Burning issue

….and back again! Think I may just have found the impetus to get back into this stuff.

It may seem an odd jump from the life-or-death Ugandan issue I blogged on yesterday, but if you are serious about civil liberties, then when a local issue comes up you act – even if you might cross the road to avoid those most affected.

And so it is with the smoking survey reminder at http://www.gov.im/lib/news/health/lessthantwoweeks.xml

I am in a unique position in that the removal of freedom & choice here doesn’t really affect me individually, except that every time anti-democratic prodnoses manage to take away a right from the public we all suffer, because it makes it that much easier for them to remove another one in future. But the notion that the ideas, opinions or objections of people who smoke must be automatically discounted because they might be wrong or deluded, while an anti-smoking lobby underwritten by government cannot be questioned - and must be assumed to be honest and accurate – is ridiculous and insulting.

Even minimal investigation of the ‘surveys’ and ‘evidence’ of that government-sponsored lobby shows basic mistakes and a failure to correct or even acknowledge this, while the way in which false information is presented again and again (and heavy-handed attempts to screen out ‘unhelpful’ public views in the government and public funded ‘surveys’ which are supposed to precede any change in legislation) is a matter which ought to be of grave concern to anyone who still believes we are living in a democratic country and that government is there to provide the services and society the electorate and taxpayers want.

There is also something plain wrong about government paying to lobby itself, then pretending to ask our opinion ( but skewing the survey questions so that we cannot object to the ill-informed decision they made in the first place), then expecting us to pick up the bill for the lot while they take away another of our liberties.

It seems there is an element in the public sector which now believes it is the electorate’s job to simply sanction a government which will do as it pleases, while the taxpayers are supposed to fund this and not ask embarrassing questions, such as whether it is professionally and objectively done, good value for money, or even fit for purpose.

Time to cut that element down to size, I would suggest. And if you need a joke to help you along, try http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/smoking-makes-smokers-more-like-non-smokers-2012112650493 .

No seriously, fill in that survey, but stop reacting to all the kneejerk tabloid twaddle and think about what happens when a bunch of prodnoses (probably in naff armbands and badly fitting peaked caps) get public money to invade the privacy of people’s homes and property and start ordering them around.

Because that is what we are talking about here. Nothing else. And think about what happens when, having done it once, they feel like doing it again, but this time to interfere with some simple pleasure of yours which ISN’T HARMING ANYONE ELSE AND ISN’T ANYBODY ELSE’S BUSINESS.

Because when health strategy is in the hands of the kind of thin-lipped puritans who come up with this nonsense, that is, if anything, a damn good reason to take up smoking. Because dying earlier as a result would be a merciful release from a drawn out, miserable death in whatever kind of joyless government facility these mean-spirited, anti-human fiends will come up with.

Over the top reaction?

Compared to the way Manx government officials and their dim little ‘third sector’ friends behave every time they want to brighten up their dull little lives by screwing up ours, and even expect another handout from us to do it?

Get real.

Thou Shalt Not Shall Be The Whole Of The Law

I am startled (but hardly surprised) by a report (see http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=48533) that the Manx police are seeking (or at least having foisted upon them) a power to stop drinking anywhere on island, rather than just isolated trouble spots which police records have identified. 

My first thought is that it is a shame we cannot have a bill to prevent idiocy outside the Wedding Cake, or public evangelising. Because as the wise and witty P.J. O’Rourke says “…no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.”

There is also the planned legislation to prevent smoking in cars containing children  (see http://www.gov.im/lib/news/health/publicsviewssoug.xml ), which may sound laudable on a casual glance but is based on poor BMA research, which was quickly debunked but only corrected so quietly that the general public remain unaware of the problem.

One elementary fault in the research is that it is based on what happens if you smoke in a car with the windows fully closed – which even a hardened smoker will tell you is physically impossible. Another is that they simply got the sums wrong, by a massive percentage. See http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com/2012/10/bma-lying-again-say-their-friends-again.html for the latest in the saga plus a number of links which give a potted history of the way the legend has developed.

Further to that is the way that the BMA (and more particularly a professional anti-tobacco lobby) continue to press their case based on the sensational but now totally discredited version of the evidence, not the reasonable but much milder version which would allow for some sort of common sense debate and compromise. It really seems such parties are not interested in debate or democracy, just consolidating a position where they will tell us what to do without question, or else.

As I have never smoked (filthy habit) and am (at least in the true and original sense of the word) temperate I think I can claim an independent, unbiased view of these things. As I am also a responsible parent, what also niggles me is the way that pig-ignorant but powerful prodnoses not only presume, but are being allowed, to legislate based on their ridiculous assumption that most parents simply do not know, and cannot be trusted to do, what is best for their children. That is an insult, especially coming from cretins who cannot even read the Bible without moving their lips.

The most worrying thing about this is the way we’re slipping away from the English Common Law system towards European ‘Roman Law’. In a nutshell, common law is based on the idea that you are free to do something unless there is specifically a law against it. Roman law works on the principle that it is illegal to do anything unless there is a law which grants you the right to do it, i.e. there is a numbered code and regulation for absolutely everything and if there is not you are a criminal, go straight to jail.

Eventually, because smokers (like most Manx people in my experience) are conformists they will lose the latest battle, just as they long ago lost the one over smoking in even segregated areas of pubs staffed and patronised only by consenting adults.

As smoking has been moved by a mixture of social engineering and well connected but ignorant busybodies from being the social norm to the social exception (the action of an ‘awkward’ and ‘inconsiderate’ few), so social drinking is going the same way. It will soon be - at best - not tolerated and at worst actually illegal, because people who want to conform, to be friendly and not make trouble (i.e. to be sociable and neighbourly) do not know how to fight back in a civilised way against anti-social prodnoses who claim the moral high ground and have friends in all the right political places.

In the process, of course, these otherwise useless and unemployable busybodies create a nice little cottage industry as ‘therapists’, ‘counsellors’ and ‘advisors’, which we the public (and their victims) pay for from our taxes.

Nice scam if you can work it, but what a nasty way to destroy our community and the pleasures that community has long held in common. Little more than a miserable, mean-minded, happy clappy fascism, in fact.