Police Allegedly Arrest UK News Photographer For Standing In A Field (wordpress.com) 216
Long-time Slashdot reader Andy Smith, a Scotland-based news photographer, writes: I'm a press photographer. Slashdot has previously covered how the police used underhanded tactics to seize some of my work photos. But that was far from the end of the story. Several months of harassment culminated in me being arrested for standing in a field, something protected by law here in Scotland. I was given a police caution, which is a formal alternative to prosecution, but the police then cancelled the caution and prosecuted me anyway. Ironically, I was meant to be joining the police this month as a volunteer, but that has now been delayed by at least six months.
Earlier Andy had filmed the same police sergeant warning him not to photograph a minor traffic accident -- which had "seemed to anger him."
Earlier Andy had filmed the same police sergeant warning him not to photograph a minor traffic accident -- which had "seemed to anger him."
Sounds typical (Score:5, Funny)
Well, about 15 troll comments so far (Score:4, Insightful)
And nothing else. I am still waiting for Slashdot to implement my request for a marker in each thread to show where the trolls stop, and the actual discussion begins.
But I suppose that's what the moderators are for.
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"Comment Threshold +2"
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"Comment Threshold +2"
Yeah but on articles about anything related to the Sacred Apple, anything remotely unpositive about Apple gets modded troll very fast. So if you want to see anything thats not completely besotted with the marvelous and godly Apple you have to lower your threshold a bit.
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Yeah but on articles about anything related to the Sacred Tesla, anything remotely unpositive about Tesla gets modded troll very fast. So if you want to see anything thats not completely besotted with the marvelous and godly Tesla you have to lower your threshold a bit.
There, FTFY. You could also usually substitute Google for the same result.
No way, Apple has WAY more religious devotees.
A Photographer (Score:2)
Three year old photo (Score:2)
The proof he is a news photographer appear to be a three year old photo of the Northern lights public in a small regional newspaper.
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The proof he is a news photographer appear to be a three year old photo of the Northern lights public in a small regional newspaper.
well that and his credit saying "SPP" which is Scottish Provincial Press [spp-group.com] who own rather a lot of the little local papers up in the highlands. so yeah.. he's press. not everyone works a national paper
Shark jumping (Score:4, Insightful)
What we have here is a classic shark jumping moment. A slashdot reader submits a story based on an un-substantiated* blog entry written by himself of events pertaining to himself and this make the front page. And as a tie in to this story, TFS links to a story of exactly the same provenance from earlier this year.
This totally smacks of a Bennet Hasselton style content.
* I am not denying the likelyhood of the events as describe. Its the mixing of subject and author that is problematic.
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The laws prohibiting photography in the world where everyone fears terrorism more than they value freedom are sometimes pretty vague and give the police excessive power to harass.
I have no doubt that standing in a
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I can tell you that in the US my friends and colleagues have been harassed by police for standing on the road with a camera. They were required to deleted the pictures and leave the area or be arrested. Outside of the US we have been harassed and required to delete photos of public buildings.
The laws prohibiting photography in the world where everyone fears terrorism more than they value freedom are sometimes pretty vague and give the police excessive power to harass.
I have no doubt that standing in a field with a camera, especially if that field were next to a sensitive target, would get a photographer arrested.
nah man.. the only thing they are sensitive up that way is any evidence of sheep molestation on an industrial scale getting out ;)
Was he arrested or not? (Score:2)
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A slight word order change will make it more obvious:
Police Arrest UK News Photographer—Allegedly For Standing In A Field
Clearer?
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A slight word order change will make it more obvious
I agree -- your wording is clearer and not sloppy as is the actual title. It's not that I couldn't figure out the implied intent of the title, it's that I find it annoying that reporting and writing has gotten really sloppy. While someone with reasonable command of the English language can determine the intent, there are other readers who might not. A new speaker to the language may not parse an ambiguous or imprecise statement as intended. On a sarcastic note, I am kind of surprised that given the trend of
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I figured as much. My newswriting teacher would have knocked off ten points for that headline. :-)
I'm more irritated by the use of allegedly in situations where nothing is alleged. If there's airtight evidence of the "alleged" event playing in the background, that's no longer alleged
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Why is the term "allegedly" used in the title? Either he was arrested or he was not.
