V for Vendetta

I saw V for Vendetta tonight. That movie was awesome. The representation of a democratic society fallen into dictatorship is chilling. The use of fear to force the compliance of citizens is an apt, if rather overdone, metaphor for the techniques being used by many of the countries in the West today. The spectre of terrorism, West-Nile virus and religious intolerance are being used by governments from the U.S.A. to the U.K. to Australia to reduce the freedoms of democracy. The limitations placed on rights, and the enhancement of police power by laws like the U.S.A. Patriot Act, the Anti-Terrorism Act (2001) in Canada and similar legislation around the world, are dangerous. The denial of rights to citizens of supposed democracies marks the end of that democracy. When we are prepared to give up our rights to be theoretically more secure, we give up that which we seek to secure. By making ourselves less free in the cause of supporting our "democratic way of life" we lose that way of life that we seek to protect. Benjamin Franklin had this straight when he said: "They who give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security. V for Vendetta presents an excellent representation of what we flirt with when we allow the government to restrict the rights that ours by virtue of being human.

I read a criticism of this film saying that we should be very wary of a hero who fights dictatorship by blowing up the Old Bailey, a law court, and the Houses of Parliament. The reviewer argued that these are the icons of democracy, and that someone attacking them cannot be committed to democracy. I must disagree with this view. When the courts and the elected bodies of the government are perverted to serve the needs of the dictator, then those bodies are no longer legitimate. The destruction of instruments of the oppression of the people is legitimate. When the laws are used to keep the people from exercising our human rights, then the laws are illegitimate. When the parliament does not represent the people, but is instead a tool of the repression of the people, it is illegitimate. When the icons of democracy subvert the democracy they are supposed to represent, the people have a responsibility to either reclaim them or destroy them. V for Vendetta recognizes this perfectly. An excellent movie.
Cheers

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 898