of Violence, Of The Kind We Have Seen In The Past Few Days, Is Totally Unjustified As A Response To Any Published Word Or Image.

Except For Its Worst Inner-city Slums, America Is Not The Primitive Capitalist Jungle Of European Imagination, Where Human Beings Slink Away Like Wounded Animals To Die In Bloodstained Holes.

Europe's Biggest Problem Is Its Success.

If You Had Said To Anyone In 1945, At The End Of The Second World War With The Continent It Ruins, That You Could Have A European Union Of 28 Member States Stretching From Portugal In The West To Estonia In The East, All Of Them More-or-less Liberal Democracies - They Wouldn't Have Believed You.