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July 06, 2007
The Smoking Ban
Simon Jenkins:
I fail to see it as an advance of liberal civilisation when a man on
his way home from office or factory cannot enjoy a cigarette with his
beer in a private club that has agreed to his doing so.
Quite, this civilization is regressing from liberalism.
There is a yawning gap between Labour's all-pervading state
interventionism, which it laughably calls "liberal", and the tradition
of English liberalism which must now term itself libertarian and which,
long abandoned by both Liberals and Tories, is all but silent these
days.
Actually, we're all out here in the blogs. Howling into the wind for all the effect we might be having but no, we're not silent yet.
July 6, 2007 in Your Tax Money at Work | Permalink
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Comments
"Actually, we're all out here in the blogs. Howling into the wind for all the effect we might be having but no, we're not silent yet"
That's the nicest thing you've ever said.
Posted by: Mark Wadsworth | Jul 6, 2007 9:58:38 AM
Some of us are trying to get into local government. In my case, with the help and hindrance of wearing a Tory sheepskin.
Posted by: Philip Thomas | Jul 6, 2007 11:05:28 AM
Hate to be a bore but Jenkins keeps on doing this. Wailing about how they are all the same, how Britain sghould remember its heritage, how there is nobody to vote for.
Well there is and he knows it, but he wouldn't get the dinner invites if he came out and said it. The party that retains our traditional of liberalism is UKIP.
Posted by: Elaib | Jul 6, 2007 2:05:27 PM
One of the often overlooked offensive things about the blanket compulsory ban on smoking in enclosed places is that there is an exemption for the legislators themselves. The Houses of Parliament bars and smoking rooms were protected from the new law, and they will be allowed to smoke away as they did before.
A closer look at the government's plans for all subjects to have an expensive ID card and all their personal information and biodata on a national database reveals that here, again, the legislators are exempt.
So here we are with the first 2-tier law among many more yet to come. One law for the Inner Party, another for the Outer Party and other nobodies. What did Julia say in George Orwell's 1984, when she reveals her stash of real coffee, sugar and jam? She says she 'stole' it from the Inner Party. "There's nothing those bastards don't have".
Posted by: Opinionated | Jul 6, 2007 8:03:47 PM
I'm sympathetic to the arguments against the smoking ban. But don't they apply equally to marajuana, MDMA and cocaine? To be so vituperative about a partial restriction on one personal preference whilst entirely silent on blanket, heavily enforced bans on many others is hypocritical to say the least.
Tim adds: I'm not silent about the other bans. I regularly insist that we should have legalization of them all here. Just not in this specific post.
Posted by: The Aardvark | Jul 9, 2007 11:34:51 PM
To be fair, that's probably aimed not at you Tim, who has no real problem expressing what you think, but some of the more prominent commentators who seem to be less even-handed in their application of libertarian principals.
Without bothering to check I'm going to assume that Jenkins has never written "I fail to see it as an advance of liberal civilisation when a man on an evening out, cannot enjoy a dose of MDMA in a private club that has agreed to his doing so."
Posted by: Aardvark | Jul 10, 2007 10:00:32 AM
