KEY POINTS:
Do you ever get the feeling you're losing control of your life? That there are far too many people and organisations determined to tell us how we should live our lives and what we should or shouldn't do? Even what we should or shouldn't think?
It seems these days that every time you open the newspaper, turn on the TV or listen to the radio, someone or other - a so-called "expert" or simply a single-issue obsessive - is busy pontificating on this or on that. Spewing forth shoulds and oughts and dos and don'ts as if they alone hold a mortgage on right living.
It figures, I suppose, since the atmosphere in which such people can proliferate and flourish has been provided by the nanny state predilections of Labour-led governments, which we have had governing (ruling?) us for rather too long.
The Labour-friendly Greens can, perhaps, be excused since their entire movement was set up for the sole purpose of protecting "the environment", and people come well down on their list of concerns. I reckon they'll be happy only when all us people are gone and there's only them and the environment left.
I usually ignore those people whose lives must be so empty that they have to spend them trying to interfere in the lives of others, but lately the triviality of some of their pronouncements has grabbed my attention.
Perhaps the stupidest comes from our tourism bosses, who suggested this week that we should stop poking fun at Aussies because we might hurt their feelings and they won't come to visit.
Hear this, from Canterbury tourism tosser Ian Boughen: "While one comment is pretty innocuous, if every second Kiwi makes a comment [to Australian visitors] about the cricket or about the rugby, it will start to grate. I want to keep those Aussie dollars rolling in."
The man is mad. It's far more likely that Aussies would stop coming if the joshing stopped, because it's expected, it's a tradition that goes back to the year dot and if we stopped doing it they'd be bitterly disappointed. We could, perhaps, wish all the best to Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist and their XI in their effort to retain the World Cup. I suggest we use that time-honoured theatrical expression of good wishes, "Break a leg".
Another piece of stupidity comes from the food freaks at the Manukau District Health Board who, having frightened McDonald's into providing another sugar-free softdrink, now have their beady eyes on supermarket dairy cabinets.
They want low-fat dairy products elevated to eye-level shelves and full-cream products relegated to some place that can barely be seen. This is all to do with the health professionals' latest meal ticket - the fight against obesity. It won't work because the obesity problem has less to do with fat intake than it has to do with lack of exercise and a balanced diet.
Then there's the Green Party which, if you please, wants the sugar content reduced in Girl Guide biscuits which, as a perceptive letter to the Herald pointed out, are a time-honoured tradition, are sold for a worthy cause, and come to us only once a year. I refuse to buy sugar-free softdrinks, biscuits or any other food because they are full of artificial sweeteners which leave a nasty aftertaste.
It's low-fat, low-salt and sugar-free products that are the true junk foods.
The anti-smoking lobby, aided and abetted by our teddy bear-cuddling Prime Minister, Helen Clark, is still at it this week, replaying the cracked old record demanding that tobacco products be kept out of sight at all retailers.
And the Ministry of Health has bullied the owners of New World and Pack'n Save supermarkets into not giving fuel discounts for tobacco purchases. I congratulate New Zealand-owned Foodstuffs for holding out so long; Australian-owned Progressive (Foodtown and Countdown) caved in long ago.
What a cheek. Tobacco products are legally sold in this country and retailers have every right to display them for customers. But what really sickens me is the hypocrisy of it all. Tobacco taxes provide vast amounts of revenue for the Government.
So does alcohol, which, although it causes more crime, violence, illness and other desperate and often fatal social problems than any other product, remains almost free of restrictions on advertising and sale.
And Statistics NZ bureaucrats are demanding that some of us answer personal questions whether we want to or not; a down-country mayor wants gang patches banned in his village.
Whatever happened, I wonder, to the unalienable right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"?
