Sunday, June 25, 2006

Resist the tobacco (Hunting?) Taliban - Rod Liddle again

Following my earlier piece about Rod's 'plain English' suggestions for the Hunting Act, his latest in The Sunday Times is another good illustration of how it came about and where it is heading.

It's actually about the latest demands of the anti-smoking crusaders, with his usual scathing insights into the mindset of most single-issue pressure groups - those self-appointed, self-righteous arbiters of others peoples' behaviour - but, substitute the acronym 'LACS' (League Against Cruel Sports - or RSPCA or IFAW - or in fact the entire 'Animal Rights' movement) for 'ASH' (Action Against Smoking) and you wouldn't notice the difference. as in:

..... the sort of people who populate LACS (ASH) simply cannot stop themselves; they will agitate for more and more legislation because that is the only reason for their existence. In the case of LACS(ASH), what began as a noble campaign to prevent gratuitous cruelty (prevent smokers from inflicting their habit upon everyone else) has turned into a far more intensive campaign to perpetuate their own salaries. In the meantime this repulsively pious lobby issues forth ever more spiteful and immoral injunctions [Ed - and let's not forget the thuggish, balaclava'd grave desecrating activities of its footsoldiers]. There is within some people a deep-seated need to victimise those they consider racially, socially, sexually or ideologically aberrant. Hunters (Smokers) are a convenient and politically correct target for those who wish to take out their inchoate anger but are sharp enough to realise that, these days, you can’t vent it on Jews or homosexuals [Spot on Rod - see HERE for pictoral examples].


We are all addicted to something and our acquired habits are only rarely (as is the case with hunting) socially beneficial. But it is part of what makes us human. When LACS (ASH) has got rid of the hunters (smokers) [Ed: or rather THINK it has], who will it turn its guns on next?

Guns?? - Freudian slip there. Shooters, that's precisely who.

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