and if they introduce a "smoking permit" without a shot being fired , then you know darn well that its going to be an "alchohol permit" next. then "fatty food permit". then a "car driving permit".... this toleration of fascism from our political elite absolutely astounds me. its as if they have completely forgotten exactly WHY we fought WW2.

on a different note , are any Samizdata folks going to the pro-referendum rally this Saturday?
http://www.proreferendumrally.co.uk/

even if only 1 man and his dog turns up , its a good excuse to have a few pints anyway.

Eloquently getting to the nub of the matter, as ever.

Part of the problem is that "normal" people (i.e. people who don't think about politics and philosophy and don't read Samizdata and assume that the BBC is the last word in what's going on in the world and how to interpret it)...

...*don't see the link between form filling and force*.

They think that everybody agreeing with each other about what is best for everybody (democracy) is the pinnacle of civilisation, and a bit of harmless form filling or or painless paying of fines is perfectly reasonable.

Trying to convince them otherwise without coming across as a nut-job is almost impossible.

"Normal" people don't care about principles and just want an easy life. That's why there won't be any shots fired over this sort of thing and why the slow chipping away of liberties is such an effective strategy for totalitarians.

Indeed Rob, which is why it is important to keep pointing out the truth and not just conceded the 'meta-context'. We have to keep making the links they do not want made and not just fight them on ground of their choosing (which is why I think democratic politics is usually, though not always, a waste of time).

In all likelihood when Julian le Grand looks at himself in the mirror when shaving in the morning, he does not say to himself "So, what are we going to do to bring about The Total State today?"... yet I would venture that really is the consequence of most of the things he believes to be right and proper. It is also why trying to convince him of that is probably also a waste of time.

I see my job as convincing other people to start seeing the well meaning advocate of tyranny as the advocate of a totalitarian dystopia that they really are.

It ain't easy but that is no excuse not to try.

The distinguishing feature of the new totalitarianism is that though the final resort might be to the violence of the state, it is led by sentiment and by PR. The principal technique is that identified by Orwell, advocated in slightly different form by Gramsci, and dissected in action in New Britain in Oborne's The Rise of Political Lying: the agents of power overwrite public discourse with stories that conduct both sides of their desired argument. This makes opposition in any form other than the pre-fabricated, pre-defeated, one, literally unthinkable for most people.

Mick Hume covers a straightforward example in his latest Times column:

Two years ago the civil liberties lobby claimed victory when MPs rejected Mr Blair’s plans for 90-day detention and voted “only” for a 28-day limit. Now the Government’s opponents talk as if defending 28 days is the height of civil liberties in Britain. But if the possibility of being locked up for four weeks without charge is the definition of a free society, then the right of habeas corpus is already a corpse.

Actually, I agree with the professor. I would propose too that:

"There is nothing evil about academics talking nonsense as long as you are just hurting yourself. We have to try to help academics stop talking nonsense without encroaching on people's liberties." ... Requiring them to fill in forms, have photographs taken in order to apply for a permit would prove a more effective deterrent."

Perry, I agree about trying to convince people. It can be frustrating, hence my venting. FWIW, Samizdata helps me do that by providing good arguments and ideas I can use -- no doubt it does the same for people with real influence.

Guy's point about defining the boundaries of the debate is also important. Even if my opponent thinks I am a nut-job, he at least becomes aware of a whole new area he hadn't considered before, the middle ground is somewhere new, and his meta-context is changed.

Perhaps the "normal" person won't be convinced until the MSM's meta-context is changed. Still, I am always on the lookout for new debating strategies to help with my small part.

I agree 100%.

But (and I know I may be in for a whipping) how does the fact that our own totalitarians are the same people who are prosecuting the "war on terror" jibe?

I've been down this path once or twice before (when right libertarians are accused of being moonbats or mountain men). I always conceded that radical Islam is a problem. I've never said different. But it is also true that the people who have mounted an amorphous "war on terror" are the same group of people who endlessly chip away at freedom and liberty themselves. Is this merely a deal with fallen archangels to beat the devil, and then to deal with them in due time? If so, it isn't working very well because it is these Statists who are aiming at maintaining more of a status quo with the Eastern mentality more than reckoning with it. All the while entrenching themselves more and more into our lives.

