Ted Dalrymple has another installment, in the Times of London, ready made. A few samples:
"I have lived under a Latin American military dictatorship where daily life was freer than in Britain today. Of course, you couldn’t go out into the street and shout “Down with Señor Presidente”, at least not without dire consequences; on the other hand, you were considerably less surveyed, supervised and harried as you went about your business than you are in contemporary Britain.
"The average Briton, we are told, is filmed 300 times a day once he steps out of his door. His home is hardly his castle, either. If he doesn’t have a television he receives repeated menaces from the licensing authority, which may send an officer to inspect his house. [ To see if he has an illegal unlicensed TV-- SB ] And the form granting him the inestimable democratic right to vote comes with the threat of a £1,000 fine if he doesn’t fill it (and he’ll go to prison if he doesn’t pay the fine).
(Snip)
"The State is increasingly concerning itself with the individual’s private habits, instituting a reign of virtue, chief among which is healthiness (we are approaching the situation of Samuel Butler’s satire, Erewhon, a country where illness is a crime). Though not a single smoker is unaware of the dangers of smoking, and hasn’t been for 30 years or more, he is now to be prevented from smoking in public, even when he is among other smokers only.
"The pettiness of this official persecution of smokers (who are not prevented from paying a lot of tax) can hardly be exaggerated. The hospital in which I used to work instituted a no-smoking policy, so that smokers had to leave the building to smoke. To do this, one orthopaedic patient needed a wheelchair, but to hire a wheelchair he had to pay a £60 deposit, which he did not have. He grew so angry that he needed sedation."
There is much more.Go there-- you know the drill...
4 comments:
To Johnny UK-- virtue compelled is not virtue at all.
Doing anything wrong? And who decides-- the state?
Several things I enjoy were legal in my youth. Thus far and no further...
From the story: "We all know that a suicide bomber is not going to be put off by the mere possession of a biometric ID card, and that the only thing that will deter muggers is efficient policing."
I get his drift and see looming here much of same, but I have to say that I hope "efficient policing" is not our only chance to avoid a mugging. I'm sure Tam would have a few alternative suggestions.
they inspect your house if you don't have a TV?? You have to license your TV?????
Sad to say, Larissa, yes. And it ain't cheap either...
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