BoomerSooner17 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 10, 2018 3:08 amIt also seems to me that American cops and judges have learned to recognize sovcits and their arguments, and have learned how to deal with them. The British bobbies and judges don't seem to show the same level of familiarity with the whole sovcit/FMOTL movement.
This is purely based on my reading of the posts in this forum and on the Fogbow; I don't mean to criticize the British police or justice system.
To some considerable extent I agree. Police, CPS & Courts too often fail to recognise what they're dealing with and take an appropriately firm line, so they appear to be (and sometime are) wholly ineffectual. It's infuriating, as I have remarked more than once in trenchant terms.
But from a socio-political perspective, I'll offer another perspective. Britland is a vastly older nation than the USA or Canada. Over a thousand years of organised government, largely developed to protect the interests of the powerful and wealthy. Look at our class system, and the backward trend of social mobility. Look at our public schools preserved for the children of the elite, and their effortless pathway through Oxbridge to comfortable, wealthy lives. Note the concentrations of land ownership, and endemic, collusive tax-evasion by the super-wealthy. Life expectancy between rich/poor or North/South.
All of this has been built and developed through wars, plagues, revolutions and regicides. In the last century or two, some gestures of enfranchisement and rights have been won by the common people, but only on the strict understanding that the privileges of the 1% are not within scope for negotiation. We plebs can elect our Parliament and sign petitions, but far above us the wealthy elite remain safely cosseted.
Apologies for drifting towards the 'no politics' rule, but the point I'm making is that in economic/sociological terms, the organs of state will naturally prioritise what most threatens the interests of the important people. And sovcit nonsense doesn't score very highly in that respect. On the other hand, when an issue is a concern for the wealthy and powerful, our Police, CPS & Courts shift to RoboCop mode. For example the Policing of national security terror threats (especially in London, where the wealth is concentrated), or of 'fracking' sites (where extractive profit is at risk).
TL;DR - The UK state could crush sovcittery like a bug. Suppressing native uprisings and executing ringleaders is Brit History 101. Sovcits are tolerated because, importantly without access to firearms, they present no threat to our system of government. As a Brit I have mixed feelings about this heritage, but further comment would definitely become 'politics'.
<furtive glance at Arthur to see if I've got away with a puff of chalk...>