The issue merely boils down to an "expectations" table with probabilities as to outcome. Is the magnitude of the threat times its probability higher or lower? Is radical Islam and its threat times its ability to actually do something about it worse than the threat Statists offer times its near certainty? Perhaps the only real difference is that some right libertarians see their own Statist totalitarians who are in control are a worse threat than radical Islam (and that's not to diminish that threat at all, it merely shows just how much of a threat our Statists are). Perhaps the average Samizdatista sees it the other way around. I can accept that. But it does seem a bit schismatic to see umpteen articles about how bad the State is, and growing daily (and will only continue to do so as the majority of the unfunded defined benefits comes due) and then see articles on how wonderfully it seems to be working when it starts up a "War or Terror".

I am most certain that the smoking permit will hang off the ID card infrastructure along with a drinking permit, which will tot up your "units". Imagine at a bar you might have to say "fancy a pint 'on me card'" and you can imagine the death of the great British "round" - this is just what the self-loathers want, I am sure.

Le Grand is surveying the ground for more fence posts.

...and we know about plots against milk and food.

Each time they try to dig a hole for one of these damn things we need to chase them off our land.

They need to be hounded. They need to be ridiculed.

Some weeks ago, in the comments on a home defence story, poster Rob asked me why, with a Texan wife, I was staying around to put up with all of this.

This latest sinister insanity makes me really, really relieved that my wife has finally agreed to move to Texas.

Just think: Lower taxes; permitted, nay applauded, when you shoot some little scrote who breaks into your house; and you can enjoy a smoke after a meal without having to leave the restaurant. Not to mention the opportunity to build a business without having it all stolen.

I'm sorry, Messrs Brown, Cameron and your ilk. You've fscked up this country so badly that this (highly productive) citizen is getting out while the gettings good. I'll be putting my affairs in order now.

Incidentally, I'm on vacation in TX right now. The house prices are remarkable. This article has an interesting theory as to why there's such a disparity between red and blue states.

Indeed, chip, indeed!

But (and I know I may be in for a whipping) how does the fact that our own totalitarians are the same people who are prosecuting the "war on terror" jibe?

Brad, it is a perfectly reasonable question. I regard the use of force to keep the barbarians from the gate as one of the few legitimate roles of the state (i.e. killing tyrants and their minions). Because the state does a whole lot of other stuff I disapprove of does not change that.

I loved the worker's hour of physical jerks too. Very 1984.

Brad,

But (and I know I may be in for a whipping) how does the fact that our own totalitarians are the same people who are prosecuting the "war on terror" jibe?

While Perry is right about keeping the barbarians frpom the gate, my answer is slightly different: The barbarians are out there, but they are nowhere near the gate. (An eye on the barbarian Middle Kingdom would not go amiss, though.) "The War of Terror" is a terribly convenient pretext to dispense with the institutional protections of our liberty, and expand the security state. It is so much more convenient and effective for that purpose than the War on Drugs, which was where the security agencies began building their empires after the Wall came down.

Each and every piece of intrusion by the state by necessity will piss off a lot of people who are by no means consistently libertarian, either because it hits their pocket or infringes upon their personal enjoyment. The only way to defeat the Total State is through maximum mobilisation of such people at every step of the way. It would be hard work, but if consistently carried out, the state can probably be defeated about 50% of the time and, hell, people involved in such campaigns might pick up some Libertarianism while they're at it.
Why didn't smokers march on parliament? Where are the mass letter campaings of people who like to leave their heating on when they're not in so they can have a pleasant return from work? Why have people who like McDonalds and don't want to pay an extra tax on their Big Mac not formed an electoral pressure group?

Speaking for myself, strictly speaking I think anti war loons should be allowed to protest in front of the House of Commons and that 28 days is wrong, but I'm not going to get out of bed about it. Smoking, though, and the right to fill my body with crap without paying extra tax - I'm there!

Perry,
I somewhat disagree with you on the use of the term totalitarian. Totalitarians want to control your thoughts not only your behavior.
For example: in the middle ages - if you expressed some doubts about catholic dogma they burned you at the stake. In the USSR - if you expressed any unorthodox view they sent you to the Gulag, in Siberia for 10 years. They actually sent there dozens of million people, the majority of which perished there.
So, if Britain or the EU have some totalitarian tendencies - on the scale between soviet (or nazi) totalitarianism and liberalism - they are far more liberal than totalitarian.
I don't dispute the fact that the mentioned proposal is terribly silly and annoying. But, for god's sake, how many people are currently held in the British Gulag ? How many are held in the Tower of London for having dared smoke ?
A sense of proportion is lacking here.

