Welcome to Totalitarianism
Where is this prohibitionism going to end?
We all know it started with the smokers. They just wanted smoking stopped on aircraft and they wanted smoke free railway carriages. Over the years that has crept up the scale, with increasing bans to a level that was only an anti-smoker’s wet dream a few years ago.
The latest from Japan – “We have reached a conclusion that smokers are not fit for the education sector,” This is essentially a statement that smokers are somehow some kind of inferior being and a sub-class of humanity. Suppose the statement was “We have reached a conclusion that Jews are not fit for the education sector” or “We have reached a conclusion that niggers are not fit for the education sector“. There would be an international outcry, yet no one gives a shit for the smoker nowadays, so it’s perfectly fine to class smokers as unfit for employment for no other reason than they enjoy a cigarette.
Having hounded smokers into the ground they are now starting on other areas. Following the Tobacco Template to the letter they are starting with advertising [which is leading to some really amusing unintended consequences!]. Soon the bans will creep in and they will go from minor restrictions, through major restrictions and ultimately outright bans.
Where is this going to end?
I can see a world where tobacco and alcohol will be all but banned everywhere. Food will be bland and unappetising. You will be banned from any medical treatment or employment if you ever smoked or drank or if your BMI is anything over deemed “normal”. Those who the Health Police declare “unfit” will become outcasts from society. Those who fail to meet government guidelines on exercise will find themselves penalised through some form of taxation.
Big Brother will monitor all lifestyles, penalising all who fail to meet the standard.
George Orwell was bang on the mark.
Isn't it amazing (or scaring) that a minority of about a quarter to a third of people globally can be happily discriminated against without so much as a raised eyebrow by the professionally offended?
The mind keeps boggling.
We hear endlessly about tolerance and inclusion. Everyone is to be welcomed just so long as they are on the approved list. Religious extremists get a greater welcome than the unfortunate smoker!
There may come a time when smokers/fatties/drinkers will have to wear something to identify them, such as a yellow star, for example. One consequence is that when you exclude people from a tribe they will form their own, rival tribe, then its war.
Then the powers that be will decide to move those tribes into their own designated areas [known as ghettos?]. What will happen then when the ghettos are overcrowded?
I sometimes wonder whether, eventually, we will end up with two “societies” – one, quite small one, full of people who have pretty much no vices whatsoever, such as professional athletes and the crazily health-obsessed, who have access to healthcare, social housing, legal work etc and another, probably much bigger one, filled with anyone who doesn’t fit the mould in even the most minor way – those who have smoked more than one cigarette in their lives, who drink more than the permitted limits, who tend to be overweight (even slightly), or who eat more sugar or red meat than the PTB deem acceptable – who will be denied access to all these things but who, because of their larger numbers, will out of necessity organise themselves into an unofficial “second” society, offering these services from within their number on behalf of their number.
So we’ll see “sinners” setting themselves up in businesses and employing other “sinners” to work alongside them, we’ll see “sinner” property owners offering their properties for rent to other “sinners” and we’ll see something similar to the old “Friendly Societies” which enabled people to access healthcare in the pre-NHS days, being set up informally amongst groups of “sinners” to provide funding for private healthcare which the NHS will no longer be prepared to offer them. I don’t see any of this being undertaken as an “official thing,” but I think that it will sort of grow organically. There’s a huge untapped market out there for services and goods for an increasing number of people who are being catered for less and less by currently “official” companies and services. And the more “sins” are added to the list by the PTB, the larger this group will become.
Who knows? We may well see a situation whereby life is actually better run, and services offered are of a much higher quality – independently and away from inept and over-zealous State interference – for “sinners” in the community than it is for the “saints” who obediently do as they are told. Sinners of the world unite!
How will I be able to "see" extra fingers without alcohol? Room 101 beckons.
It's ironic that smokers contribute far more in excise duties on their activity than it costs the Health Service in dealing with any consequences – approximately 5 times more according to the data. On that basis smoking should be encouraged.
It's even more ironic that other folk who knowingly engage in unsafe sexual practices and thus acquire HIV/AIDS are provided with limitless and very costly treatment completely free of charge, also free from any moral condemnation, despite not paying any additional taxes for their careless recreational bum-banditry.
Funny old world.