Ok, I know our civil rights and liberties are collectively becoming an endangered species in this country. Every single day I read about a particular grievance(s) perpetrated by government policy or local, state or federal law enforcement officials on U.S. citizens that -- thanks to the insidiously-named (and Orwellian-inspired) Patriot Act and a whole host of other undemocratic laws enacted since 2001* -- are rarely adjudicated and never remedied to the satisfaction of the aggrieved party.
(*not counting the recent judicial ruling against the constitutionality of the national security letters provision of the Patriot Act).
But it may be even worse on the other side of the pond right now.
The website Press TV has the seriously disturbing story:
British activist Bethan Tichborne has been found guilty of a public order offence for telling British Prime Minister David Cameron he had “blood on his hands” during protests against cutting disabled benefits in November last year.
Ticherborne, a teaching assistant who works with disabled children, described her shock after she was fined by Oxford magistrates court for yelling at Cameron during a disabled rights protest in Oxfordshire.
She said she initially thought her court summons was a bureaucratic error.
Ticherborne, is an Oxford University graduate. She writes poetry, is an stalwart anti-sweatshop campaigner, and was punitively scolded by a district judge for shouting comments considered offensive "and highly insulting" to the Premier.
Ticherborne is 28 years old. It's unclear whether her conviction was the result of a jury trial or the district judge's decision but court documents claim she used words that were...
"... threatening words or behavior to cause harassment, alarm or distress."
So, Prime Minister Davis Cameron, the most powerful and probably the most protected person in the whole of Britain outside the Royal Family felt physically threatened by a peaceful female protester anguishing over recently-enacted austerity measures?
According to Ticherborne:
"I am really quite shocked and quite sad. I had a placard that said Cameron has got blood on his hands and shouted disabled people are dying because of Cameron's policies,” she said.
"The judge said stuff in his verdict that made it very clear it was political, like he couldn't think of anything more insulting or offensive."
Recently when asked, Steve Webb, the British Pensions Minister cited a study in which it said that one in three British households with a disabled person would essentially lose out because of the government's next part of their austerity agenda for a proposed three-year cut off of annual increases in working-age benefits to a scant 1%.
Looks like Britain has their own version of "chained-CPI."
The austerity plague is spreading...