As to Brad - I think that comparing the flaws of our governments to those of the Islamic Barbarians is insane. Just insane. Nuts.

The barbarians are out there, but they are nowhere near the gate.

Jacob: fine, but are we supposed to sit and wait until it gets that bad?

BTW, Jacob: it is physically impossible to control someone's thoughts. What can be controlled, and was, at the times and places you have mentioned, is speech. It is also being controlled, although to a much lesser extent, by the modern Western state.

The freedom to smoke is one of those areas where I have to examine my ideals.

I've had an aversion to smoking almost my entire life. My whole family smoked, but I never took it up, and in fact, could not. It's a physical issue, and a personal phobia. Throughout my childhood, adolescence, and working adult life, I was subjected to an atmosphere filled with tobacco smoke, until the mid-80s when smoking began to be banned inside buildings in more and more places. Eventually, smoking was banned nearly everywhere, a reality I welcomed, even while I recognized that there were people for whom this was a hardship, because they were addicted to a legal substance.

I have great sympathy for people who are smokers. Most of the people I've loved in life were smokers. The most devastating thing I can say about them now is that they are all dead before their time (ages 50, 64, 58, and that's just three of them).

You can argue your stupid politics all you like. Reality bites.

But, for god's sake, how many people are currently held in the British Gulag ? How many are held in the Tower of London for having dared smoke ?

You do not actually seem to be reading what I am writing, Jacob. I have explicitly said, in two articles now, that that I do NOT regard putting people in gulags as what defines a totalitarian state, so asking how many people are in British gulags is moderately perverse.

And if you smoke where the law says you cannot, you can be fined and if you refuse to pay, you will be thrown in gaol, so the threat to gaol smokers is not an abstract one.

I understand you think brutality, rather than pervasive control, is what defines totalitarianism. And I have disagreed for the reasons I have stated.

Alisa,
You can control people's thoughts. It's called indoctrination. Even just controlling speech can result in controlling thought. Isn't that the whole PC project's aim?

permanent,
There are always barbarians within the gates.

You can argue your stupid politics all you like. Reality bites.

I don't smoke. Well, I will puff on a cigar maybe once or twice a year but I am not really a smoker. Moreover I could not care less if some smoker goes through hell because they are hooked on nicotine. Smoking was their choice and that is a consequence of their choice. With the freedom to live your life comes the consequences of your choices.

Your relatives died because they smoked. And you are sad about that. And of course I don't really care all that much because I never knew them. For all I know they enjoyed smoking and so maybe did not think missing the drooling years was such a terrible thing when they got the Big C. I have no way of knowing because although you said it made you sad, you did not mention what they thought at various points in their lives.

So what do you think I am supposed to 'take away' from that? You speak of reality. As in "smoking kills people". Sure. So does drinking and over eating and skiing and mountain biking, which presumably you also wish to ban because those avoidable deaths are also "reality". Or is only smoking to be banned because *you* find it icky? You do not do not give me enough information to know.

I presume you feel using force to make people live the way you think is better, or at least more convenient for you, is okay (such as banning smoking in restaurants because you do not like it).

Thus I also presume as you like the idea of majority being able to ban anything they find distasteful or find unacceptably dangerous when other people do them... so if say, homosexuality or Judeism or wearing black, were banned, because the majority one day decides that is better or it just too icky, you would have no problem with the principle of that even if you disagreed with the specific ban, because that is what you think life and politics is all about I guess. Is that correct? Again, you need to actually explain what you think as I am only deducing this from what you have said.

I assume you feel that your dead relatives should not have been allowed, by law, to smoke...and if you do not think that, what exactly is your point?

And what gives you the right to decide that for them? What claim of ownership do you have on the living bodies of others that should supersede their own wishes? And as for smoking on the private property of, say, a restaurant owner, what gives you the right to use force (i.e. the law) to prevent other people consensually doing something just because you hate it?

My view, my 'stupid politics' (which is actually not 'politics' at all) is that if you do not like smoking, feel free to stay the hell out of my (hypothetical) restaurant if I (as the owner) want to allow it. Who the hell are you to interfere in other people's lives?

Surely the problem with smoking is that you don't just do it to yourself. When you smoke, you inflict your smoke on everyone else around you. I don't actually buy the argument that passive smoking is a major danger to anyone (though do you have the right to inflict even a minor danger of cancer on another person?), but it has to be said that by smoking in public you are imposing your pollution on other people. I would not have any problem with people taking snuff in public, or even snorting coke, because they are not imposing their choice on other people. But does your right to smoke include the right to make someone else breathe your smoke?

