Premonitions

H/T Walt for this story from Pointe West, Florida. (also msnbc)

Jane O’Grady is 97 years old.

She is hard of hearing and has a glass eye.

And, much to the chagrin of a local assisted and independent living facility, she smokes.

The Lakes at Pointe West has told her she will be evicted if she doesn’t stop smoking inside her one-bedroom apartment.

Do you think that the management at the Lakes should be petitioned to allow her to stay? Do you think that letters should be written to congressmen? Do you think there should be a Big Debate about it? And, more to the point, do you think that the politically-correct ‘progressive’ antismokers who want Jane O’Grady evicted are going to change their minds?

These people don’t do debate. They don’t listen to petitions. They don’t read letters. They don’t compromise at all. It’s their way or it’s the highway. And in Jane O’Grady’s case, it’s going to be the highway.

And anyway there shouldn’t even need to be a debate. Evicting someone from their home for being a smoker is just plain wrong. And it shouldn’t need anyone to be told that it’s wrong. Because it’s quite manifestly an utterly vile, Nazi kind of behaviour.

And ultimately, I believe these people are going to have to be fought in exactly the same way their Nazi predecessors were fought – in pitched battle. Because when debate has become impossible, and democracy has broken down, and justice has vanished, and society is divided, all that’s left is open warfare.

What else can there be?

Civil war is what’s slowly coming down the track. But it’s not going to be a civil war quite like any other. In the first place, it’s not going to be fought in any one single country. It’s going to be fought all over the world. And it’s not going to be fought by soldiers in uniforms, marching in step with rifles on their shoulders. It’s going to be fought house to house, neighbour against neighbour, block to block, town against town, English against English, American against American, German against German.

But it’s a good way off yet. It’s not a war that’s going to break out tomorrow, or even next year. But in maybe 10 or 15 years. Maybe sooner if the economic downturn turns into full scale depression. But eventually it’ll come to a head.

Democracy in the western world is breaking down. The imposition of smoking bans is just one example of that breakdown. Politicians no longer represent people, but instead represent rich and powerful industries and lobby groups. There’s no real debate about anything. The debate is always over. The media has become trivialised. The real decisions are all taken behind closed doors, out of sight, and beyond scrutiny. In Europe, people are having an EU superstate imposed upon them whether they want it or not. And they’re having smoking bans imposed upon them too. And they’re having environmental restrictions, and unlimited numbers of meddling regulations, imposed as well. Resentment and anger is growing everywhere.

The civil war will be fought by environmentalist, healthist, Big-State ‘progressives’ against a loose coalition of conservatives and libertarians and religious groups. It’ll be Right versus Left, and country against town. In Europe it will be the people against the ‘progressive’ EU superstate.

There’ll be some spark that ignites it. It’ll start when somebody – somebody who has had enough – walks into somewhere like the offices of the management of the Lakes at Pointe West and shoots dead everyone inside it. And from there it’ll spread in all directions, everywhere, and engulf everyone. There won’t be a damn thing the military or the police or anybody else can do to stop it.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen civil war looming on the horizon. Coming up on 3 years ago, when I started my blog, it was already in mind. And it’s because the so-called ‘progressives’ are so completely uncompromising, and are always pushing for more and more. It would have been quite easy to have a partial smoking ban, but the antismokers wouldn’t have it. And now they’re pushing for further bans. It’s the same with the EU. It’s always pushing to get bigger, and to exercise more and more control. It’s all one way. People may retreat in the beginning in the face of such a thing. But they won’t retreat forever. Resistance will mount. Matters will come to a head.

Update: Rose reports that Jane O’Grady was admitted to hospital last weekend.

Update 4 March 2012: Jane O’Grady had died.