I blogged a while back about how pissed off I was about how the right wing jerkoffs of the world–well, of the US and some of their deluded fellow travellers in Canada like this guy (the subject of the post, not the blogger)–have made a huge symbolic issue out of the NON-issue of “Merry Christmas.” Around that time was the predictable flood of letters to the Calgary Sun about how “we’re not allowed to say ‘Merry Christmas’ anymore” because of the evil lib-left. And it never ends. Being conservative now entails inventing threats to our “freedoms,” and then, having spread word of this threat, to make it clear that the blame lies with liberals, secular humanism, multiculturalism, feminism, and every other positive aspect of our post-stone-age society.
Now that Christmas is over (even for those lucky Orthodox Christians who celebrate it in January- when I was a kid I always envied them) and “Happy Holidays” has been stored in the basement until the FOX news crowd can trot it out next year to remind everybody that liberals’ desires to be culturally inclusive are worse than the capital crimes being committed by Bush and Cheney every fucking day of the year, we have the new old “threat,” and it’s this phantom called “the nanny state.” This term has been rearing its ugly, ugly head with annoying frequency lately with two important, and absolutely wonderful and celebration-worthy, recent changes in our “regulatory climate” here in Calgary and elsewhere (to varying degrees). The first concerns smoking bans, and the second concerns the recent near-ban of “trans fats” in restaurant foods and (I think) other food for purchase in the city of Calgary, the first regulation of its kind in Canada.
All over the world, regulations concerning smoking in public places have been getting increasingly stringent since the late 1990s. I remember my first visit to a “smoke free” (as in, smoking isn’t even allowed in bars) city: San Francisco, November 2000. It was a complete delight to be able to enjoy a beer in a bar–a BAR!–without having to contend with the stench and respiratory issues (I’m asthmatic) that had been a part of my life, my entire life. Such laws have become commonplace in Canada; Calgary was the last major city to go smoke free (mostly) in January 2007, and the whole province is, as of three weeks ago, smoke-free end to end without the loopholes that existed for “workplaces,” a loophole that, honest to God, let people smoke in taxis since the taxis were a “workplace.” No more.
Now, while Canada is pretty much a nonsmoking zone coast to coast to coast–they’ve even phased out glassed-in smoking pens at airports, which are federally regulated–in the US, it is much worse (if you’re a nonsmoker or a smoker with a conscience); in some states, there are no smoking regulations anywhere. Alabama is one such state. So is Indiana, my home state, where the only municipality that has anything close to what we have everywhere in Canada is Bloomington. In the northwest part of the state, where I was born and raised, only one community even has the watered down “no smoking with minors present” law that was mocked and derided in Calgary (that was the extent of the smoking bylaw, 2003-2007) as being pathetically weak. Not so in Amurrica, where “smoking” and “freedom” are apparently equivalent, and, yes, efforts to just make it so that little kids aren’t seated in smoking areas are seen as the trappings of the encroaching NANNY STATE.
And yes, I know that there are smoking laws with teeth all over the US, but to say that the regulatory landscape is “patchwork” is an understatement, and the fact remains that the US is still a smokers’ paradise relative to other countries. Yet the “smokers’ rights” vitriol is very strong there and so is the whole “anti-nanny-state” discourse, the central claim of which is that the government is sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong and–this is just too damn rich–”protecting people from themselves.”
Okay, stop right there. “Protecting people from themselves”? Let’s make this clear: WE don’t give a rat’s ass what diseases you get from your own CHOICES. That’s your problem. You make it OUR problem because you DON’T only smoke in your own private space; you DO litter the world with your despicable butts; you DO burn down houses and apartment buildings and you DO kill innocent people in the process; you DO (some of you) force kids to breathe in your second-hand poison; you ARE bullies and assholes way, way too often. If you didn’t make the world an intolerable place by your choices, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But we’ve put up with your shit for more than a century. You brought this on yourselves.
I could go on and about the “why don’t they just ban cigs then?” nonsense (yeah, I can just bet that smokers really want that)… let me just say that most governments understand, really, that prohibition doesn’t work and that wars on weed, opiates, coca derivatives, and meth are plenty, thanks, without having to deal with what nicotine addicts would resort to if tobacco where prohibited.
But let me save all of that for another time. For now, I just have to say that I am sick of this very important public health effort, one that is intended first and foremost to protect EMPLOYEES and not the smokers, being reduced to a stereotyped example of the “nanny state” going overboard. We NEED these laws, and so I’m going on record as a proud nanny stater.
Oh, about that trans fats ban. For some reason a lot of pundits and average joes took their stupid pills when learning about this one and decided that this was another example of government deciding what’s best for us and that–this is the really stupid part–the government was taking away a delicious, delicious ingredient from our food. “What next, ban bacon?” was the reply.
No, you idiots. Trans fats are not analogous to bacon or eggs or butter or chocolate or any of the little culinary pleasure that we eat even though they make us feel naughty. Nobody has ever said, “let’s have a trans fat pigout,” and that’s because you couldn’t just head to the 7-11 and grab some trans fats from their freezer case. This is a nasty, engineered substance that is DANGEROUS to humans; it saves restaurants and food manufacturers money, but it is easily replaced with more expensive, but NOT as dangerous, products. No restaurant owner has ever selected trans fats for their lovely taste profiles. He chose them to save money.
And again, the “nanny state” bullcrap has emerged in this “debate” and predictably so. The misunderstanding here is perfectly clear: People think that their “choice” of trans fats has been taken away from them, when in fact they were never given a choice to begin with. A “choice” for trans fats is not one anybody would make anyway, any more than would somebody choose lead paint, or mouse droppings in their cereal. The government is acting to ban a substance that is dangerous and superfluous, and neo-con morons are complaining about this.
Incidentally, Alberta’s “nanny state” told me, until 2005, that I would never be able to legally marry my partner in this province. We’re grown-ups. Where were the complaints about the “nanny state” then?