The main result of dirigiste legislation is that crime increases.The smoking license for example,quite simply a vast illicit trade will develop,as it has through higher taxes on cigarettes ,this trade is the foundation of many large criminal enterprises.Bloody gang wars are fought over profitable turfs.
Club doormen control the drugs,viz the Noonans in Manchester,punters believe the regulations have no sane legitimacy,so everything becomes criminalised,viz the former Soviet Union.
The vast revenues generated by crime draw in the politicians,most of whom have a price,eventually the entire political class becomes corrupt and the country is finished.

Rebecca and John K,
We have done this quite thoroughly once or twice before.

http://www.samizdata.net/mt/suckitspammers.cgi?entry_id=10481

John K, but a restaurant or private club is not a *public place*, such as a road or state owned park, it is a place that people do business, or not, with the owner of that property.

If you do not like the fact a restaurant allows smoking, no one is forcing you to eat or work there. If you go into a room filled with smokers, you are choosing to accept the risk.

John K, I have an extreme allergic reaction to 80% or so of the cosmetics on the market. If you wear after-shave, or your wife (?) wears perfume, or if either of you uses certain scented soaps, you are having a significant impact on me. Thus, I'll grant your position some (minimal) credibility if you first agree to stop polluting my air with your vile agents of chemical warfare.

To live is to impact your environment. Sometimes to the annoyance of others. Too bad isn't it?

Alcohol permits will have one benefit, all the teetotallers, mormons and JWs who live on the fringes of society, unloved and unwanted, will suddenly find themselves in huge demand as companions on a night out, and they can drive you home.

As long as you are specifying 'your' air and environment and not mine. I do not allow either tobacco smoke or air fresheners in my house or car. But back in the day, when I smoked a pipe, it was always with the permission of the property/business owner. And if I was in a 'public'* place, I extinguished it immediately if anybody commented anything but pleasure with the smoke. A surprising number of people would deliberately sit where they could smell the smoke, but that did not mean I could compel people who didn't want smoke to inhale it.

*The validity of 'public' property is a whole debate in itself. For decision making purposes, I consider the government rules to be those of the owners/taxpayers. Rejecting the idea of 'publicly' owned parks etc, does not entitle me to attack others who use them while I am using them.

What we need is an argument that can be applied to all topics, so as to win the case for libertarianism. We might be onto something if we can restate physical laws into our own terms.
'For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction' becomes the maxim, 'For every swapped value there should be an equal and opposite value'. Occam's Razor, 'Do not multiply entities needlessly', could become, 'Do not multiply bureaucracies mindlessly'. 'E=MC squared' could be 'F=MC,C (Freedom = Money x perCent untaxed, see?)

Can anyone else think of a way to simplify our message so it permeates the culture?

Government doesn't work.

The problem with people like John K, is that they are thinking now in terms of rights, as in "its my right not to inhale cigarette smoke in a restaurant/bar/whatever".

Which not only is not a right at all, but actually removes someone else's actual right to smoke something legally purchased.

It seems to me this confusion is wilfully created and maintained by the totalitarians.

My girlfriend said she was looking forward to the smoking ban - no longer as she spends half the night waiting for me to come back inside after having a fag! haha, i told her it was a rubbish idea

John K, but a restaurant or private club is not a *public place*, such as a road or state owned park, it is a place that people do business, or not, with the owner of that property.

If you do not like the fact a restaurant allows smoking, no one is forcing you to eat or work there. If you go into a room filled with smokers, you are choosing to accept the risk.

I think most people here are not anarchists, therefore we accept that there should be some laws we all obey.

A restaurant is indeed a private place of business. However, the fact that it is private property does not mean the owner has the right to serve condemned meat. He does not have the absolute freedom to do as he wishes, even in his own property.

I hope we would all accept that workers in dangerous industries have a right to be provided with the appropriate protective equipment; their employer owes them a "duty of care". We don't accept the argument that no-one is forced to work down a mine or in a foundry, and if you do not want to be put at risk by the employer's disregard of safety, then he can always find some Poles willing to put up with it.