It can be hard to ascertain in countries where arrest records are not public until or unless someone is formally charged.
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Police Allegedly Arrest UK News Photographer For Standing In A Field
For the crime to alleged, it would have to be:
Police Arrest UK News Photographer For Allegedly Standing In A Field
And what they really meant was that they weren't sure what crime prompted the arrest:
Police Arrest UK News Photographer, Allegedly For Standing In A Field
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Why is the term "allegedly" used in the title? Either he was arrested or he was not.
The detail you are missing is that "being arrested" is entirely separate from "being guilty of a crime"
unless you are in the USA and applying for a job.
"underhanded tactics" (Score:2)
The application for the warrant quickly made its way through the court.... I securely erased my computers and memory cards. I couldnâ(TM)t risk the police being able to identify sources from other stories, or finding passwords to access my email and instant messaging accounts which could compromise other peopleâ(TM)s sources.
So he is notified that he is the subject of a search warrant and immediately erases all of his data. Wouldn't that act alone get you a jail term in normal circumstan
the photographer should have won (Score:4, Funny)
Caution (Score:3)
To receive a Police caution, you must first admit the offence, if you do not confess, a caution cannot be issued. It has to be proven in the normal way.
https://www.gov.uk/caution-war... [www.gov.uk]
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It's not a caution, it's a warning.
"Respect Mah Authoritay! (Score:2)
Re: Just desserts (Score:3, Insightful)
NARC schill bingo!. What do I win? If you cops ain't doing anything wrong, what are you afraid of? isn't that what you tell us? Something is wrong when you need to enable psyops to get citizens to not hate cops. Think about it.
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If you can't tell the difference between sarcasm and trolling, that's because in some cases there really isn't any difference. Sometimes even the person posting doesn't know whether they're being ironic, or trolling, or sometimes both.
Re: Just desserts (Score:5, Insightful)
Rule of thumb: If it's an AC post, assume trolling (or just douchebaggery).
https://www.penny-arcade.com/c... [penny-arcade.com]
Re:Just desserts (Score:5, Insightful)
filming XXX doing their jobs in the hope that he will catch one of them slipping up
Hilariously, that seems to be the point of the notorious British CCTV surveillance nightmare. ;-p
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As a police officer you are a public official, granted extra powers. The public has a right to make sure the extra power granted is used properly.
That said, the press needs to find a way to reward honest and fair treatment on what is going on. Government controlled media plays to the party, private media, is trying to get what makes money. We need a way to cover the truth.
Re:Just desserts (Score:4, Insightful)
This asshole insists on filming peacekeepers doing their jobs in the hope that he will catch one of them slipping up. How many of us would appreciate the same treatment at our place of employment? I say lock him up, throw away the key, and withhold the condoms. What a douche.
If I were working in a daycare or school, an old-age home, or any other place where even the whiff of impropriety would be a huge problem, I'd welcome video surveillance. Great way to get rid of false accusations. I have a sister who's made plenty of false accusations of mistreatment by staff, theft (the stuff inevitably shows up where she forgot she stashed it), you name it.
The propensity of people who have no real life to complain about every imagined slight is incredible. For example, one time after accompanying her to a doctor's appointment, she started whining about how it's unfair that the transport didn't take her directly back to the facility, instead diverting to pick up another patient on the way to the same destination. I finally got fed up and told her that she's lucky that they were only diverting for one extra patient, because the van has a capacity of 3 wheel chairs, that she should be grateful to live in a country where all the care and housing she receives is free, and that other people have it worse than her.
And then we got to pick up the next patient - who, unlike her, had no legs. He had had to wait even longer, but he wasn't complaining. He was just happy we showed up.
