I read, with complete detachment, the latest story about how smokers are being vilified as paedophiles.
I remembered how, on my flight here, I was advised that not only was smoking illegal on the plane, but if I needed to light up, not only did I have to wait until I was outside the building, but I had to find a designated smoking area.
In my hotel room, every single door has a "no smoking" sign under the door number.
And, of course, as a non-smoker, this doesn't affect me in the least, other than my clothes never seem to reek of tobacco smoke any more. Which, as a non-smoker, I'm rather pleased about.
But I do have to say that I'm continually surprised by how complete the anti-smoking victory has been.
Not content with giving smokers and non-smokers the choice of a train carriage or a section of the plane, smoker's rights have been gradually eroded to the point where it now looks like a petty child is in charge of dreaming up new rules.
It's getting stupid now: not only are you not allowed to smoke inside the building, you're compelled to smoke at least 10 yards from the front door. You're not allowed to smoke in your van if you use it for work. There is talk of banning parents from smoking in cars where they might, one day, have children, let alone allowing them to smoke in front of their children.
Non-smokers are now taking the piss. Having banned smokers from the inside of pubs, they're now looking to ban them from the beer garden because it's spoiling their fun.
And it's bizarre to see so-called "social liberals", who are quite keen on having drugs unbanned and free speech and all the other social liberties restored, railing against smokers, apparently intelligent people happily swallowing any guff about second-hand smoke. These same people who will shred any "evidence" about the evils of recreational pills will also blindly swallow any "evidence" about the evils of smoking.
In my lifetime, I've seen smoking go from being a background noise to life to being something used as a cosh to hound people into misery. Petty spite seems to have become the order of the day. And it's happening all around the world. Even countries which have a healthy disrespect for official regulations are meekly toeing the line.
What is going on?
And who is going to be the next victim of the new puritans? We've already seen them start on booze and fatties.
Why are people so willing to be cowed?
19 comments:
They are smokers - they have no will power.
As an ex-smoker I am a bit of a 'no-smoking' fascist but I get your point, I particularly don't accept the no-smoking in pubs law, some pubs are without doubt smoking pubs and should be permitted the freedom to remain so. I always found the hardest part of giving up was having a drink without a cigarette.
We all know that the next targets are those who are happy to openly display their religious convictions...maybe In a few years time I will not be able to openly confess my love for Bowie in fear that if may offend a non-Bowie fan (whoever the hell they are, freaks!)
Ask Pastor Neimoller...
When the pub smoking ban came in, the non-smokers would turn up in droves and all would be well, so we were told. Well, guess what, they didn't pitch up, and pubs are closing down all around the Realm. It has to be said the pub and brewing industries didn't put up much of a fight at the time, tough shit lads.
Many regular pub-going smokers, including me, drifted off. And if they introduce a ban in pub gardens, that will definitely be an end to it.
At least in my own flat I can tell non-smokers to fuck off outside while I have a tab.
I think I am going to start smoking again just to fuck 'em off. Wankers.
Boozies, fatties, salties, sugaries, butteries, aye the neu Puritans are here and they're loving it.
The anti-smoking lobbies and other people/organisations who get a pay check for combating smoking are hardly going to declare job done and disband / request a P45.
They have to justify their existence by never being satisfied with the previous victory.
It is why we will never have an end to poverty, because they will always just redefine poverty.
Or the end to racism etc.
And thus the state grows, because no part will ever die.
I'm an ex-smoker and just don't give a stuff. Smoke if you've got 'em, I don't care. If it bothers me I'll just go far enough away that I'm not affected by the smoke, and outdoors that's about three feet. Indoors is even easier: you can't smoke in my house and I can't tell you what to do in yours. If it bothers me I'll fucking go outside. Why can't that be the way it works everywhere? Why decide to shit on everybody's property rights and take away the right of people to decide what goes on on their own property? Down Under we've already got the enforced no smoking zone in your car - your own fucking car - in some states... all for the chiiiiiiiildren, natch. I sometimes feel these tobacco zealots won't be happy until someone can be prosecuted for having once had a post-coital ciggie in front of the damp patch on the bed.
"And thus the state grows, because no part will ever die."
Which is exactly why the only way around the problem is to not have a state at all. :o)
“Which is exactly why the only way around the problem is to not have a state at all. :o)”
Fecking KNEW you were going to say that!