I have never smoked and find the smell of cigarette smoke objectionable, but I never had any problem in avoiding the smell until the recent ban. I could easily find restaurants that banned smoking (the owner was free to impose whatever rules he wanted in his own premeses, and I was free to enter, or not). Now however it is far harder to avoid the smell as smokers are forced out onto the street. I can avoid smoking pubs and restaurants, but I can't avoid having to walk along the street. If the ban were lfted the smokers would go back inside, I would eat and drink elsewhere and the streets would be clearer; everyone is happy, but the puritans couldn't handle that.

Once upon a time, when I was a local councillor, I attended a course run at Bristol University's School of Advanced Urban Studies. The lecturer was one Julian Le Grand. He thought he was amongst friends as most of the councillors were Labour place men. I asked him if he ever allowed his political views to colour the outcome of his research. "Of course I do!" was his disarmingly frank reply. Sadly, academia is stuffed to the gunwales with politically motivated types (as is journalism) who are able to confuse truth and fiction if it means they can advance their cause. In other words, the end justifies the means. Most decent people still think that academics and politicians play fair... they are far too trusting. If things get much worse then we will have to take to the hills and respond with violence. That's what the French Resistance did. I fail to see how this totalitarian nightmare is any different from Nazism.

A restaurant is indeed a private place of business. However, the fact that it is private property does not mean the owner has the right to serve condemned meat.

Yes, because there is an implicit contract when you sell something to someone that it does not pose a hidden unadvertised danger. But a smoke filled room is nothing of the sort. Moreover, I would have little problem with requiring a 'SMOKING ALLOWED HERE' sign so that the easily frightened can manage their exposure to risk more effectively.

He does not have the absolute freedom to do as he wishes, even in his own property.

Sure, but that was not what I was saying. I do not think a property owner has the right to spread infectious disease from their property or fire guns in a way that sends bullets off their property or be a serious fire hazard that could cause an entire neighbourhood to burn down.

Those things impose a clear and undeniable risk without the prior consent of the people put at risk because they cannot avoid the risk by just staying off the property ... likewise there are implicit contracts that products preform as advertised, so you cannot poison people with bad food or sell them a car which will explode in normal use...But smoking does none of those things. You can avoid the smoke of others on private property by staying away. You avoid the real risk cigs pose by not smoking yourself and if you buy cigs, you are clearly consenting to the risk.

Your mere convenience however does not justify the force backed abridging of the right of someone else to control what goes on on their property.

The Barbarians are at the gate, but they are busy measuring and examining in order to issue edicts, make laws and create guidelines on construction, use and safety.

Alisa,

Jacob: fine, but are we supposed to sit and wait until it gets that bad?

No, denouncing and bitching is fine. It's just the hyperbole that I don't like. Save the heavy verbal artillery for when it's justified.

Jacob: it is physically impossible to control someone's thoughts. What can be controlled, and was, at the times and places you have mentioned, is speech.

Have you read 1984 ? Was it just "free speech" that they suppressed ?
Whether possible or impossible they DO try to control your thoughts.

MarkS,

Sadly, academia is stuffed to the gunwales with politically motivated types (as is journalism) who are able to confuse truth and fiction if it means they can advance their cause.

Exactly the same is true (alas!) also for some scientists - what's called "climate scientists" .

Perry,

I do NOT regard putting people in gulags as what defines a totalitarian state

Then you have some private vocabulary. Here is a dictionary definition.
But the argument is only about semantics. I agree with the substance of the poet.

nick g.,

What we need is an argument that can be applied to all topics, so as to win the case for libertarianism. We might be onto something if we can restate physical laws into our own terms.

I regret to say that this is dead wrong. The reason libertarians lose so badly in the real world is most people don't demand logical consistency and coherence. It is not that they don't demand complete consistency. They don't demand it at all.

The techniques of subverting thought I mentioned above make lavish use of non sequitur. They substitute for following logically, following the crowd. Sequence is consequence. Repetition and use will make it so. Anecdotes are proof; counterexamples, however, are invalid... because they are produced by the opposed, and therefore are immoral.

Then you have some private vocabulary. Here is a dictionary definition.

to·tal·i·tar·i·an /toʊˌtælɪˈtɛəriən/ Pronunciation Key - 1. of or pertaining to a centralized government that does not tolerate parties of differing opinion and that exercises dictatorial control over many aspects of life. 2. exercising control over the freedom, will, or thought of others; authoritarian; autocratic.

Actually the definition you link to do not really undermine my thesis at all, particularly definition 2... but you also seem unable to see that my argument is that my definition of a state being totalitarian simply by virtue of it seeking total control over the lives of its subjects is actually a better one.