And getting angry calls from the rest of the family accusing me of force-feeding her (she's anorexic) when I did nothing of the sort, and there were plenty of witnesses that all I did was sit with her and try to encourage her to eat at least some of the meal. Damn right I'd want cameras.
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When then pictures leak of something someone in some obscure group can consider offensive and written widely about by the trash we call newspapers I think you'd change your mind.Because it's _that_ we are talking about - not some surveillance video that is only used internally if something suspect is happening.
There have been many cases where lives of innocent people have been risked as everyone thinks they have the right to interfere with police and ambulance personel. They don't. They think they have the
Re: Just desserts (Score:2)
If they're so incompetent that a man with a camera causes them to slip up, then it's definitely in the public interest.
Re: Just desserts (Score:4, Informative)
For reference - neither have these cops sworn to protect and serve the public. They have sworn “I, do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of constable with fairness, integrity, diligence and impartiality,and that I will uphold fundamental human rights and accord equal respect to all people, according to law.”
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And the press is in place to be the ones watching the law enforcement to prevent them to go too crazy. For the public this is one of the few ways to prevent public servants to become public masters. It don't work all the time though. And some reporters have unfinished business with law enforcement which means that they can go beyond what the law allows them to do.
But regardless of if it's reporters or law enforcement personnel that exceeds the law it's up to the courts to decide a law was broken or not.
Repo
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even though he has created millions of jobs and restored civility and respect for all points of view to the white house.
What universe do you live in?
He hasn't created a single job. This administration's fiscal year started yesterday. All jobs created up to now were created by the fiscal policies of the prior administration. FACT
Civility and respect? Come over here and I'll grab you by your fucking pussy and see if you still think there's any civility in that! All his whining about the press? Maybe if Twitler wasn't such a douche the press would give him a break.
And BTW, where's his taxes? And the wall that he was going to
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Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Let's not forget how utterly corrupt and liberal the press has become. I don't know about the UK but here in the USA the mainstream press is 100% bullshit all day every day. "
While in the UK Foxnews got cancelled because nobody watches it.
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Which goes to show that indoctrination by the corporatist UK government works extremely well: independent thought has been pretty much stamped out across the country.
Evil Fox (Score:3)
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Maybe you confused the BBC with Rupert Murdoch.
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So why are you surprised reasonable persons the world over, including a majority of US citizen, are upset with the outcome?
Re: Good. (Score:2)
Nope. That is completely wrong. They can ask you to pay, but all you have to do is say "I don't consume any BBC productions". I know people that have done so, and am pondering doing it myself.
Sure, it may tedious, and there's no way it should be a criminal offence, but you do not have to pay a TV license just because you own a TV or computer.
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Trump hasn't created any jobs. Until such time as Trump actually introduces a budget, any job creation is due either to (a) private enterprise operating under Obama's last budget, or (b) public spending under Obama's last budget.
Even his wife Melina is increasingly anti-Trump, snubbing him very publicly. He needs to be liked and seen as being powerful that you can be pretty sure she's used her leverage to get herself a very expansive and lucrative post-nup. After all, she's smarter than he is.
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How is it a lie that Trump hasn't passed a budget yet? Or pretty much anything, for that matter? You're just another fat, embittered loser. And obviously you care what I think, or you wouldn't have replied to it. As I said, loser.
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This is for England, not Scotland. Scotland's public access to land is much more far reaching than this - it amounts to "you can be on someone else's land as much as you like, as long as you don't damage anything".
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You get closer to the house the fences become more serious and I believe a lawn, however large, is not a field as intended by The Land Reform Act.
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Re:Short on details (Score:4, Informative)
Try accessing the lands around Balmoral.
Crown land, military land and otherwise selected special exceptions exist. Exceptions can also be applied for and HAVE to be for things like T in the Park and festivals like it. At one T in the park someone remembered this wee fact and demanded their "right to roam" under Scottish law and ,as the organisers had forgotton to apply for exemption they had to open the gates.. I shit you not.
However, as said, there ARE most certaily exceptions and Royal residences are amongst them. You can usually pay for tours though when royalty are not in residence.
