Is 4chan the perfect Pirate Bay poster child to justify wider UK site-blocking?

And yet so many look for the government to solve society’s ills, as if the “wrong government” will never ever take control. Perhaps we should all do more things for ourselves, and advocate for more laws that restrict what the government is allowed to do

This is a silly take. As soon as an authoritarian government takes power they just strip away the protections put in place to prevent abuse. The answer to preventing the "wrong" government from taking power is to have a strong "right" government.

You have come to the central tension at the heart of democracy!

These things can happen over time. They don't have to suddenly jump into place out of nowhere.

This. The antidote to authoritarianism is a mobilized and motivated populace.

Liberals (small l) have spent 200 years being afraid of the masses and mass revolts, instead being enamored with pieces of paper that are supposedly holding everything up and keeping the forces of authoritarian reaction at bay.

They don't.

Well, nobody would rally over a few blocked porn sites, would they now? I can already imagine the banners.

This is a silly take. The answer to preventing one branch of the federal government from abusing power is to strengthen the other branches, and to strengthen federalism itself. Both are enshrined in the constitution and are the largest checks on growing executive power? In effect “weakening” any one part of the government.

The UK doesn’t have Texas or California or New York.

i.e, as long as the people in charge are the people I like, its fine!

And how exactly having Texas or California or New York would solve this?

Looking at the current US, that seems to work not at all. The checks on power is only effective if enforced, and as there is no effort to enforce separation of powers, there are no checks.

The UK has Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Scotland, particularly, is anti-authoritarian.

The only thing that kept Scotland from voting for independence was a promise the UK would stay in the EU. If the Scottish referendum was to happen today, I don’t think England would win their vote.

And leaving the EU has caused massive complications for the Good Friday agreement that specifically agreed to removing border controls between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Yet none of these countries were able to apply enough pressure to change the UK government’s downward spiral.

> And yet so many look for the government to solve society’s ills

I mean, this is why state and government came into being, so nothing strange with such expectation.