Health and Safety? What a load of poppycock

I firmly believe that the upset produced by the continued presence of Nannery dwarfed the poignancy of Remembrance Sunday. On the one day when the nation takes some time out of its busy schedule to remember the heroism of the men who fought, and often paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country, we stand proud and silent, with our red poppies attached to our breasts. However, this year the nation’s tribute was dampened by PoppyScotland’s ridiculous decision to replace the traditional pin on a poppy with a plastic, green stick on the grounds of "safety reasons."

 

Pray tell, how can the nation possibly show respect to the veterans of the Great War whilst cowering from a pin?

 

Personally, I am deeply offended by the implication that a harmless, if not momentarily uncomfortable, pin-prick poses such a severe threat to my well-being. But this is not the first time the nation has been gratuitously insulted in such a way. Perhaps as a substitute for failing abysmally in its proper function, the Government has taken the role of Nanny Colossus, dictating what we can and cannot do, lest our health be threatened in some irreparable manner. As we have seen in recent years, the attacks upon our intelligence, and our fundamental freedoms, have become a regular occurrence with everything from tobacco to alcohol to milky tea bearing the aggression of health-fanatics.

 

Despite the claimed (although I take issue with this supposition) best intentions of the State, one could be forgiven in pondering over the latest snuff-advert propagated by the Health Education Board of Scotland, and asking what business it is of the state to dictate how healthy we keep ourselves. I would suggest the primary cause for this interference is the national loss of any established, proper moral authority. Thus, the State has taken upon itself the role of moral guardian. This has never been the purpose of government and, if the implications of such an authority are stretched to its possible, and logical, conclusion, is a frightening prospect. Today the State bans smoking as immoral activity, tomorrow it bans chocolate. A frivolous example perhaps, but when the State undertakes the decision to moralise, based on its own skewed idea of ethics, nothing is safe from the Westminster, and Holyrood, humbugs.

 

Furthermore, since when did civilised Britain drift into agreement with Protestant Fundamentalism on the perverse notion that health is directly equated with morality? The rhetoric of brandishing possibly unhealthy activities as immoral should be consigned to the unlettered ramblings of backwater snake handlers, not the elected Parliament of the British people. This is particularly true in an age when talks of legalising euthanasia and easier access to abortion are constantly on the table. Do I detect the stench of hypocrisy?

 

Of course, those who idolise health always have philosophically defunct sound-bites ready to respond to criticism leveled in their direction. Usually it involves pitifully condescending tripe on how adults cannot be trusted to make the "correct" decisions so must rely on Big Brother for "encouragement." Those of a softer persuasion rely on the smoking ban genre of excuses to attack our civil liberties with the bizarre accusation that those who live unhealthily in public endanger the health, and therefore civil liberties, of others. This standard reasoning that we have grown accustomed to hearing really does epitomise the facile thought-process of these latter-day puritans.

 

It takes a certain kind of nihilist to believe that we each dwell in an individual vacuum. We all have habits that irritate others. Personally, I am daily infuriated with the thudding sound that emits from the headphones of a certain chap on my bus-route, as well as the horrendously strong odour of lavender that emanates from an elderly woman sitting beside him. But the thought of criminalising such annoyances rarely enters my head. In a similar manner, I refuse to enter one my local pubs due to the overly-loud music. But I would not be so pretentious as to demand the landlord lower the volume to respect my pickiness. Common-sense dictates that I should take my business elsewhere. Why does the same common-sense not apply to an individual who does not wish to sit in a smoky-pub? Why is it that the law should reflect those of fanatical rudeness, who insist that all society must conform to their pet likings? The issue of health is an irrelevance as attempts to ban activities causing "secondary harm" is a slippery slope into a legal anarchy, as well as obvious quackery of second-hand smoke.

 

My intention was not to descend into a ranting tangent but this subject inevitably leads one into it. We do not need constant surveillance and dictations regarding our health. We are not infants. So let’s stop throwing tearless tantrums and do something about this mess, before our right to protest is declared "unsafe."