Ducati Sporting Club UK > General > Idle Chat > Nanny State

[clockwork orange]

Due to some of us having hijacked another thread.......

Chicken or egg???

Which came first, the death of common sense or the birth of the nanny state ???

Discuss...... :P

[HW]

My pet hate and seems to have become my favouite topic of conversation these days.

Anyway, as far back as I can recall .... common sense started a slow lingering death when the "Looney London Boroughs" started to get politically correct and banned "black boards" and rewrote nursery rymes (Farmer Has A Friend, Ba Ba White Sheep, etc). Didn't a certain "Red Ken" have something to do with that? I think that would have been in the late 1970s.

Was the the birth of the Nanny State?

[Edited on 22-10-2005 by HW]

[hipshaker]

hmm .............. i'm a teacher and i know nothing of blackboards being banned (either physically or by name), indeed we actually still have some at our school although they are very messy to use. i myself use a whiteboard. is this banning of blackboards an urban myth of some sort?

[HW]

Wasn't an urban myth ... it was a big thing at the time. As with everything though, comes round full circle as another fad becomes flavour of the week.

[Derek]

I have to agree with Henry. I have no time for this politically correct crap. In some areas up here blackboards must be referred to as chalkboards. Since when did a blackboard have race for goodness sake?
More alarming is the intended reqirement for us all to carry ID cards at our expense to prove who we are - and the Govt. now more or less admit that they will do nothing to prevent terrorism anyway. There have also been proposals (by a number plate manufacturer no less) for all vehicles to have a transponder built in to their number plates so that roadside scanners can verify insurance, road tax, and owner details and read the vehicles speed. I'm sure there will be worse to come. The whole lot just sickens me.

Has anyone else noticed that Charles Clarke bears a startling resemblance to Fungus the Bogeyman!

[philthy]

The state.

Sadly it is the opinions of the liberal rulers in political, judicial and media power who are responsible for our current state of affairs.

They seem to have an agenda which is very slowly and silently eating away at the values which enabled this country to stand up to tyranny of the highest order during two world wars.

Yes it is wrong to bully, insult verbally or physically hurt someone who you don't like or disagree with.

But it is also wrong to stifle free speech and opinion. In nazi Germany ordinary people were terrified to speak their mind for fear of being reported to the authorities and punished accordingly.

It seems to me that those in power want to create an unstable society to justify their intended actions.

Oops got to go , it's time for my medication

[Ray]

The seeds of the nanny state could well have been sown in the early days of political correctness.

The growing conditions have been helped by government that feels the need to come up with a new policy on something every day and the icing on the cake are the plague of no win no fee brigade all to ready to help you cash in. You don't have to worry about what you do 'cos you can blame somebody else and cash in.

Maybe it was those little notices on Harley mirrors "objects may appear more distant than they are"?

Everywhere you look there are little warning signs, e.g. "caution Hot water" on Hot tap FFS.


Bike related ones ranged from " preserve nature, wear a helmet" could just as easily read "Stop evolution wear a helmet"

"caution hot exhaust" Well I hope it's hot because if it isn't the engine has stopped and I've broken down.

Some of the rules/laws are needed to stop those who for whatever reason just don't know where the boundaries are, i.e. the heavy stuff like violence to children. But the trouble is where do you stop. A few rules are good so more must be better?

Where I work it's got that bad that peeps are starting to get disciplinaries for speaking their mind not on the hot spuds like race, gender, etc but on their opinions of the latest IT system that doesn't work.

It's all oK though 'cos we have a meditation room!! off there now to contemplate me navel a bit more!

Ray

[Edited on 24-10-2005 by Ray]

[clockwork orange]

Originally posted by Ray
Some of the rules/laws are needed to stop those who for whatever reason just don't know where the boundaries are, i.e. the heavy stuff like violence to children. But the trouble is where do you stop. A few rules are good so more must be better?

[Edited on 24-10-2005 by Ray]

Perhaps we need to teach parents to teach their kids a bit of common sense, instead of abdicating all their responsibilty like so many do. Like why should teachers be responsible for sex education etc ????? We were taught the boundaries at home by parents, so teachers, government etc didn't need to.

[HW]

Originally posted by clockwork orange

Perhaps we need to teach parents to teach their kids a bit of common sense, instead of abdicating all their responsibilty like so many do. Like why should teachers be responsible for sex education etc ????? We were taught the boundaries at home by parents, so teachers, government etc didn't need to.

I think you're probably right, but when many parents don't know what the boundaries are you can see why we have drifted into a situation where the government feels it needs to meddle all the time.

[psychlist]

Originally posted by HW

I think you're probably right, but when many parents don't know what the boundaries are you can see why we have drifted into a situation where the government feels it needs to meddle all the time.

Nah! Waste of time! Just shoot the lot of em, s'all they deserve isn't it?