I was tempted to post about the government plans to require tobacco products to be sold in plain packaging, but in the end decided there’s only so much outrage I can summon up in a day. But I was struck by this rather despairing post by IanB on the Counting Cats in Zanzibar blog:
I feel scared. I can see the world I grew up in being dismantled, bit by bit. There are times I wish they’d just get it over with. In a sense, it is the gradualism that is unbearable. There are times I wish they’d just ban everything- baccy and beer, burgers and bangers, and all the rest- once and for all. Instead, they creep forward one apparently tiny step at a time. It’s like being executed with a bacon slicer.You do have to wonder when it’s all going to stop. Will there ever be some turn of the tide, some popular uprising against all the nannies and the bullies? Or will all of our freedom and individual responsiblility continue to be dismantled, agonisingly slowly, piece by piece?
And the truly galling thing is that so many are happy to stand by and applaud as others lose their extremities to the blade, even though they must know, deep down, that one day it will be their turn.