Derek Green

“I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labour of the industrious”

This blog page is intended as a place where I can, mainly for my own enjoyment, comment on various matters of moment or government stupidity. My family has had to put up with my “rabbiting on” for many years and now it is your turn if you bother to continue reading!

21st July 2009

I had a letter from our local Conservative MP, James Arbuthnot the other day in response to one of mine and it would seem that David Cameron has been reading my blog! He has made a statement as follows "Today we've got far too many MPs in Westminster. More people sit in the House of Cmmons than in any other comparable elected chamber in the world. This is neither cost effective nor politically effective: just more people finding more interfering ways to spend more of our money." There are apparently proposals in the Conservative Election manifesto to ask the Boundary Commission to reduce the House of Commons, initially by 10%.

Since then I had the opportunity to meet our MP and he confirmed that David Cameron really wants to reduce the size of the House by 20%, making 518 instead of 646 - encouraging news indeed if it happens! I say if because how often in the past have things been promised in manifestos that then don't happen. A referendum on EU membership springs to mind!

In my view cuts in public sector workers needs to be even more drastic. There are currently 29,000 politicians and aides costing the taxpayers half a billion pounds. This figure has risen from just 3,000 since 1978, no wonder the governments finances are in such a mess. Interestingly MEPs cost the taxpayers £5 million in saleries and the European Parliament refuse to disclose the bill for their expenses.

Enough of the Grumpy Old Man and on to something more pleasant, namely photography. I get more and more pleasure out of doing something that gets me to see and photograph some glorious parts of our country. I have opened a web site to show some of my work and it can be found at :-http://derekgreen.redbubble.com/ I do hope that it may give other people the enjoyment it gives me.

17th June 2009

I have not updated this blog for some time because frankly I have been speechless with rage and frustration about our politicians and the way we are governed. I won't mention MP's expenses here because it has all been said.

It would seem to me that it is time for a complete re-think about how our country is governed and major changes are needed. See my quote from Thomas Jefferson above.
1. In 1900 when Britain ruled half the globe we had 60 Ministers in the government and 19 in the Cabinet.
2. In 1940 at our darkest hour we had only 74,
3. Now we have 125 Ministers and 22 in Cabinet. We have 646 MPs in parliament and 87 MEPs.
3. 382 new Acts of Parliament have been added since 1997 when Labour came to power.
4. There are now 1,162 unelected and unaccountable Quangos costing us, the taxpayers over £100 billion per year (£1,662pa per tax payer). This is a sevenfold increase since Labour came to power when the cost was £24.1 billion. Many of these Quangos do the same thing, whilst others operate at cross purposes.

The USA with a population of 306,688, manages to govern itself with 535 members of their Senate and House of Representatives. For some unaccountable reason 646 MPs are needed to control our unruly 61,612 inhabitants! This is even more farcicle when one realises that since becoming a member of the EU, 75% of our laws are made in Brussels. What on earth do our MPs find to do with themselves!

Surely it is time for us to say enough is enough? But how can we get it changed when the very people we elect as our MPs to speak for us have the all abiding self interest to retain their jobs together with the overblown expenses and pensions that go with them?

8th March 2009

Further evidence that the inmates are running the lunatic asylum was published recently. It was reported that the Government has spent £900 million on severance payments for civil servants in the past three years. This is at first site an excellent thing and I have been saying for a long time that we have too many civil servants. On further examination the report goes on to say that the Government are at the same time recruiting new staff. One example is the Department of health who took on 445 new staff between 2005 and 2007 despite laying off 148 staff over the same period at a cost of £11 million. The Department for Cmmunities and Local Government (whatever they do) spent £45 million laying off 426 civil servants over the past three years while hiring 1,624 new staff. I ask you! If this was a private company, the shareholders would have called for the resignation of the finance director and CEO. However of course they would then be given huge bonuses for having failed dismally so perhaps I won't go there!

28th January 2009

When will this complete waste of public money on government spin be halted. It is high time that Mr Brown concentrated on getting us out of the mess he got us into rather than just massaging the bad news.

24th January 2009

I am not going to comment on the general state of the economy and the fat cat bankers who got us into this mess and should be in jail rather than enjoying their large bonuses. Nor will I mention the fact that Gordon Brown promised us there would be no more "Boom and Bust" and now refuses to admit that he has led us into just such a position.