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Tresspassing in a field is not a thing in Scotland. In fact, it's explicitly written into law that you have every right to cross someone else's field as long as you don't cause damage.
Re:Short on details (Score:4, Informative)
The police don't care that someone is standing in a field. Was he doing something that was illegal? Was he trespassing on private property and the owners didn't want him there, perhaps?
Read the article, which explains what occurred. The cliff notes is that the plod didn't want him to photograph an accident scene, even from afar.
And stop being such an American - in much of the world, including Scotland, the public has a right of way and right to roam and cannot be kept out of private property for a good reason (and ownership is not a good reason). Walking across a field, or stopping, as long as you don't cause damage is a right.
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But it isn't an offence either.
Even in England, individual trespass isn't illegal. In Scotland, what he did was explicitly legal.
All that can happen is that the owner could sue him for damage to the crops.
These cops were little better than the one who arrested that nurse the other day in Utah. The reason they withdrew the caution was that they knew that they had no leg to stand on.
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Your cliff note leaves out one important fact. The accident* involved a police car.
* [Hot Fuzz]:
00:39:04 - What happened, Danny? - Traffic collision.
00:39:07 Hey, why can't we say "accident" again?
00:39:09 Because "accident" implies there's nobody to blame.
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Re: Short on details (Score:2)
Would you feel physically threatened by a bloke with a camera? How do you live a life where you're constantly scared, it's got to be a horrible existence.
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The police don't care that someone is standing in a field. Was he doing something that was illegal? Was he trespassing on private property and the owners didn't want him there, perhaps?
This is the UK. The police don't like photographs at all. Its like they are afraid they'll steal their souls or something. I've seen all kinds of examples of cops interfering with photography for no reason whatsoever. People get harassed by the cops for taking photos while standing on their own property and cops just happen to walk by at the time.
Re: Short on details (Score:2)
To expand on it. Some UK police (especially London) got wind that they could arrest photographers using Section 44 of the Anti-Terrorism Act. Unsurprisingly, they didn't stop to investigate what powers they actually had. It turns out that you have to already be suspected of terrorism before taking photos - the police can't see you with a camera, think "terrorist", and then apply the powers to arrest you.
It cost some forces a large amount of money settling wrongful arrest cases against photographers.
Their pr
Re:Short on details (Score:5, Informative)
This didn't happen in England - it happened in Scotland, where it's explicitly written into law that it's completely legal to walk on someone else's land as long as you don't cause damage.
Re:Short on details (Score:5, Informative)
... or cause danger, or intrude on privacy. I.e. you won't have access to someone's back yard where they might reasonably expect privacy, or to a pasture with dangerous animals, but a field is fair game. If planted, footpaths must be provided to cross or skirt them, so you don't impede on the public right of way.
It's also a crime to prevent people from access without a good reason (and ownership is explicitly not a good reason). I.e. the policeman here is the one who should be prosecuted.
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If there's an angry bull in the field then it would make sense to remove the person from the field even if they don't cause damage to the property - just for their own safety. But the cop could of course just "miss to see" such a person and instead let them take their chances with the bull.
Replace bull with other risk at leisure.
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England, Scotland, what's the difference?
The Scotsman will kill you if you call him an Englishman, the Englishman won't.
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Re:Short on details (Score:4, Interesting)
England, Scotland, what's the difference?
The Scotsman will kill you if you call him an Englishman, the Englishman won't.
Aye right.. Scotsman here.. A Scotsman will simply tell you to fuck off is accused of being English. :-)
Same applies the other way round...
Just as i am telling you to fuck off right now for that bollocks
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I'm Canadian (although mostly Scottish by ancestry). I once stayed in a bed and breakfast in Ireland.
The woman running it said "oh, you're American!" I said "well, Canadian actually." She said "basically the same thing." I said "sure, I guess that makes you English?"
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I'm Canadian (although mostly Scottish by ancestry). I once stayed in a bed and breakfast in Ireland.
