Through the Looking Glass: 7. Legislating Stupidity

Sunday, November 18, 2012

7. Legislating Stupidity

The increasing tendency to use legislation to protect us from ourselves has become frightening.

In Australia an idea to licence smokers has been forwarded. Pundits of the plan tout the governments ability to limit how much can be smoked by legislative control, all leading to eventual good health. In Canada a mother is demanding city council remove three oak trees near her daughter's school because of their propensity to drop acorns. The thirteen year old girl has a nut allergy.

Bicycle helmets have been mandated for adult pedalers... health food and herbs have been threatened because they have not gone through Pharmaceutical trials... raw milk has been demonized and made illegal for lack of pasteurization.

All these efforts and many more are designed to protect us from ourselves and our poor choices. Coming from the best of intentions I am certain they are born from caring hearts and concerned minds. The downside of such a direction is a flagrant violation of my human rights.

Every well meaning shift toward limiting my choices denies me my God given right to exercise my stupidity gene. Left unchecked such a direction would lead us to a society where real stupidity would increase geometrically. Present levels of abundant poor choice would pale in comparison. The levels of legislation would follow suit.

This gene has a vital role in human evolution and exercising it should be considered sacrosanct. Our Cro-magnon fore bearers had no thoughts of spear safes or bow registries... no single North American tribe ever required their warriors to wear protective headgear into battle... Medieval Inquisitions were not known for their inquiries about milk thistle extract or raw milk consumption.

My choice to smoke is indeed a stupid one but it is fully in cinque with my stupidity gene and my right to exercise it. If that choice removes me from the gene pool then we can be assured that there will less stupidity in the future. The same can be said for biking without a helmet, overdosing on milk thistle extract swilling back copious amounts of raw milk.

Legislating me out of my right to be stupid simply increases the level of the same in later generations and creates a mountain of laws and a nightmare of enforcement. To avoid that end and to further the evolution of humanity itself, I propose the end to any legislation to curb my stupidity or the stupidity of others... STUPIDITY FOREVER !!!!!

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Introduction

Having moved at least twenty-five times in fifteen years has opened a world of learning to me. In six decades, an education ranging from the coldness of large cities to the isolation of remote rural locations to the busybody gossip of small towns and the wonder of the prairie and it's ocean of grass have all left their impressions on me.

Recently I relocated to a small city in British Columbia. It touted itself as a historical, cultural, educational and, over-all wonderful, place to live. Once I was past the trees and the rocks, the heights and the hills, the water and the wind, I calmed down and was ready to look at the people I was sharing that space with.

Every location I have ever squatted has had it's share of characters. Players in the cities along with the wide range of tinfoil hat wearers and baggy pants skaters were a given. Pop up strangers at odd hours surprised me with their appearance in the middle of nowhere. Rumours of my serial killer past from neighbours I had never met never swayed me. The wonder of gazing on the effects of wind on the grass ocean interrupted by a landowner enquiring why I was leaning on his fence was oft forgiven.

In this new locale a variety of characters as I had experienced elsewhere was a given. The density and variety of them however gave me more surprise than I would have expected.

I had heard comments about this place being a time warp to the sixties. However I only saw few that , by their appearance, I could say lived through the sixties. What apparitions appeared were younger and more colourful than I remember from that vague decade.

Purple haired strong armed accordionists, heavy head shaved violinists clutching tiny instruments, winter coated scarf wrapped individuals in shorts and oddly calm people with large coffees wandered the streets.

They wandered in and out of new age crystal shops, expressed opinions on local radio, bought nothing but organic food. They played jazz on squeeze boxes, made strings and wood sing in ways not intended, talked to themselves as they tightened their scarves and became more serene with each sip of coffee.

Characters here are more concentrated than in any other locale I have ever lived. It is a point of interest as well as point of concern.

It remains to be seen whether I will be mugged with organic carrots, side swiped by hooligan mountain bikers, be harangued with advice on dressing warmly or kept awake nights by jazzy sounds from an errant squeeze box. Whatever the outcome I am certain I could find it in no other place on earth to explore these particular uncertainties.

Until I am transplanted again, I extend every new-ager and boarder, every subculture economist and spiritualist, every would-be and wanna-be my deep thanks for extending me the opportunity of educating myself one measure more.