No, what I want to ask is how Mr Brown and his incompetent cronies can continue to increase public spending so unproductively as more and more people join the dole queue and the country sinks deeper into debt? I refer to the amount spent on spin, sorry "public relations." The Tax Payers Alliance reports that the amount spent by the 32 Quangos and public bodies who responded has risen by £10 million, or 25% in a year and now totals £52.7 million. If that figure was extrapolated for all 1,162 public bodies it would total 1 billion pounds! A Cabinet Office spokesman said "Using effective communication is essential for non-departmental public bodies to enable them to fulfil their roles." What a load of cods wallup.

Lord Jones the former trade minister told MPs that he was "amazed" that so many civil servants who deserved the sack didn't get it, and that "the job could be done with half as many." Why is it that Gordon Brown who appointed Lord Jones and rated his expertise doesn't act on his advice?

It is high time that the civil service is drastically pruned, but of course this will never happen under this government as they all guard their "index linked pensions" jobs like rottweilers.

25th November 2008

The one thing the Government should have done - reduce public sector employment has not been mentioned. The reverse in fact is occuring. Independent published forecasts show that an additional 50,000 public officials will have been recruited in the 6 months to the end of the year! This will be the biggest increase for 3 years taking the total public sector workforce to a staggering 5.8 million. These millions who will receive an indexed linked pension on top of a probable final bonus irrespective of how badly they perform are paid for by the taxpayer. The Centre for Economic and Business Research forecast that over the same period 300,000 private sector workers will have lost their jobs.

It is high time that the politicians of all parties realise that we do not need continual "Nannying" and that the unaccountable mushroom of bureaucracy should be seiously constrained and preferably disbanded.

Enough of the "Grumpy Old Man" and it is a time for an apology for lack of activity on this blog. I have re-kindled my interest in photography as a hobby and have been totally absorbed in re-learning the art using all the modern digital technology. More of this later, but one of my efforts attached below.

10th September

So I now have to become a Vegetarian to save the planet, so says Dr Rajendra Pachauri chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. As Boris Johnson said "No I am not going to have one meat free day per week. No I am not going to become a gradual vegetarian. In fact, the whole proposition is so irratating that I am almost minded to eat more meat in response"

Apparently livestock now use 30% of the the earths surface and farming produces 37% of the methane created by human activity and as Boris says "Dr Pachauri is spot on with his analysis. It is his prescription that is absurd.What he neglects in his argument are the 1.3 billion people who's livelihoods depend on agriculture." The United Nations say nothing about the real problem which is over population. Apparently the world's population is now 6.72 billion and due to rise to 9 billion by 2050. It is high time that the worlds leaders tackled this problem rather than trying to restrict our diet.

19th August

I was given a link to an amusing website www.laughingcavalier.co.uk It's members endeavour to expose the lunacies of Government interference and bureaucracy in our daily lives. More power to their elbow I say because bureaucracy seems to be expanding like a hot air balloon.

Yet another department has been formed in our ever swelling and top heavy civil service. I refer to the "Independent Safeguarding Authority" who have produced a large tome of regulations for those who run small community care groups staffed completely by volunteers. There was an excellent letter by Roger Howard in the Telegraph about this which was then commented on by the down to earth columnist Philip Johnston. Philip said "Volunteers are the latest victims of this Governments stubborn obsession with needless bureaucracy."

How many times have we seen the Government publish some new legislation that is obviously unworkable or self defeating, having ignored any warnings and then have to do a U turn some time later. The thing that really gets my goat is that they then always claim that they are listening to the people and making things easier, when they created the problem in the first place!

12th July 2008

Mike Rutherford commented in today's Daily Telegraph "How is a government in a so-called civilised, advanced,democratic society allowed to get away with telling untruths to the citizens it purports to serve? I ask because at least one minister claimed that most motorists would gain financially from Labours proposed new VED system. Now within the last few days, the Treasury concedes that only 18 percent of cars will attract lower rate of road tax. What are we talking about here? A genuine ministerial mistake? or a lie? If it is the former then , apologies and resignations are in order. If the latter then new laws are needed to make lying in Parliament an offence as serious as lying in court."