I may have to quit work to caveat every statement right up the shitter on here instead. The short version of the applicable here being, with our current elected oligarchy system we have now, rather than any possible concept of state.
"The short version of the applicable here being, with our current elected oligarchy system we have now, rather than any possible concept of state."
OK, now I'm intrigued. Every single historical state has grown and never shrunk.
So if you can show, to my satisfaction, how you can create a state that doesn't just grow and grow, I might even be inspired to take up the challenge of describing a legal system that doesn't require a coercive state to back it. :o)
“OK, now I'm intrigued. Every single historical state has grown and never shrunk.”
Well ultimately perhaps, but countless examples have endured centuries at minimal levels, ours included. (British Victorian/Edwardian/ Georgian governments – all significantly smaller than their European equivalent)
But putting the point back on you I can find no examples of any significant collections of people that have not formed a state in very short order. You have previously quoted Ireland as an example, although over the time period described it requires ignoring the British colonial influence.
You always get either a strong man, or oligarchy. My challenge to you is to demonstrate a commercially successful entity of any reasonable size that has ever functioned without a state forming or at least a force monopoliser forming.
“So if you can show, to my satisfaction, how you can create a state that doesn't just grow and grow”
I have several times, to prompt your memory election of ALL public servants’ and their budgets, combined with regional government. Actually just regional government is enough. Take the Swiss model. The pre war US model, the British Indian model etc.
“I might even be inspired to take up the challenge of describing a legal system that doesn't require a coercive state to back it. :o)”
Books have been written on the subject of the legal framework for free markets (the bit you/we really care about) and they start with the need for a state. I linked a great one to you previously, the free download from the IEA.
If you think you can start to flesh out how a free market and legal system can operate without a state you can rely on me to provide constructive engagement.
"You have previously quoted Ireland as an example, although over the time period described it requires ignoring the British colonial influence."
What??????????????
They speak English in what?
As a smoker, I don't go to pubs or clubs, or other venues which are hostile. Before the ban, I would go occasionally. My local has been radically transformed over recent years. It started out as a thriving traditional pub, and was full of regulars most days.
Now the smoking ban has driven away half of the regulars. And in order to survive, the place turned itself into a child-friendly gastro-pub, and banned smoking outside in the garden too. That drove away the remaining half of the regulars, and the place will probably close soon. Only the Landlord remains. He presides over a lonely smoke free workplace with no staff, no customers, and a bouncy castle.
Where are all these non-smoking customers who clamoured for this transformation? They are at MacDonalds, with their kids, same as they were before the ban. They never seriously wanted to make use of the local pub. They just felt bloody-minded because the place didn't conform to their ideal venue.
All they have done, is bully a viable market sector into closure, and throw people out of work. Luckily, the jobcentre is a non-smoking environment, so that's all good.
It isn't the state doing this. It is us, being spiteful, doing this.
Amazing. I've discovered you article on Wikio's e-blogs in French. I'm a French person living in Brussels and I just find it wonderful that I hear about this French advertising campaign reading a translated article from a British blog :)
On the topic of your article, it's simple, nowadays we can't do anything anymore, especially in France. Cigarettes, alcohol, sex, food, all the things that give us pleasure, it's all bad bad bad. The obligation to be healthy/thin/beautiful, in other words perfect, has become more and more stressful.
You have no idea how depressing it is for an English person to read this. We still cling to the ideal that the French stick two fingers up at the government whenever the government tries to enforce something they don't want to do.
If the French aren't doing it, we really are all fucked. :o(
I can imagine...
Well, The French still ignore the laws that they don't like but indeed, there is a clear tendency towards conservatism in the field of cultural values.
Don't get me wrong, most French are still very liberal in their approach to the pleasures of life, but there are more and more people who try to impose their views onto others of how one should live... sad, really.
In Madrid it's up to the bar / restaurant owner if smoking is allowed. In my 5 years living in this city I've visited just two places where it was prohibited. Both were boring as hell, 'new-age' type places. And they were empty and soulless. At Barajas airport there are 'smoking zones' where you can have a tab while waiting for the plane. People buy their fags in 'cartones' - 10 packs for less than 25 euros - and they smoke like chimneys. Madrid is also the least violent major city in Europe (by quite some distance). Apart from 'domestics', which are quite common (it's a 'macho' thing), you just don't see, or even hear about, casual violence. I submit that these two phenomena are not unrelated. It's about a culture of live and let live. And it's f***ing great. If only they could just sort the mindless bureaucracy out...
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