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Liberty Goes up in Smoke—A Dying Concept? |
| Posted by Administrator (admin) on Dec 04 2007 at 7:24 AM |
| LibUK Articles >> General |
The Longrider looks at the death of liberty in Britain.
Liberty is defined in my Collins dictionary as:
The power of choosing, thinking, and acting for oneself; freedom from control or restriction
Yesterday on Longrider Blog, I railed at the illiberal anti-smoking lobby. That I was somewhat less than polite is, perhaps, an indicator of the frustration that I experience when I see illiberal policies proposed with scant regard for the rights of others who may not share the same outlook as those proposing the ban. So, too am I annoyed when organisations and people (usually politicians) twist our language to mean something entirely different. An example of such misuse of language was proffered by Simon Ettinghausen when he suggested that Britain is a libertarian country:
In this country, we're libertarians...
My response was somewhat robust. I've calmed down a little since then.
Since my childhood when my father impressed upon me the importance of free thinking, freedom of speech, freedom of association and the free exchange of ideas, I have noticed a steady decline in the concept of liberty. We pride ourselves—as does Mr Ettinghausn—on our liberal democracy, yet in the very next breath, Mr Ettinghausen proposes what can only be described as an extremely illiberal proposal; a ban on smoking in the motor car without any substantive evidence to back his assertion that the practice is injurious to other road users. Whatever this country is; it is not by any stretch of the imagination 'libertarian; Rather closer to the truth is the comment by Hugh Bladon of the association of British Drivers:
We've got a 'ban it' mentality in this country.
Okay, so sometimes the liberty of the many is maintained by restricting the liberty of the few—murder, for example. However, what is happening here takes that idea to an absurd and unnecessary extreme. Again and again, we see 'freedom' and 'liberty' bandied about as a justification for removing both. This, recently from the home secretary during a speech on terrorism to EU ministers:
"The right to security, to the protection of life and liberty, is and should be the basic right on which all others are based," he said.
The logic that we should sacrifice freedom in order to maintain freedom is patently absurd. Yet... Yet... people fall for it. They fall for the propaganda that we are all about to die from some terrorist master plan, and they fall for the drip, drip effect of the anti brigade who convince us that a little liberty lost is for the common good as it protects everyone’s liberty. Today, it is the smoker. From not smoking in the workplace, to not smoking in any enclosed space and now to our own personal spaces. Today, the motor car. Where next? The problem is that these tyrants driven by their pure consciences are doing this for our own good. They are right, the object of their derision is wrong and must be extinguished. When they have banned smoking from cars, surely it will be the home. And then? When they have effectively turned tobacco into the new cocaine or heroin and are wondering why the black market is doing so well, they will find some other aspect of our lives to interfere with. The beast is never sated.
I have never smoked. I have never wanted to smoke, so I could just shrug my shoulders and walk away – after all, the smoking ban doesn’t affect me. So too, have I never chased a fox across the countryside and I turned away then. The problem unfortunately is that sooner or later it will be something that I do that offends the puritanical health Nazis. Motorcycling is already lining up in their sights. There have over the past couple of decades been attempts both domestically and in the EU to restrict what I can rides, to add unreasonable 'safety” measures (anyone who recalls the nonsensical leg protectors will understand) in an attempt to restrict motorcycle numbers and with it 'improve' road safety. That I understand the risks I am taking and that I am prepared, as a reasonable sentient adult to take them is neither here nor there. I must be managed and regulated for my own good. So walking away is ultimately self defeating. If I am to defend my right to ride a motorcycle, then so too, must I defend the right of smokers to do so in their own personal space.
As a child I learned that I did not like being managed. My strong will and fierce arrogance made me difficult to handle. Occasionally I feel sorry for those teachers against whom I rebelled. Even at a young age, I was savvy enough to know which lines to cross and by just how far; enough to make myself a damned nuisance and stand up for myself and not enough to get myself into trouble. As an adult, I maintain that resistance. The desire by this government to manage us ‚Äì to the point of micro management - is something that I will vigorously resist. What disturbs me is that so few of my fellows are as concerned. For many, the smoking ban is good ‚Äì after all, they only see the benefits poured into their heads by a compliant BBC. It does not occur to them that what they do may one day be on the hit list—and no links are made in their heads, they fail to observe the behavior and wonder where it will lead; whether it will adversely affect their lives. My parents' generation came out of the second world war sharply aware of just what had been sacrificed by whom and why. Two generations on and that has been forgotten.
When I see and hear people talking of rights and bans I wait patiently and am usually rewarded by a demand that government should do something. I am reminded of Babylon 5. The phrase used by the Psi Corps rings eerily true—'the corps is mother, the corps is father.' Simply replace the corps with the state and you have the modern mentality; a mentality that sees liberty as a dirty word; that those who seek to protect it as friends of criminals, as having something to hide. As I grow older, I find myself growing further and further out of step with my fellow man, my underlying misanthropy fuelled by an unthinking subservience to the state, of a failure to value liberty, of a willingness to throw it all away on a promise from a politician.
Maybe I should start watching Big Brother...
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