The problem is that it now seems acceptable for ministers to mislead the public and numerous examples have occured recently, the abolition of the 10p starting tax being just one. Is it any wonder that the voting public have lost all faith in the integrity of this government and long for a change.

A retrospective tax on motor vehicles already owned is in effect nothing more than a possesions tax grab however much Gordon Brown dresses it up as a "Green Tax"

30th June 2008

No "Grumpy Old Man" mumbles today as we have just got back from a great 10 day trip through France, Belgium and Germany in our 1935 Lagonda M45. It was a wonderfully organised trip by Stephen Brown of European Rallies Ltd called the "Summer Saunter". The weather was perfect and the company of the other entrants could not be bettered. We stayed in great hotels had delicious food and of course some wonderful German wine from the Mosel region. As soon as we got back we entered the "Double 12" event at Brooklands over the weekend which was a great event very well organised. It was a combination of Concours and driving tests over two days and the Lagonda M45s of Christopher Claridge-Ware, Michael Drakeford and myself did rather well taking 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in class and Johnathon Oppenheimer in his fabulous 1937 V12 Lagonda took the major prize of best overall. So well done the Lagonda Club.

26th May 2008

Boosted by the success reported in the last blog, I now hope that our Prime Minister, Gordon Brown is a regular reader and takes note of the following!

The government seems to be diving ever more into debt and having to borrow ever more money to fund their expenditure. Surely it is time for them to manage their budget by cutting expenditure as the rest of us have to do. This could be done by drastically reducing the number of Public Sector workers and "Quangos". It was reported recently that the amount of taxpayers money spent on unelected bodies has doubled in the past decade to reach more than £100 billion per year! I repeat £100 billion. As well as this atmospheric figure, Public Sector employees have risen every year since 1998 swelling the civil service workforce by 600,000. Two in every five jobs created since Labour came to power have been in the public sector, a rise of 11%.

Are you reading Gordon? - "Government" is now so large, diverse and complex that in my view it is not fit for purpose. Stop trying to control and meddle in every minutea of our lives, we are quite capable of looking after ourselves.

20th May 2008

Surprise! Surprise! Some people actually read my blog and from the most unusual quarters! I received an email from the editor of a local church magazine, asking if they could reprint "The Death of Commonsense" from my blog. I of course said yes and then received an email to say that it had actually been read in full by the Archdeacon of Dorking at the commissioning of Church Wardens!

18th May 2008

The 2008 Chicago pipe show is now over and I am back to the mundane jobs like cutting the lawn! The show was a great success notwithstanding the efforts by the Non Smoking Illinois lobby to try and spoil the fun! At the last minute the officers of the Major of Chicago decreed that the Mega Centre where the show is held was a no smoking zone, but this didn't spoil the show. Frank Burla the shows organiser had arranged for a huge marquee to be erected complete with bar, eating and soft seating areas and this being private property was exempt from the law. The hundreds of people who had flown in from all over the world were therefore able to gather to socialise and enjoy a pipe or two of tobacco in peace. The display of Comoy's pipes and the Focus Group for those interested in them, that I had been invited to organise, was very well received and hugely successful.

23rd April 2008

Today is St Georges Day and the flag of England is flyng everywhere except in Brussels and No 10 Downing Street. England has been wiped off the map of Europe by Brussels bureaucrats who have decided that in future we will be part of the Manche region of northern France. The new map makes no reference to England or Britain and the English Channel has become the "Channel Sea".

Eric Pickles, the shadow secretary of state has been reported as saying "We already knew that Gordon Brown had hoisted the white flag of surrender to the European constitution. Now the Labour government has been caught red handed, conspiring with European bureaucrats to create a European super-state via the back door."

What will Brown and this wretched government inflict on us next.

No time to get grumpy as I am off tomorrow for the Chicago Pipe and Tobacciana Fair thank goodness!

12th April 2008

We have been far too busy enjoying ourselves for me to be a grumpy old man since Christmas! Sally and I took off for our first long holiday together since our retirement. We joined some friends in Capetown and slowly worked our way through the wine tasting areas and followed the garden route to just near Port Elizabeth where we stayed with other friends on their game reserve. Then onwards around the Drakensburg mountains enjoying the magnificent scenary, good food and wine. Altogether it was a magical few weeks.