The woman running it said "oh, you're American!" I said "well, Canadian actually." She said "basically the same thing." I said "sure, I guess that makes you English?"
I wish you had videos of that moment bud. That would have been hilarious!
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Funny, because it might be true. ;-)
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Different countries, believe it or not, in legal terms.
The 1707 Act of Union [wikipedia.org] that created what is now the UK, allowed Scotland to retain it's own separated laws.
So if a law is passed in Westminster it needs enacting twice. In English law & Scottish law.
It's probably one of my favourite things about Scotland, the freedom to roam anywhere.
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To recap: the author took photos of what might have been the scene of a misdeamanor and told the police that he did not see anything. (I assume it is a misdemeanor because the suspect was convicted and sentenced to less than a year using the author's photographs).
It was around this time that I started noticing police cars everywhere: Parked near my home, pulling up near me in car parks, driving behind me at all times of day. I wondered if they had information that someone connected to the court case was out to get me, and they were making sure I was safe.
The paragraph above makes me think that the author regards his place in the universe with a bit more awe than is warranted.
Not that policing doesn't attract power-hungry assholes, but even granting that the police in question are acting unprofessio
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It was around this time that I started noticing police cars everywhere: Parked near my home, pulling up near me in car parks, driving behind me at all times of day. I wondered if they had information that someone connected to the court case was out to get me, and they were making sure I was safe.
The paragraph above makes me think that the author regards his place in the universe with a bit more awe than is warranted.
Is he still considered paranoid if the police ARE out to get him?
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Since the guy is a "press photographer" he should have little trouble getting a real reporter to lay the f
Re:Journalist forgets he doesn't live in the USA.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well done for the USA! USA! USA! post. No journalist has ever been threatened arrested or beaten for photographing the police in the US, despite it being legal.
It's legal here too.
generally you'll have no trouble finding a lawyer if you ran into that sort of issue here.
His union has been support.
So just stop photographing the police, and be glad it's the least of your worries.
If the police are afraid of what might happen if the public see them in action, it'll rapidly become the greatest of your worries.
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It's legal to take a photo of anything you like in the UK, as long as you're stood on publicly accessible property when you take it.
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I can also imagine that you could stand in other places as well to take a photo if you got the permission from the property owner.
Film the street from someones apartment shouldn't be a big deal.
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It's legal to take a photo of anything you like in the UK, as long as you're stood on publicly accessible property when you take it.
And don't intrude on anyone's reasonable expectation of privacy.
I.e. if someone slips behind a tree to take a leak, you cannot take a picture of their privates with the justification that you were standing on publicly accessible property.
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It's legal to take a photo of anything you like in the UK, as long as you're stood on publicly accessible property when you take it.
It certainly is not. Try taking photos of someone else's children in the park for example - you need to take care not even to get them in frame by accident. Try taking "candid" pictures - be careful that the subject does not notice. Then there are your photos with a telephoto lens of the girl down the road who forgot to close her bedroom curtains.
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Agreed. I've taken photographs of children and posted them online. It's perfectly legal, along with photographing the police. I take pictures of them exactly because they tried to prosecute people for it and got a spanking.
As for candid photography.. it's my favourite sort. Street mostly, but also events.
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It's legal to take a photo of anything you like in the UK, as long as you're stood on publicly accessible property when you take it.
Really? I got my city and guilds in photography AV Tech back in the mid 80's and during that course we got some law applicable to photography.
There re corcumstances where it would in fact be "Assault by photography" here in Scotland if you are on public land or private land it matters not for this. If you use long lenses to invade someone's personal privacy where they are at home and have a reasonable expection of privacy.
Mostly it has historically been the paparazzi that have fallen foul of this. But ye
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Of course you can. In the UK you use those photos commercially too, although some restrictions around logos.
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Could be worse: it could be Hillary, and with her new wars, new taxes, and new free speech restrictions.
