Dialogue: Since it's not the silly season ...

By GARTH GEORGE

Lately I've begun to wonder again about the level of intelligence of a lot of New Zealanders, and even to wonder if some of us aren't a sandwich or two short of a picnic.

And these are not people from low socio-economic suburbs or graduates of low-decile schools, but men and women who appear to have been well educated and who are, unfortunately, in positions of influence.

Nothing in particular triggered this train of thought, just my daily reading of the Herald.

Take the article that began: "Women who want to breastfeed their babies may have trouble juggling it with paid work, according to research. Suckling in Silence, a thesis by ... a PhD student in women's studies at Victoria University, discovered that women often found breastfeeding and paid work an `untenable combination'."

Well I never. Do you mean to tell me that it took a survey for a thesis by a PhD student to come to that conclusion when any citizen over the age of 10, male or female, could have told her that work and breastfeeding have always been incompatible?

Some of the silliest pronouncements come from an outfit called YouthLaw, which seems always to be on the lookout for anything it perceives as threatening the "rights" of young people but never has anything to say anything about their responsibilities.

It's latest crusade is against the placing of "under-25" stickers on cars so everyone will know the car is stolen if a youngster is seen behind the wheel. YouthLaw has complained to the Human Rights Commission that this discriminates against people under 25. It blithely ignores the fact that under-25s also happen to be the people who steal most of the thousands of cars that go missing in this country each year.

In second place for silly pronouncements is the Council for Civil Liberties which lately has argued that legislation allowing the compulsory detention of intellectually disabled (read insane) people who are considered dangerous is out of place in a democratic society.

Does the council not understand the simple fact that there are insane people in this country who are a danger both to themselves and to the community at large, and that the kindest thing to do for all concerned is to place them in secure accommodation where they can neither harm themselves or others?

And how about the decision by Driver Testing NZ not to tell people who fail their driving test that they have "failed" but that "you have not passed" or "you have not come up to the standard we are looking for"?

How's that for another example of never using one word when 11 will do, of downright dissembling and politically correct circumlocution? What makes it worse is that testers have been to a "communication course" at which they were obviously taught these weasel words. Communication course? Don't make me laugh.

In another item we are told that "in 50 years half the population of New Zealand will be more than 45 years old - and Victoria University has opened an institute to study the phenomenon."

Now I don't know about you, but I have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow, let alone in 50 years. I can study all today's portents and make a prediction about tomorrow, but nine times out of 10 something will come along to screw it up, so I'm damned if I can figure how a university can justify financing a research institute to study the unstudiable.

The smoking police crowed the other day that while the number of smokers increased last year, "on average they smoked almost one cigarette fewer each day." Almost one cigarette? It was, in fact, 0.8 of a cigarette. That must have been the one I stubbed out hurriedly when my wife announced at an inappropriate moment that dinner was served.

We've read a lot lately in this newspaper about the thievery of banks and the harder we come down on them the better I'll be pleased. I'm going to suggest to the editor that the next business we look at is chemists, who make bankers look positively charitable.

Note the item which told us that a new morning-after pill was now available fully subsidised by Pharmac, but there would be a $3 charge per pill. That's what the chemist charges for taking the pill out of one container and putting it in another. It works out at more than $1000 an hour.

Is the nation getting madder, or is it just me?

* garth_george@herald.co.nz