Since returning, my time has been occupied with preparing for the Chicago Pipe and Tobacciana show over the 30th April until the 5th May. I have attended this show for the last 4 years and this year I have been greatly honoured to be asked to display my collection of Comoy's pipes and to organise a Comoy's Focus Group. Planning, listing and labeling pipes together with contacting other Comoy's collectors have kept me happily busy, leaving little time to complain about the continuing shambles that is our government.

12th December 2007

Unbelievably a government department has lost more unencrypted computer discs. The DVLA has lost the details of 6,000 car owners which contained the keeper's names, addresses, registration mark of the vehicle, chassis number, make and colour. All the information need by the low life to clone a vehicle or to steal one to order!

As the Shadow Transport Secretary Theresa Villiers said " It beggars belief that the government was still losing CD's with thousands of people's personal data in the post"

6th December 2007

Here in England we have been so inundated with headline news items high lighting the shambles that is known as our government, this old codger has been rendered speechless with apoplexy until now.To mention just a few of the fiascos, Northern Rock, the loss of CD's by Inland Revenue & Customs containing the names and addresses plus date of birth and bank account details of 25 million people, illegal funding of the Labour party etc.

With these monumental cock ups in mind I have to seriously question the way we are being led. Over 3000 new laws have been passed since May 2007 including the Hunting ban and the Smoking ban in all enclosed space. What have they achieved? As Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, who uncovered the figures, said: "Nothing can justify the step change in the number of criminal offences invented by this Government. This provides a devastating insight into the real legacy of nine years of New Labour government - a frenzied approach to law-making, thousands of new offences, an illiberal belief in heavy-handed regulation, an obsession with controlling the minutiae of everyday life. "The result? A country less free than before, and a marked erosion of the trust which should exist between the Government and the governed." He said ministers had failed to grasp the simple truth that "weighing down the statute book" with new laws was "no substitute for good government".

Professor Trevor Sheldon recently published a study in the British Medical Journal showing that 90,000 patients die because of hospital blunders and almost 1 million are harmed each year during a stay in hospital. He said "A hospital stay is about as risky as bungy jumping!" Compare this with just 3,172 deaths on the road. Which gets the attention from the Government and various pressure groups? Of course it is the motorist and traffic accidents.

We have just learnt that in 2005, the most recent year recorded, tickets from fixed Speed Cameras, or as the government calls them "Safety Cameras" were issued to 2 million people raising $120 million. I dread to think what the number will be when the 2007 figures are released. This has reduced the accidents by just 7% since 1998.

We are now forbidden to smoke in public places and yet the powers that be have been unable to name ONE person who has died due to inhaling second hand smoke!

As I said once before Bah Humbug!

30th September 2007

The late fine summer weather here in the UK has kept me too busy to be grumpy! Sally and I have been able to get out in our 1935 Lagonda M45 Rapide to various club events and have now completed the running in. This car has been the subject of an 18 year rebuild carried out when I could spare the time from looking after other peoples cars with my old company Cedar Classic Cars. It has been great fun to be able to enjoy our own cars for a change and amongst other events we took the M45 to the Brooklands Revival and then the Goodwood Revival meeting at the end of August. This was as usual great fun with everyone in period costume, it is without doubt the finest old car sporting event held in the UK and is a must event for everyone who loves old cars. I was very honoured to be awarded the Lagonda Car Club Trophy for the best Lagonda at the AGM on the 16th September.

I was sent an email by an old friend recently and I cannot resist repeating it here because it encapsulates all my feelings for the dreaded "Nanny State".

The death of Common Sense

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old common sense was since the birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.
Common sense will be remembered as having cultivated valuable lessons such as knowing when to come out of the rain, why the early bird catches the worm, that life isn't always fair and that just maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults not children are in charge).
Common Sense's health began to deteriorate rapidly when well intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place....Reports of a six year old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing his classmate, teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student , only worsened his condition.

Common sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer panadol, sun lotion or sticky plasters to a student, but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband, churches became businesses, and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from an intruder in your own home and the burglar got the right to sue you for assault.

