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I have a theory that during the cold warn western democracies behaved better towards their own people because they had a 'bad guy's to compare against. A sort

I have a theory that during the cold warn western democracies behaved better towards their own people because they had a 'bad guy's to compare against. A sort of 'would they do this in East Germany? Then maybe we shouldnt' yardstick. Also I think a lot of the over reaction to terrorism is just a power/land grab by the intelligence services, I mean they do valuable work but we don't really know how much and what the net benefit of any is. The leaks have been egregious fairly consistently though. Snowden has my respect for confirming what a lot of us techies suspected but couldn't prove.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
> 'would they do this in East Germany? Then maybe we shouldnt' yardstick. I think there might be some mileage in your theory. :) The UK has an odd relationship with intelligence thanks to the Bletchley Park story being part of our WW2 myths. I've always thought it goes some way to explaining our politicians being so keen on the UK being so excessive and early with things like CCTV everywhere. Which brings us to now when even with all that tech, terrorists seem able to do what terrorists do just as well. At which point it's hard not to become cynical.