If you like the UK healthcare system, it means cutting per-patient Medicare/Medicaid spending in half, making most doctors government employees, cutting the average doctor salaries in half, introducing waiting times of many months, and limiting services to the elderly. If you think that results in a better healthcare system, you're a fool.
you must be referring to the NHS in England. In Scotland it performs much better.
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Except for waiting times, everything I said applies throughout the UK/US. As for waiting times, Scotland still has waiting time targets (!) of 6 weeks for diagnostic tests and 18 weeks for referral to treatment. That would be completely unacceptable even as targets in the US. Of course, by US standards, Scotland is dirt poor, about 30% below Mississippi.
And if you're going to make arguments of "but in this part of the UK", I'd point out that if you go by states and regions, you can find always find parts of
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Those waiting times are for routine diagnostics and proceedures. When it comething more serious then things speed up...
I got treatment for cancer a few years back(nothing terminal but scary nonetheless), I went with the NHS at the Western General in Edinburgh and the place is AMAZING. the staff , facilities and support a
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How nice for you. But you have a system in which the government provides a basic level of healthcare through government-run institutions, controls costs strictly, and permits a thriving national market for supplementary and private insurance.
That's not what the US healthcare debate is about. The US healthcare debate is about providing everybody the same top
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How nice for you. But you have a system in which the government provides a basic level of healthcare through government-run institutions, controls costs strictly, and permits a thriving national market for supplementary and private insurance.
That's not what the US healthcare debate is about. The US healthcare debate is about providing everybody the same top-notch medical care regardless of income without meaningful cost controls on providers. And then people pretend that such a "universal healthcare system" is anything like the UK system.
The US has the money to provide UK-style healthcare out of the existing Medicare/Medicaid contributions. Obama had eight years to do it, instead he screwed up the private insurance market.
the US is 22 trillion in debt and rising :-)
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So? The mandatory contributions to the public medical system in the US already bring in sufficient money to provide UK-style healthcare with no deficit or borrowing.
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So? The mandatory contributions to the public medical system in the US already bring in sufficient money to provide UK-style healthcare with no deficit or borrowing.
BUT.. you still won't get it or the fight will be longer and more arduous than you think due to America's hangover from the McCarthy era and the fact that in America it's "fuck you.. pay me" and "me me me fuck you" .
It's more of a "we we we" here with no fear ot McCarthy ghosts damning collectivism socialised healthcare as communism.. or to be more American "communistic" because you like to end words with "istic" so you sound smarter(hint..it doesn't work).
BUT.. if you are so MASSIVELY in debt... is
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Bullshit. Basic level of healthcare my arse.
The NHS provides an excellent level of healthcare.
It is possible to get marginally better outcomes if you pay insane sums of money but that's true in the UK and the US. In the UK you get close to those margins for no extra cash; in rhe US sizeable numbers of people can't afford to get anywhere near.
Checked life expectancy in the two countries lately?
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Yes, and as I was pointing out: that's because the public US healthcare system is so damned inefficient. The crony capitalist crap that the Democrats have been working towards, however, is nothing but a massive handout to donors of the Democratic party. Instead of creating a healthcare system like that of the UK, which spends about $4000/patient/year, Obama and Hillary have been
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Yes, have you? Maybe you can clearly express what you think that data shows.
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Our election process works quite well: unlike European parliamentary systems, it has kept us from sliding into tyranny for more than two centuries.
Again, if you look at European history, the two party system is a feature: parties like the NSDAP and dictators like Hitler could only come to power
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Let's be crystal clear here: the existing Medicare/Medicaid system could cover every single American at the same level as the British are covered by NHS without increasing Medicare/Medicaid contributions at all. Furthermore, per patient costs in Medicare/Medicaid are higher, and outcomes are worse, than in the US private system, even controlling for demographics.
You're right that the problem in the US is
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Well, so long as he wasn't running through a field, I suppose that's okay.
Depends on whether scissors were involved not.
Re: Pics or it didn't happen! (Score:2)
Sure, but the police preventing a journalist/photographer from reporting the news is indeed newsworthy. It's not like he's in the news for having an affair, drink driving, etc.