In his 1952 opinion abolishing the use of national identification cards in the United Kingdom, Lord Chief Justice Goddard commented on the police force's unreasonable insistence that persons must carry the cards at all times. He wrote: "In this country we have always prided ourselves on the good feeling that exists between the police and the public, and such action tends to make the public resentful of the acts of the police and inclines them to obstruct them rather than assist them."

Do you ever consider what rights the police have to randomly stop you when you are driving in a perfectly legal manner? They ask for your licence and other papers and if any are missing or not in order then your car is more than likely impounded. A motorist is supposed to be allowed 24 hours to produce his licence. Instead police officers routinely seize the vehicle until the licence is produced, the assumption being that the motorist cannot be trusted. In addition the police often hold on to your licence when under the Motor Vehicle and Road Traffic Act the only way a motorist can forfeit his or her licence is if the licensing authority, namely the Minister of Home Affairs, "with the approval of the DPP orders the suspension of the person so charged pending the determination of the charge... any driver so suspended shall on demand by any police constable be surrendered to the police constable."

Some may argue that the random roadblocks help to keep the roads safe, but the evidence would suggest quite the opposite. Excessive speeding is a national pastime and rudimentary courtesies such as dipping lights to oncoming traffic are ignored. If you treat motorists like children they will drive like children.

How easily our individual rights are stolen away from us. We talk about Guyana as a free country but are we really free? The police continue to enter people's homes, their private properties, without obtaining a search warrant. Many would say this helps to apprehend criminals but that does not appear to be the case given the crime rate.

The police's failure to obey the laws of the land inspires lawlessness.

The extra judicial killings are the ultimate violation of a person's very right to life. "The innocent have nothing to fear," so the saying goes. But the presumption by the authorities nowadays is that you are guilty. The victims may indeed be guilty but it is hardly likely they would be sentenced to death for their crimes and they have a right to a trial by a jury of their peers. Many quietly applaud the police for cutting down criminals but forget it is the same mentality that likely contributed to the death of Mohammed Shafeek, a drunken fish vendor innocently lost in Georgetown late on a Saturday night.

Police continue to pick up youths for loitering as if their presence on the street means they are going to commit a crime. Once again this requires a presumption of guilt and is a violation of an individual's right to simply be wherever he wishes to be in his own country.

Look at the large number of remand prisoners waiting for months, sometimes years, in the Camp street prison to be tried. Remember under the law they are assumed to be innocent but still they must wait in subhuman conditions while a slothful justice system gets to their file.

Other examples of our individual rights being circumscribed include the insistence on Christian prayers in school. I have personally seen a nursery school teacher beat a five-year-old child for not shutting his eyes during school prayers. So much for freedom of religion. From an early age children are taught to put their hands on their chests and swear allegiance to the flag as if somehow this will make them better citizens. It has not and never will.

The government, like governments all over the world, somehow believes it is the moral arbiter that must save the people from themselves. They gladly raise taxes from alcohol and cigarettes and then preach about the health risks.

So what should the individual do when presented with a state that continues to limit his or her freedoms? Perhaps we can take the advice of Henry David Thoreau, that great free spirit of post-revolutionary America. In his seminal essay Civil Disobedience, he writes: " Unjust laws exist. Shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavour to amend them and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? ... It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think is right.

"I heartily accept the motto 'that government is best which governs leas'... Carried out it finally amounts to this which I also believe 'That government is best which governs not at all' and when men are prepared for it that will be the kind of government they will have."

The government's job is not to control us. Its role should be limited to providing us with roads, with running water, with electricity, with education, if we want our children to have it, with health care. It should only be there to help us live our lives as we choose. Or as they say, 'only to make the trains run on time.' Oh, I forgot. They screwed up the railway decades ago.