The two main parties in the UK are becoming ideologically indistinguishable, so if that process continues we will have a de facto one party state in which you can vote for any party just as long as it stands for the same populist centrist statism. Belgium is an interesting example in which a major party that bucked the 'consensus', the Vlaams Bloc', was simply made illegal when people refused to stop voting for it. And yet Belgium is still said to be a 'democracy'.

Likewise dissent is increasingly not tolerated and is, in the Chinese fashion, pathologied... wanting to travel by eco-unfriendly aircraft is described as an "addiction" to air travel. Eating foods frowned upon by the Islington set is also an "addiction" to fatty food. Daring to tell a racist or sexist joke is not just a social faux pas these days, it can get you up in front of the Beak, and you think they are not trying to control our thoughts? I beg to differ. We are not in a total state yet but that is sure as hell where some people want to take us and the direction we are headed.

"We are not in a total state yet but that is sure as hell where some people want to take us and the direction we are headed."

So what are we going to do about it?

Surely the problem with smoking is that you don't just do it to yourself. When you smoke, you inflict your smoke on everyone else around you.

Because everything that you do as a member of a functioning society has some effect on other members of that society, this is a rather simple-minded recipe for Total Control. What it lacks is any idea that there should be some threshold impact on others that triggers State intervention. Minarchists tend to describe that threshold as "force (or the threat of force) or fraud".

Here is what a totalitarian state looks like:

Cuba’s rulers promised individual liberty. Instead they denied their citizens basic rights that the free world takes for granted. In Cuba it is illegal to change jobs, to change houses, to travel abroad, and to read books or magazines without the express approval of the state. It is against the law for more than three Cubans to meet without permission. Neighborhood Watch programs do not look out for criminals. Instead, they monitor their fellow citizens — keeping track of neighbors’ comings and goings, who visits them, and what radio stations they listen to. The sense of community and the simple trust between human beings is gone.

A small example, taken from Bush's sppech.
Quoted on NRO

Yes, that is indeed totalitarian. However where you are part of the problem is that you cannot see that is not the only way. You are fighting yesterday's war, not today's.

In Cuba it is illegal to change jobs

Yes, but that is a characteristic of a sub-set of totalitarianism called communism, because under communism the state owns all the means of production. If every job you can change to is regulated by the state, are you really all that much freer? In a fascist system it is easier to change jobs between one state licensed regulated business to another state licensed regulated business, but said fascist state is still quite totalitarian, so what does that prove?

There have already been various calls for 'Neighborhood Environmental Watch' programs so that you can denounce people for not recycling or using too much water or other politically disapproved of things. Join the dots and stop looking at the outward trappings. It is already damn near impossible to go a week without breaking some sort of law, which means we live at the sufferance of the state not enforcing all its laws. People can use the state to cripple a business because someone said a naughty joke and caused a 'hostile work environment'. People are encourage to use torts to 'punish' politically incorrect behaviour and make all civil social interactions subject to politically approved formulae. It will not take a revolution to bring about a total state, just a continuation of current trends... but everything, and I do mean everything, will eventually be regulated, and that is also totalitarian.

but everything, and I do mean everything, will eventually be regulated, and that is also totalitarian.

Well, that's kinda, sorta totalitarian too... anyway - it's not pleasant.

But there's a big, big difference between this and a state where people get murdered routinely. I somehow don't feel really menaced by the Eurocrats and their ilk. They are a might nuisance, though.

But there's a big, big difference between this and a state where people get murdered routinely.

I somehow don't feel really menaced by the Eurocrats and their ilk. They are a might nuisance, though.

Oh I expect it could end up much like Nazi Germany in the long run (but please read on to see what I actually mean by that) in terms of most people's actual experience. In Nazi Germany many, even most, could live a pretty normal life as long as you obeyed (which most did) and happened to be a member of the Herrenvolk (which most were).

As the German grandmother of former girlfriend of mine once told me (and I am paraphrasing somewhat) "living under the Nazis in Germany was never difficult for me. I was not political but I could see that people had jobs and we felt that at last things were being run in our interests, not because Goebbels said so, but because that is what we thought."

She lived in a total state and but did not herself experience fear or terror (until the war came) or state repression, or even personally know anyone who did. Yet almost nothing she did was not controlled by the state, at least indirectly. As a member of the 'Aryan' majority who did not want the sort of things the state disapproved of, the Nazis all seemed perfectly reasonable and unobtrusive. She was also honest enough to admit to me that the only reason she and many others turned against Hitler towards the end of the war was not that he started it but that he lost it. So just as the Eurocrats do not seem very menacing to you, she never felt menaced by the Nazis either. It was the RAF & USAAF that scared her, not her own government.