Then smoking was banned in public places, but not one person worldwide could "definitely" be named who has ever died or been harmed by passive smoke. Why, because passive smoke is totally harmless and in the old days they had smoking rooms, so why not now? Sorry I forgot, common sense has of course died.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live after a woman working in her office failed to realise that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled some in her lap and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

19th June 2007

If there are any readers of this blog page, you may have by now decided that I am an old grump who never has any fun and spends his life complaining! The photograph above may help to allay those thoughts and prove that life in semi retirement is fun! Sally and I were fortunate in being able to take Dr Richard Lisman's famous 1936 Lagonda LG45 to the Brooklands Centenary. This wonderful 1936 car which raced at Le Mans in 1936 and several times at Brooklands is sheer magic to drive and always gives me a huge thrill. My old company Cedar Classic Cars has been fortunate to look after EPE 97 for the last 20 years and I always look forward to its annual visit from the USA.

18th June 2007

Nanny strikes again. Clowns in the United Kingdom will no longer be allowed to blow soap bubbles at children's parties in case the children slip on the residue! What rubbish.

Thankfully however there was some debunking of the Health and Safety Department by Dr James le Fanu in the Daily Telegraph when he comments that "The health brigade, fresh from its victory against tobacco, is obviously deploying the same tactics in the campaign against alcohol. The first tactic - epitomised by the shaky non - science of passive smoking - is to argue that harm is caused not just to oneself but to innocent bystanders as well." He went on to comment on the Health Departments recent edict on the need for total abstinence when pregnant, in order to protect babies from the mental and physical impairment of Foetal Alchohol Syndrome by saying " The implication that modest alchohol consumption can impair a baby's neurological development is biologically impossible"

Dr le Fanu goes on to say "My suggestion would be to install a large poster in the lobby of the Department of Health inscribed with the words of the famous philosopher John Stuart Mills. "The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way. No one is warranted in saying to another of ripe years he shall not do with his life what he chooses"

26th May 2007

I have just returned from a wonderful few days in Italy driving in the Mille Miglia. Once again I was fortunate to be asked to drive Jack Dalessandro's lovely little 1955 Alfa Romeo SS Zagato which is a very beautiful coupe, loved and cheered by all the Italians of course. The Mille Miglia is an amazing rally mainly because of the huge enthusiasm of all the local population who line the streets only moving aside at the last minute to let you through! The rally starts in Brescia and leads through Ferrara to Rome and then back up the western side of Italy to Modena and the finish back in Brescia. It passes through breathtakingly beautiful countryside where just for the rally, the pedestrian centres of such historic towns as Ravena, Assis, Pienza, and Siena are opened. In all of these we received a wonderful reception from the massed crowds. It is hard work with 12 hours driving on the Friday and 16 hours on the Saturday but certainly one of the great occasions that will for ever be remembered.

What a joy to be able to drive as fast as I judged it to be safe, ignoring all speed limits and being encouraged to do so by the motorcycle cops who often led to help clear the way! Now it is back to Englands "Nanny State" who consider that "Speed Kills" and as long as one obeys the figures on a tin sign you will be safe -- irrespective of road and weather conditions. Bah - Humbug!

11th May 2007

10th May 2007

I decided to start this page of random thoughts in a non "Grumpy Old Man" mood! From now on I will refer to myself as a GOM for short and anyway everything nowadays has to have an acronym!

The reason for my good mood is that I have just returned from my annual visit to the

USA

for the Chicago Tobacco and Pipe fair. This is an entirely selfish holiday when I can immerse myself in pipes, tobacco and like minded friends.

Once again I flew out to Dallas where I was met by my great friend Dennis Moore with whom I spent a few days before driving with him up to Minneapolis to stay with our other good friend Tony Soderman. As always these few days before the Chicago fair are a great relaxation for me giving time to catch up with what is happening in the USA. This was my fifth visit to the Chicago fair and as always it was a great experience. Where else can one find an entire major resort which normally abides by the ever increasing “No smoking” rules become a haven where we pipe smokers can enjoy our smoking in every room including the restaurants for 5 days! Where else can one find 350 tables of exhibitors from all over the world, pipe makers, tobacco blenders handing out free samples and collectors from 62 countries all enjoying their hobby. I certainly know of no other place where such friendship and feeling of family exists. I was able to purchase several interesting Comoy's pipes which add to my knowledge of this brand. I will be adding them to the Comoy's pages.

