Five Years of Hate is Only the Beginning

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the public smoking ban in England and Wales. Scotland has endured six years and some change of tyranny and hate. In all that time, the ban has not saved one single life, because second-hand smoke (or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS)) has never killed anyone. Believe me, I have searched high and low for just one definitive death caused by ETS and there are none to be found. There has been conjecture and anecdotal claims, and there have been plenty of statistically-generated estimates -- for instance, the tobacco control industry (e.g. doctors) claimed the ban would save up to an estimated 600 lives per year in England and Wales without providing any evidence to support that claim. Because there was no evidence. It was a fairy tale. People love a good story.

So no lives were saved, but how many smokers have had their social lives utterly destroyed by the ban? How many smokers have become ill because they were forced to stand outside in rainy and freezing weather? How many pubs and clubs have gone out of business because of the ban?

The smoking ban tolls the death knell for freedom, liberty and adulthood every minute of every day.  Thousands upon thousands of citizens are social pariahs: smokers have become despised outcasts in their villages, towns and cities.  The press relentlessly bombards us with unchecked deceitful propaganda written by the tobacco control lunatics themselves, who have infiltrated all of our government institutions to ensure their hate campaigns can eradicate up to twenty-five percent of the population. The non-smokers who have lost their livelihoods due to the ban are merely collateral damage that the government ignores or denies while it steers its health war tanks through communities. Cheering on the tanks as they roll down the high street obliterating freedom are the masses of unthinking charity volunteers, who sometimes wear paper bags on their heads, recruited to show blind support for a cause that unscrupulously claims it will protect children. These unpaid foot soldiers stand upon the pavement proudly waving their banners and flags of hatred high in the air in their name of their religious crusade against the infidels who support liberty.  Britain, perhaps once a freedom-loving tolerant nation, has become a nation of haters and quasi-religious fanatics in only five short years since the ban's implementation. These are very dark days indeed.

I could tell you that things will get better, that freedom and liberty will prevail, but that would be a lie. The truth is that things will get much, much worse. We are a nation at war with ourselves. People do not want to take responsibility for their own choices, they want others to tell them how to live their lives so that if the choice was wrong you can blame someone else for it. Our politicians are corrupt and will support any cause that makes them look good politically, and they are quite eager to make your choices for you if they can profit from it. Because we are not at war with a foreign enemy, we turn on our own citizens instead. The mainstream media knows people need someone or something to hate, so they happily oblige in furthering any hate campaign against those deemed unfit for this magical utopian society -- a world where people could live forever if you follow orders. This will sell papers or get viewers. Hate is profitable. Five years of determined hatred against smokers is only the beginning of this campaign. The worse has yet to come.

In a few short minutes after you have read these words, I suspect you will have forgotten them.  You have a life to live and have more important things to do than worry about other people's liberty or freedom. You work for 7.5 hours per day, five days per week, in an office with horrible people you wouldn't have round for dinner. Your iPhone needs charging so you can listen to your MP3s while you take the train to work. That Kindle e-book you will never find time to read is waiting for you to download it. Your outrageous car insurance and council taxes must be paid. Your bicycle tyre has a flat. You have run out of organic low-fat milk for your organic breakfast cereal and you need to get to the shop before it closes. Someone has let their dog foul the pavement outside your flat so you need to get on Twitter to complain. That eco-friendly fluorescent light bulb in the hallway has stopped working, and after you replace it you will need to figure out how you're going to dispose of that dead light bulb legally, because you care greatly about the environment and your carbon footprint.

You're a busy person. I get that and I don't blame you. I know that you don't have time for yourself let alone for these completely abstract concepts like liberty, freedom of association, freedom of expression, and ownership of private property. Someone else will take care of those things and everything else for you if you let them. Somebody always does in the Nanny State.