This interesting article by Jim Wilson from Canada deserves to be read for at least two reasons.
First because it addresses the most dangerous and childish mentality of all time: the ban mentality. The ban mentality is childish because, if you think about it, children tend to become cyanotic when they want or don’t want something; they stamp their feet and cry out loud. While that is a normal behaviour for a child as his brain is still incomplete and he acts purely on emotions, such behaviour in an adult becomes an anomaly, and it is often indicative of severe immaturity, bordering sometimes with some degree of retardation.
As most people, we are sure, would agree with the statement above, it is strange to observe that such retarded behaviour is well accepted when it becomes collective – that is, enacted by the state. Jim Wilson’s piece does not go as far as calling the Canadian Premier’s behaviour retarded, but surely the intelligent person can reach that conclusion autonomously from the facts that Wilson relates. We can almost see the Premier representing the Canadian collective stamp his feet in his office, red in the face, and scream “I don’t wanna! I don’t wanna!”. Unfortunately for his victims, his next statements are: “ban”, “forbid”! and he has the power to make his whim law. When the political system allow such abuse of power by one person or a group, it is time to think seriously about either restructuring the system to maintain freedom or redefine the system by removing words such as “democracy” or “liberty” from official documents, which seems to be the case of Canada – and not only Canada, unfortunately.
The second good reason to read Wilson’s piece is because he makes the all-time, classic mistake: he is against the bans that he does not like, but he is for the bans that he likes. It follows that prohibiting smoking in cars with children present – the most revolting and dangerous violation of private property and property rights which opens wide the doors for home invasion by antitobacco and “public health” in general – well, in that case the ban is OK for Wilson, abnd he is in favour. His only concern: how can it be enforced?
Wilson, of course, did not see fit to do some research on the passive smoking fraud, and he takes for granted that Canadian public health, unquestionably the most rotten institution in his country, is engaged in a heavy campaign of fraud and false information to Canadians on the dangers of active and passive smoking – dangers that simply have never been scientifically demonstrated. But Wilson does not know that, victim as he probably is on the “smoking kills” propaganda; so he does not see fit to check and verify the information, which is the first duty of a real professional, who should take nothing for granted. Smoking around a child is perfectly OK, unless we consider cooking around a child a danger too, or we forbid cars with children from travelling on any city road.
But probably Wilson does not smoke. That means that conning the public and violating property rights on false scientific pretences is just fine, because that does not touch him — thus the fact that it touches at least six millions of his nationals becomes irrelevant. One cannot be against bans on things one likes, and for bans on things one does not like. It simply does not work that way for, when it comes to public policy, it is not a matter of personal liking or preference; it is a matter of precedent. If a precedent is set for smoking, for example, it will open the door to everything else, and more bans will come on many more things.
Unfortunately, that seems to be beyond the comprehension of Wilson and many laypersons. If one is against the ban mentality, then he must be against all bans – along the same lines that if a country allows freedom of speech and assembly, it cannot forbid speech and assembly of Communists or Nazis or any other group or belief that even most of the public may despise.
It is this fundamental incoherence that allows the wave of bans to sweep, unopposed, one nation after another, whether it is based on ideology and/or junk science. As there are people who hate a ban but favour another, the criminals who designed the bans in the first place will show the agreement of those in favour and ignore that of those against it – one ban after the other, forever, relentlessly, until national bankruptcy and utter totalitarianism is obtained in the name of health, safety, environment and a thousand other excuses.
Liberty has been and always shall be the victim of human stupidity and half-baked liberalism. There is a big difference between the middle way and being half done. In that respect, Wilson seems to be the champion of the fools – too bad that he represents so many. Do you want to be like him?
In the meantime, please smoke in the car with your child present: you can rest assured that no harm will come to him because it is all a fraud – and, as Wilson himself points out, the ban is impossible to enforce. But when you see a police patrol and you hide your cigarette, do so not with guilt and fear, but with contempt for a state that has fallen so low as to use the police to enforce a fraud – and that difference is a very, very important one, as it is the first foundation of social change.
Someone has to keep the torch of freedom and common sense lit at times of gloomy darkness such as those we are going through: let it be you, and let your cigarette be both flag and torch. The inverted antismoking propaganda wants you to believe that common sense is not smoking in the presence of your kids; but an odour never killed anyone and it never will – that’s common sense.
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