Losing Authority

H/T to Churchmouse in the comments about this in the Boiling Frog:

The European Union will next year intensify the smoking laws. “Will be the target of new legislation on tobacco products, smoking, making in all EU countries less attractive and less harmful,” said the European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Affairs, John Dalli, 62, WELT ONLINE. “We must strengthen our efforts in the fight against smoking. The ideal is a smoke-free Europe, “the conservative politician from Malta.

The Commissioner proposes “a significant reduction of toxic and addictive ingredients in cigarettes, like nicotine” in front. He also think about it, cigarettes make it even harder to access, they may be issued by not more visible in a store. He praised the ban on the sale of cigarettes in Britain’s supermarkets in 2011 as “exemplary.” The Commissioner further said: “Even changes in cigarette packaging are desirable: the more uniform and bland, the cigarette packaging, the better.

It’s news to me that cigarette sales are going to be banned in supermarkets. I’d not heard that before. Is it true? I don’t know. But it sounds like the sort of thing they’d do. After all, if you can ban smoking in pubs for the sake of people’s ‘health’, it’s going to be no trouble to ban the sale of tobacco in supermarkets. The supermarket bosses will agree as readily as the pub chains. They’ll just want a ‘level playing field’ so that all the supermarkets suffer equally.

A few years ago, I was quite pro-European. Happy family of nations, and all that. Bulwark against European wars, etc. But now, as EU totalitarian dictatorship spreads across the whole of Europe, I’ve come to hate the EU. And to fear that it might itself become the cause of the kind of European civil war it was supposed to prevent. A civil war – or revolution – when people all over Europe have simply had enough of these obnoxious bullying bastards, many of whom are unelected.

The EU parliament voted through a Europe-wide smoking last year. And that’s obscene. It’s no business of theirs to make Europe-wide decisions about the private behaviour of Europeans. And it is a blow struck at the smokers of Europe, who comprise about a third of the population. It hasn’t been put into effect yet, however, as far as I know.

I think they have misunderstood the nature of authority. It is not, as they seem to think, an entirely one-way street, with them issuing the orders, and everyone else obeying them. Authority is a two-way street. The governed must consent to be governed. And they may withdraw their consent at any time.

When, for example, students sit and listen to a teacher who is writing equations about differential calculus on a blackboard, it is because they have granted him the authority to do so. They have placed their trust in him, because they believe that he knows more than they do about such mathematics. They don’t do so simply because he’s a professor of mathematics, and has been authorised to teach by the university or school. The authority does not come from above, but from below. For if the students should begin to think that their teacher knows next to nothing about calculus, or is teaching them nonsense, or is otherwise abusing his authority, they will refuse to pay attention to him. They will refuse to be taught. And even if they are forced to attend his lectures, they will disregard everything he says.

Even in an army, the same is true. Soldiers in an army will willingly obey generals whom they regard as being competent, and who they believe have their interests at heart. They will at best unwillingly obey generals whom they regard as incompetent and careless. They may even mutiny against them. In this manner authority collapses.

These days we are witnessing the growing collapse of authority of many kinds. It’s not just arbitrary, vindictive laws like the EU smoking and tobacco bans that are bringing political authority into question. It’s also that scientific authority is being called into question in respect of climate science. And that medical authority is being called into question about the dangers of secondhand tobacco smoke. Scientific and medical authorities have been found to be lying, making stuff up, in order to further a political agenda. And so belief and trust are disappearing. And with it, authority.

Climate scientists seem to believe that the general public has some sort of obligation to accept their findings as authoritative. But nobody is obliged to believe them. And increasing numbers of people don’t believe them. Senior doctors equally seem to believe that their authoritative declarations in respect of active and passive smoking, and other lifestyle health issues, is something that ordinary people should accept unhesitatingly. But there is no reason why people should accept uncritically their findings any more than they should accept climate science.

We are watching a growing and widening collapse of authority, as growing numbers of people are withdrawing their trust and belief in formerly trusted institutions. It is a loss of trust which is likely to be progressive. Once people cease to trust doctors and scientists and politicians in one respect, they are very likely to distrust everything else they say, and to extend that distrust to other bodies and institutions.

When trust goes, people stop listening to those they distrust. They actively ignore them. People will switch off.

There’s going to be a complete breakdown of communication between government and people. Nobody will want to know what the bastards are thinking. Nobody will want to hear their latest edicts.

I heard that somebody called Andrew Marr has been denigrating the blogosphere. Who the hell is Andrew Marr? Some totalitarian bureaucrat in the mainstream media, I think. Why does anyone bother to take notice of him? I don’t. Because I don’t watch the MSM any more. I don’t want to know what those bastards think. The real debate (and the only debate) is on the blogosphere.

P.S. The Boiling Frog suggested you make your feelings known to the EU commissioner running an online consultation about how to screw smokers even harder. I know that’s what they want to do, because none of the checkboxes on it allowed for any relaxation or easing off. But I made my feelings known all the same. Not that they give a damn what I think, or anyone else thinks.