Grim stuff. When I object to some ban or another on the grounds that I’m a grown up and should be able to choose for myself, I’m usually met with slack jawed stares. For most people it seems, such notions as self determination or self discipline have very little meaning. Thats how we get the Nicola Sturgeons of this world.
Great, if very depressing, article. There was a classic interview/debate on the Today programme many years ago (when I could still tolerate listening to it) between David Hockney and some anti-smoking campaigner, in which David Hockney kept saying to the latter, accurately, “You’re DREARY! You’re just DREARY!”. A treasured moment.
PS Typo: there is a missing ‘not’ in this sentence: The trouble is that their desire to have the state push them around has an obvious impact on those of us who do want to be pushed around.
You also have 'Buchanan is not here talking about freedom for fear' -- 'from fear' is what you intended. (I also think the placement of 'here' makes it harder to understand, as well, and 'here Buchanan is not talking about' flows better. In for a penny, in for a pound :) )
How did we get into this appalling position? It could be that I just wasn’t so aware of these things 30-40 years ago but my perception is that, apart from health warnings on fag packets which of course weren’t restrictive even if they were discouraging, back in the 1980s we could do what we wanted. Yet we have gone from that position to a default assumption that we should be micromanaged by the state just in my adult life.
And now we don’t just have the “public” health gangsters interfering with our food we have the climate doomsayers trying to stop us eating meat for the health of the planet. You can’t win.
I can only hope that because most politicians drink alcohol, as does the majority of the adult population, that they won’t dare to try prohibiting it. It’s relatively easy to oppress an increasing minority like smokers, but another thing to attack the pleasures shared by the bien pensants.
Sorry, unrelated to the above, although I suppose about a kind of despotism. Chris, have you considered doing an update post on Covid borrowing (some 400 billion!)? And how that has played out now with rising interest on the repayments. It is very stark how much more we borrowed as a % of GDP compared to Sweden say. It makes the expense of the Covid Inquiry a mistaken afterthought. I remember at the time the magic money tree justification was that it was an emergency and the interest was so low, we essentially had license to borrow ridiculously. The oddest thing: no one really seems to care now, as though it doesn't matter. It would be a very belated response to Ryan and Sam's piece on how Sweden supposedly paid a comparable economic price to the UK.
That sums it up pretty well, I would say. So many people fear freedom because deep down they fear its flip side, responsibility. Which would really be their own business if they didn't have the gall to impose their will on others via the state. But unfortunately, they do exactly that, and make their own fears everyone else's business as a result. And all too often, they succeed. It's stranger than fiction, how the free world has decayed.
Do a Google search for “is it time to ban” and see how many things people want to prohibit! (Do a search for “is it time to legalise” and you’ll just find stories about weed.)
For the latter, you will also find the occasional story about hard drugs and/or psychedelics too. But otherwise, this observation is correct, it's the zeitgeist.
Grim stuff. When I object to some ban or another on the grounds that I’m a grown up and should be able to choose for myself, I’m usually met with slack jawed stares. For most people it seems, such notions as self determination or self discipline have very little meaning. Thats how we get the Nicola Sturgeons of this world.
Great, if very depressing, article. There was a classic interview/debate on the Today programme many years ago (when I could still tolerate listening to it) between David Hockney and some anti-smoking campaigner, in which David Hockney kept saying to the latter, accurately, “You’re DREARY! You’re just DREARY!”. A treasured moment.
PS Typo: there is a missing ‘not’ in this sentence: The trouble is that their desire to have the state push them around has an obvious impact on those of us who do want to be pushed around.
Thank you. That is the kind of typo no writer wants to make. Sorted!
You also have 'Buchanan is not here talking about freedom for fear' -- 'from fear' is what you intended. (I also think the placement of 'here' makes it harder to understand, as well, and 'here Buchanan is not talking about' flows better. In for a penny, in for a pound :) )
Thank you. I wrote this in a bit of a rush!
How did we get into this appalling position? It could be that I just wasn’t so aware of these things 30-40 years ago but my perception is that, apart from health warnings on fag packets which of course weren’t restrictive even if they were discouraging, back in the 1980s we could do what we wanted. Yet we have gone from that position to a default assumption that we should be micromanaged by the state just in my adult life.
And now we don’t just have the “public” health gangsters interfering with our food we have the climate doomsayers trying to stop us eating meat for the health of the planet. You can’t win.
I can only hope that because most politicians drink alcohol, as does the majority of the adult population, that they won’t dare to try prohibiting it. It’s relatively easy to oppress an increasing minority like smokers, but another thing to attack the pleasures shared by the bien pensants.
Sorry, unrelated to the above, although I suppose about a kind of despotism. Chris, have you considered doing an update post on Covid borrowing (some 400 billion!)? And how that has played out now with rising interest on the repayments. It is very stark how much more we borrowed as a % of GDP compared to Sweden say. It makes the expense of the Covid Inquiry a mistaken afterthought. I remember at the time the magic money tree justification was that it was an emergency and the interest was so low, we essentially had license to borrow ridiculously. The oddest thing: no one really seems to care now, as though it doesn't matter. It would be a very belated response to Ryan and Sam's piece on how Sweden supposedly paid a comparable economic price to the UK.
That sums it up pretty well, I would say. So many people fear freedom because deep down they fear its flip side, responsibility. Which would really be their own business if they didn't have the gall to impose their will on others via the state. But unfortunately, they do exactly that, and make their own fears everyone else's business as a result. And all too often, they succeed. It's stranger than fiction, how the free world has decayed.
Do a Google search for “is it time to ban” and see how many things people want to prohibit! (Do a search for “is it time to legalise” and you’ll just find stories about weed.)
For the latter, you will also find the occasional story about hard drugs and/or psychedelics too. But otherwise, this observation is correct, it's the zeitgeist.