Nanny is coming for you
Sunday, March 15th, 2009 12:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanA couple of years ago when the smoking ban came into effect, I made the prediction that the nanny state would target alcohol next and a number of my friends poo-pooed the idea. "Alcohol is too deeply embedded in the culture" they said, or words to that effect.
I made the counter argument that so had tobacco been, but they'd successfully turned public opinion around on that. It had taken a generation or slightly longer, but persistence paid off. Again, I was poo-pooed and told that smoking had never been popular. At this point I realised that the institutional brain washing of the nanny state had done far more work than I was capable of arguing against. Thirty years ago and earlier, smoking was very popular; you were very much in the minority if you didn't smoke. The response was that I was clearly against the smoking ban because I was a smoker. Actually, I had given up at that point and I'm still given up. My objection to the smoking ban was rather more than a case of sour grapes.
Anyway. I'm not restarting that argument, but I am plotting the progress of nanny's attempts to stop us drinking alcohol.
Today it was this: plans to end cheap alcohol. Last week it was this: Scots plan to stop cheap alcohol. What next, I wonder? ID cards to be examined before we sip wine? Who knows?
Previously, we have been told that we are ignorant about alcohol, or alcohol misuse is costing Scotland £2.25bn a year, before that, it was alcohol gives you Alzheimer's and before that, warnings about strong drinks.
Smoking isn't as newsworthy any more. Alcohol is. Nanny's coming, she's a way off yet, but she's coming. I give it thirty-five years before social drinking has collapsed under the media assault and the brainwashed start deriding anyone who likes a drop of wine. That's about how long it took to switch attitudes to cigarettes.
Don't worry though. They won't ban it. The tax revenue is too lucrative.
I made the counter argument that so had tobacco been, but they'd successfully turned public opinion around on that. It had taken a generation or slightly longer, but persistence paid off. Again, I was poo-pooed and told that smoking had never been popular. At this point I realised that the institutional brain washing of the nanny state had done far more work than I was capable of arguing against. Thirty years ago and earlier, smoking was very popular; you were very much in the minority if you didn't smoke. The response was that I was clearly against the smoking ban because I was a smoker. Actually, I had given up at that point and I'm still given up. My objection to the smoking ban was rather more than a case of sour grapes.
Anyway. I'm not restarting that argument, but I am plotting the progress of nanny's attempts to stop us drinking alcohol.
Today it was this: plans to end cheap alcohol. Last week it was this: Scots plan to stop cheap alcohol. What next, I wonder? ID cards to be examined before we sip wine? Who knows?
Previously, we have been told that we are ignorant about alcohol, or alcohol misuse is costing Scotland £2.25bn a year, before that, it was alcohol gives you Alzheimer's and before that, warnings about strong drinks.
Smoking isn't as newsworthy any more. Alcohol is. Nanny's coming, she's a way off yet, but she's coming. I give it thirty-five years before social drinking has collapsed under the media assault and the brainwashed start deriding anyone who likes a drop of wine. That's about how long it took to switch attitudes to cigarettes.
Don't worry though. They won't ban it. The tax revenue is too lucrative.