KEY POINTS:
I had the privilege the other day of talking to a seventh-form media studies class at Rotorua Lakes High School. And the feedback I received from the teacher was that the class loved my talk because "he's so down to earth".
As one who is comfortable in his own skin and, more importantly, in his own mind, I am in the habit of speaking plainly, as readers of this column will have observed.
But this was obviously a novelty to the teenagers in the class, as it would be to pretty much anyone under 30, who has been brought up in the era of political correctness in which dissembling and circumlocution, if not outright falsehood, are expected of all.
No longer is it seen to be acceptable, particularly in academia, primary and secondary education, politics and "public service" bureaucracies, to call a spade a spade, and sometimes, for emphasis, a bloody shovel.
And that means, in effect, that in the so-called democracy in which we live we have lost our freedom of speech.
Yet it is interesting that this group of teens were able to recognise forthright and honest speaking when they heard it, and to appreciate it. That gives me great hope that political correctness has affected much of the populace only superficially and that beneath its fragile veneer there still beats a true, no-nonsense Kiwi heart.
Freedom of speech is not the only freedom we've lost along the way. As the state interferes more and more in our personal lives, we are inexorably losing our freedom of choice.
Nowadays the state tries to dictate to us what we should eat, what size cars we should drive, what we ought or ought not do with our privately owned land, how much money we should have and how we should spend or save it, how we should or should not discipline our children, and lately, where we can buy our booze just to name a few.
Often these shoulds and oughts are imposed on us by legislation, sometimes passed in the face of widespread public opposition. And this attitude has not been confined just to Labour-led Governments; National-led Governments have pulled the same stunts.
Mind you, the Clark Administration, which has ruled rather than governed us for the past nine years, has elevated the discredited "we [the Government] know best" socialist ideology to undreamed of levels.
Once upon a time democracy was a system that gave the citizenry the right to choose its government, based on party policies, on the understanding that the Government so elected would deliver to the electors that which they promised, not that which politicians decided they should have.
And the irony is that what the Government and its bureaucrats decide is best for us seldom is, and their "solutions" to various economic and social problems are invariably based on knee-jerk reactions which attack symptoms but never root causes.
For instance: Obesity is not caused by food, and the condemnation of certain foods as "unhealthy" or "junk" is a perfect example of the dishonesty inherent in political correctness.
There is nothing unhealthy or junky about pies, hamburgers, pizza, fish and chips or fried chicken. What is unhealthy, and causes obesity, is overindulgence in such foods. Even overindulgence in carrots or celery can have serious deleterious effects on the human body.
Until the emphasis is taken off the food and placed on the fatties, no real progress will be made. But that would mean singling out people who are fat and we mustn't, of course, make them feel bad.
But in the meantime, hundreds of thousands of children in our schools are being deprived by bureaucratic mandate of food they enjoy, simply because a few of them are overweight.
One sinister aspect of the inclination of national politicians to ride roughshod over public opinion is that it is rapidly spreading to local government politicians and their bureaucracies.
The Rotorua District Council, for instance, which gives every appearance of being one of the doziest in the country, wants to bring in capital value instead of land value rating. The whole city, residents and businesses alike, is up in arms and it is obvious a vast majority don't want a bar of it.
But the council, egged on by its senior bureaucrats who have far too much to say for themselves, is determined to continue with the proposal.
I am convinced that the result of the upcoming general election will not have much to do with the policies announced by the two main parties, but everything to do with a thoroughly fed-up electorate.
The incumbents will be tossed out by men and women who have had a gutsful of being told to live their lives according to a deeply flawed, one-size-fits-all dogma. National, take note.