And she also said "Of course now I realise we understood nothing. Our whole view of the world was based on the lies we all told each other."

Totalitarian states... your experience may vary depending on who you are and what you want.

Nick: the point about thought control is well taken - I don't remember what I was thinking:-)

MarkE: have no fear, soon enough it will be illegal to smoke anywhere, including outdoors.

As to a restaurant serving condemned meat: not a problem, as long as it is openly advertised. Whether such a business is commercially viable, is another matter. Consider a S&M club: people doing to each other things most people, including, I presume, some of the patrons of these clubs, would not tolerate in a normal environment. I mean, would you tolerate being tied up and spanked upon entering a regular nightclub?

Reminds me of Demolition Man!

Actually there is a mathematical equation for Nick G. It's one of Larry Niven's Laws:
F * S = K;
Where F = freedom, S=security, and K is a constant.

Note: I don't know if Niven intended it this way, but the F & S only work as totals w/in a society not averages. Thus a society run by goverment thugs who have high F & S, but with the average person having low F & S is still K. It's an important distinction, with some interesting corrollaries pertaining to the "soft" totalitarianism being discussed.

Alisa.
I mean, would you tolerate being tied up and spanked upon entering a regular nightclub?

You mean this isn't normal?
Where have these taxi drivers been taking me to then,
when I jump in and asked to be taken for a slap up good time? :-)
Perry is spot on again.

I, too, would shudder at the thought of infringing on anyone's personal liberties. Yet dating, and particularly multiple sexual partners, is bound to lead to disease and cost for the State's various health services. Therefore a dating license should be required, with name, photo, identifying number, sexual preference(s), sexual health status (to preserve privacy this can be on a scale from 1 to 5), and marital status. This way we can prevent many unnecessary social problems with a minimum of impact on personal privacy.

Kevin: you are obviously getting the hang of it. BTW, failure to follow the above procedure will result in being tied up and spanked. (RAB, we'll have to think of a different deterrent for the likes of you).

...and what do we do about it? How do you go about halting the slide into totalitarianism? Isn't the ultimate answer getting people to think for themselves?

deleted: if we have any job opportunities for new editors, I will be sure to let you know

...and what do we do about it? How do you go about halting the slide into totalitarianism?

Because it does not look like the totalitarianism they have seen in the movies, the first thing to do is actually make enough people to realise that is what is actually happening.

See http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=5127&var_recherche=oldest+virtue for an article that hasn't gone out of date at all. Totalism is right around the corner. All it takes to kill civilization is the death of civility.

Jacob.

As you know, my fellow baldie who first used the term "totalitarian" in government (the government of Italy from the early 1920's) did not actually take over everything (although he did make the state very big - in both size and scope) and nor did he shove vast numbers of people into concentration camps.

Indeed there were even academics in Italy writing against statism during his rule. One could even argue that there were more academics in Italy arguing for a smaller government in the 1920's and 1930's than there are in modern Britain (even though the state in modern Britain is at least as big in total as was in Fascist Italy - less state owned companies, but more government spending).

Indeed the general air of corruption and farce (with limited brutality, rather than mass terror) of modern Britain is not a million miles from Fascist Italy before World War II. Of course in some ways Britain is better (for example elections, at least in theory, offer the chance to change things). But it is not a vast distance away.

What matter is not just how bad things are, but what the DIRECTION of policy is.

Of course Britian is not as bad as many other places past and present - but it is getting worse.

There is also the question of PHILOSOPHY.

In theory Fascist Italy placed no limits on government. In practice there were all sorts of things the government did not do, but in there were no PRINCIPLES limiting it.

Now that is too close for comfort.

Even on things like "freedom of speech" the government does not expect a principle of limitation (the "Human Rights Act" and the Convention on which it is based are, of course, vague and sometimes counter productive).

The government makes it clear that it will not accept racist publications, and it expresses an interest in suppressing publications that attack Islam (although this has yet to be done), and Christians are under attack because of their opinions on homosexual acts........

Now the specific cases are not the vital thing - the vital thing is that the government does not accept any principled limitations on what it can do.

Self defence does not include the private ownership of firearms - something that would have astonished previous generations of people on this island.

