Open to Question

We have commented on the broadsheet O2Q (Open to Question) in the past. We welcomed the questioning, in some of the articles, of ideas that many take for granted as given. We did not agree with the solutions proposed but this does not mean that the debate was not worthwhile and thought provoking. On the contrary.

We had thought that O2Q had gone by the board as we hadn’t seen it around lately but a copy came into our hands today so here we go again.

Two items in this issue (no 4 N0v. 2007) were of special note to us, both by Skip Hambling. The first was Skip’s commentary “Smoke screens” on the no-smoking in cars with children bylaw which we have complained about a number of times here in our pages. With a few minor changes we might have written it ourselves. Skip starts out saying:

Fascism is almost never easy to spot early on. It almost never raises its ugly head all tricked out in brown shirts and wearing armbands with voodoo insignia. It usually slinks in on little cat feet by way of moral crusades touted to be for “the good of us all.”

And so it comes to pass that it is now illegal in Wolfville to smoke while you drive with children in your car. Who can complain. It’s such a mild form of social coercion, what possible connection can there be to the dark and sinister world of fascist coercion?

The connection of course is inclination. That’s why what happened in Wolfville should worry us. Not for the practical impact of the bylaw-but for what it tells us about those who would first dream up and then seek to enforce such a law. The Wolfville bylaw shows the good burghers there inclined to readily approve degrees of extended social control. They clearly believe that some people know what is best for you- even if you don’t. And that is always where the trouble always starts.

Hear, hear Skip. Spoken like a true Libertarian!

They are ready to pull the wings off flies. Just because they can.

Yes. Power is so heady].

He goes on to complain about Wolfville’s “self-appointed vigilantes” and their neglect of deeper child welfare issues like child poverty then he slams the motivation behind this policy.

The truest measure of the motivation for the bylaw lies with the fact all agree it will be next to unenforceable. … All the “good people” all the “right thinking Canadians” in Wolfville have done the right thing. All the praise will be reserved for them [But remember they don't speak for us Skip!] All the scorn will be heaped on The Others. The hopeless sinners, the unrepentent smokers, have been marked for exclusion, shunned tagged for reeducation at least and maybe even punishment…

Like those who take the bus, forced to stand in the cold without a shelter because the Wolfville town worthies don’t want free bus shelters since they come with ads. Not pretty enough.

There is of course a class aspect ( surprise) to this whole tawdry business … Forced to do all the shitty jobs we educated and affluent folks need done to keep ourselves in a manner to which we believe we’ve become entitled, a lot of hard working folks still find some small solace in having a smoke. A pleasure we must do everything we can do to deny them. For their own good of course.

This is the same reason we don’t like food banks. Give them a cheque for G’s sake and let them decide for themselves what to spend it on. As we said before – give them at least liberty, choice and some dignity with our charity.

So the whole gambit in Wolfville saddens and worries me: because my neighbours are so ready to impose their will on others to exercise the tyranny of the majority .

Not even a majority, Skip!

It is possible I am making far too much out of almost nothing. It is also possible I am not.

You aren’t Skip, and we are with you on this one, although we suspect that your solution would not be ours.

Skip finishes with a reference to Niemoller, the German cleric, who survived the concentration camp to “remind us how dangerous it is to assume evil will never creep up on us on little cat feet while we remain silent because it is not happening to us.” We would quote Bonhoeffer’s Ethics ourselves, he who didn’t survive the Nazis, because he took on the responsibility – and the guilt- of confronting evil.

We might also quote one of our favoite cynics, H. L. Mencken

The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.

The other article we wished to comment on is titled “Kermit the Frog was right” on the difficulty of being green but we will leave that to a subsequent post.