I will add a word here about pipe smoking as apposed to the smoking of cigarettes for those people who, often without knowledge, lump the whole lot under the combined banner of dangerous smoking and have succeeded in creating the current anti smoking lobby. Pipe tobacco is blended from the leaf of many different varieties of the tobacco plant Nicotiana, Virginians, Burley, Kentucky, Latakia, Perique and Orientals which when blended together in different combinations and smoked have wonderful flavours that the smoker tastes and smells through the taste buds in the mouth and the nose. This can produce the same pleasures as the tasting of different foods and great wine. Over the years there have been many different blends of pipe tobacco and these all produce their unique flavour and like fine wine these tobaccos change, evolve and improve with keeping or cellaring for many years. Tobacco blending is an art and the blender can be likened to that of the perfume producer. Pipe smokers do not generally inhale the smoke and thus do not suffer from nicotine craving unlike the Cigarette smoker who inhales purely to get the nicotine kick without any enjoyment from the taste or smell. There is great misunderstanding about the dangers associated with smoking a pipe as apposed to smoking a cigarette. The American Surgeon General in his Publication No. 1103 stated that : -

From this it goes without saying that second hand smoke from a pipe is not dangerous and indeed many people find it very pleasant. The tobacco used in the manufacture of cigarettes is far from pure, having various chemicals added to make them burn evenly and this produces the acrid smell associated with the second hand smoke they generate.

From the above you will perhaps understand why we pipe smokers feel aggrieved to have been lumped in with the general term “Smokers” and find that we are faced with the same all embracing no smoking policy. This of course leads on to my first “GOM” utterance! It is in fact the thoughts published by an American friend who has given me permission to quote him.

Where did we go wrong?

Using "we" in the sense of society at large; "we" went wrong when we allowed ourselves to be duped by politicians, the media and interest-groups of unknown origins or even memberships, into believing that they and government in general could function as a nanny to us all. We went wrong when we began to believe that we were not responsible enough for ourselves or the decisions we made as adults. We needed government and off-the-wall interest groups to decide for us what was best. If we are not responsible, then government and interest groups have to make those choices for us, right?

We went wrong when we began to believe "media-science" reports, which tells us first that this or that is bad for us, and then in a few months or years, low and behold, it is not, or is not as bad as they told us first that it was. We went wrong when we came to believe that "cradle to the grave" government supervision and thus, control of our lives, was better somehow than the same thing that had been practiced by corporations, as a result of the industrial revolution. We went wrong when we stopped believing that adults had the right to choose their own lifestyles, and that it was, in the end, the role of government to protect the rights of individuals to make their choices.

However, in a larger sense perhaps, it is the true powerlessness that so many feel today, which is the foundation of the eroding of individual rights. People feel powerless in the face of governments which they seem unable to change or redirect. So, to many, the issue of tobacco is one which they can feel a sense of power over. They have the power to enact measures to segregate consumers of tobacco to fewer and fewer places almost daily. It is an issue they can agree upon with the government and find the support of politicians, at least to a point. Politicians like the anti-tobacco issue. It is politically-correct these days, in large part because they and the media have made it thus.

The media-science results in 60 second sound bites, with what is often spurious, at best, information of the "dangers" of tobacco consumption. No, tobacco is not a danger-free product. We all know that. We have known it for generations, long before government and organization nannies told us. However, in a nanny-state, we are not supposed to be free to choose to consume what is "bad" for us. If we were, then the nanny is not doing the job, right? What would all those people who work for non-profit, societal-nanny organizations and interest groups do, if we did not pay heed to their propaganda? Well, most would be shoveling manure from barns and stockyards.

So today, it is tobacco. What will it be tomorrow? Who will be next? Where will "we" draw the line? When will "we" hand the governments that foist this nonsense on us their hats and show them to the door? When will "we" hand the nannies in this interest group or that, a shovel and show them where to start shoveling? When will "we" stand up for the rights of individuals to choose, something as simple as whether or not they will, voluntarily, not by government regulation, make their establishment smoke-free or not? Sadly friends, I am convinced it will not happen in my lifetime. I only hope it does, in the next generation coming along now.

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Derek Green’s Blog