Dispatch from the Razor's Edge, the Blog of Michael Stephen Fuchs
2009.02.12 : Five Reasons Why I'm Keeping My American Passport
And Keeping It Handy
"Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion. Until then, there is nothing for them but implicit obedience to an Akbar or a Charlemagne, if they are so fortunate as to find one."
- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

'The director of Romeo And Juliet at Shakespeare's original theatre will meet police today over fears that it glamorises violence. Bill Buckhurst is preparing a free production of the tragic love story for 10,000 teenagers at the Globe Theatre in central London. "It is about taking responsibility and having awareness that knife crime touches on the lives of so many teenagers in London. These scenes must not be seen to glamorise it."'

'There have been 24 incidents since December 29, including an arson attack on a synagogue in London. In Golders Green, also in north west London, a Jewish man was pulled from his car and assaulted by three men. In the same area a gang of youths attempted to enter Jewish shops while shouting "Jew". In Manchester, "Hamas HQ" was written in graffiti on a Jewish building.'

'Parts of the UK have become so heavily dependent on government spending that the private sector is generating less than a third of the regional economy. The government’s share of output and expenditure has now surged to more than 60% in some areas of England and over 70% elsewhere. Across the whole of the UK, 49% of the economy will consist of state spending, while in Wales, the figure will be 71.6%. The state now looms far larger in many parts of Britain than it did in former Soviet satellite states such as Hungary and Slovakia as they emerged from communism in the 1990s, when state spending accounted for about 60% of their economies.'

'Geert Wilders, an outspoken anti-Islamist, was scheduled to visit London on Thursday for a screening of his controversial film Fitna, at the invitation of Lord Pearson, the Ukip peer. Mr Wilders said that he received a letter from the British ambassador yesterday, telling him that he was not welcome because his visit would "threaten community harmony and therefore public security". Replied Maxime Verhagen, the Dutch Foreign Secretary, "The fact that a Dutch parliamentarian is refused entry to another EU country is highly regrettable."'

'Islamic law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases. The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence. Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system.'


  freedom     islam     politics     the jews  
about
close photo of Michael Stephen Fuchs

Fuchs is the author of the novels The Manuscript and Pandora's Sisters, both published worldwide by Macmillan in hardback, paperback and all e-book formats (and in translation); the D-Boys series of high-tech, high-concept, spec-ops military adventure novels – D-Boys, Counter-Assault, and Close Quarters Battle (coming in 2016); and is co-author, with Glynn James, of the bestselling Arisen series of special-operations military ZA novels. The second nicest thing anyone has ever said about his work was: "Fuchs seems to operate on the narrative principle of 'when in doubt put in a firefight'." (Kirkus Reviews, more here.)

Fuchs was born in New York; schooled in Virginia (UVa); and later emigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he lived through the dot-com boom. Subsequently he decamped for an extended period of tramping before finally rocking up in London, where he now makes his home. He does a lot of travel blogging, most recently of some very  long  walks around the British Isles. He's been writing and developing for the web since 1994 and shows no particularly hopeful signs of stopping.

You can reach him on .

THE MANUSCRIPT by Michael Stephen Fuchs
PANDORA'S SISTERS by Michael Stephen Fuchs
DON'T SHOOT ME IN THE ASS, AND OTHER STORIES by Michael Stephen Fuchs
D-BOYS by Michael Stephen Fuchs
COUNTER-ASSAULT by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book One - Fortress Britain, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Two - Mogadishu of the Dead, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN : Genesis, by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Three - Three Parts Dead, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Four - Maximum Violence, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Five - EXODUS, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Six - The Horizon, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Seven - Death of Empires, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Eight - Empire of the Dead by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN : NEMESIS by Michael Stephen Fuchs

ARISEN, Book Nine - Cataclysm by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Ten - The Flood by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Eleven - Deathmatch by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Twelve - Carnage by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Thirteen - The Siege by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Fourteen - Endgame by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN : Fickisms
ARISEN : Odyssey
ARISEN : Last Stand
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 1 - The Collapse
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 2 - Tribes
Black Squadron
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 3 - Dead Men Walking
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 4 - Duty
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 5 - The Last Raid
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