Free speech only covers speech the government does not consider wicked - (ditto).

A vast "education system" (schools and universities) are openly encrouraged to teach a certain way of looking at the world - and different ways of looking at the world are held to have no place in education (there is strong pressure for private schools to be included in all this).

Guy Herbert could explain to you how changes in the law mean that both charities and commercial companies are now held to have social duties (very vague things to be DEFINED BY GOVERNMENT) that they must perform - i.e. that the basic indepencence of supposedly private organizations if being undermined.

The broadcasting media (both state owned and private) all have the same political point of view BY LAW. For example, the news on "Classic F.M." is no different in point of view from B.B.C. news - and nor can it be.

This political point of view is called being "unbiased" (a blatent lie).

The newspapers and magazines have come under more and more pressure to conform.

Certainly they are NOT like the broadcasting media - but, for example, the sort of thing that would have been normal in the Daily and Sunday Telegraph only a few years ago are now virtually unknown (and I am not just talking about race or "sexual orientation")

There are all sorts of opinions that are considered unaccpetable - and it is not just the weight of public opinion. There are sanctions from government itself.

Lastly.

It is much too late to protest about totalitarianism when it is has already been totally established.

To wait till Britain is a totalitarian country (say when Samizdata and so on are banned) before opposing the direction of policy and the philosophy on which that direction is based, would be a great mistake.

The time to oppose totalitarianism is BEFORE it is fully established - i.e. NOW.

I can think of quite a few ways I would rather like to 'help' Julian le Grand and his ilk in order to mitigate their pathological need to interfere with other people's lives.

This is the problem with civil society: too much voting, not enough retribution toward people that truly deserve it.

Perry,

"I was not political but I could see that people had jobs and we felt that at last things were being run in our interests, not because Goebbels said so, but because that is what we thought."

Oh, you can't believe this crap. Every old German says: "we didn't know, we didn't sense anything out of the ordinary". That's a load of crap. Every single German knew exactly who Hitler was, and what he was doing every single minute. Hitler's goons (brown shirts) murdered people long before he gained power, in street "brawls". The Weimar Republic was too weak to stop him. The first thing he did upon being named Cancelar was to murder Rohm, the homo head of the Nazi party. (Yes, Hitler's own leader). Long before the war they started by murdering some 70,000 good arian germans who happened to be cripple or sick mentally.
Every German knew perfectly well Hitler was a mad murderer, from day -1000. (Hell, he wrote an explicit book about it, long before he came to power!). A few Germans opposed him, but were too weak or too afraid to speak out (and those who did were murdered). Most Germans participated willingly and enthusiastically in an orgy of mass madness and murder. It's unbelievable, but that's what happened. Don't you buy one word from the old Germans who say "we never knew".

It was different in Russia, where a mostly uneducated and ignorant mass was taken in by communist slogans, and were terrorized into submission by the brutal (but few) cadres of the regime. The criminal Communist regime was intensely hated by most Russians, which cannot be said about the Germans and their regime.

Oh I expect it could end up much like Nazi Germany in the long run

Nonesense. The current crop of European leaders are imbecile impotents. Implying that they (or their successors) might become murderous tyrants is ridiculous. They don't know the business side of a gun. Hinting that the current regime might lead toward a murderous tyranny is preposterous.

The danger is that the decline and decadence of current social-democrat regimes in Europe might generate a crisis and pave the way for another mad strongman which would sweep them away, and grab power. The current regimes are not dangerous by themselves, in a murderous way. They are dangerous because of their weakness and the intellectual and physical decadence they are part of.

By the way: the European leaders are the result of the prevalent mass ideology, not it's cause. A great majority of people are perfectly happy to live under a smoking ban - the government does not impose anything on the public, it's rather the public that demands these measures. People don't care very much about some freedoms, and they get what they ask for.

Because it does not look like the totalitarianism they have seen in the movies, the first thing to do is actually make enough people to realise that is what is actually happening.

Absolutely Perry. Way too many people think that these rules and regulations, these quangos and inspectorates are there to protect us!

I think of the current enthusiasm for totalitarian thinking as a kind of mania which has gradually made its way across the mental landscape of the population. The only tonic is to draw attention to its contradictions and inconsistencies. I have a friend, a decent guy, who believes in the smoking ban and, more worryingly, seems like he would be quite prepared to act in a good citizen-like way to enforce it. He justifies it by saying stuff like - "well, we all have to live together." I think he was taken aback though when he found himself having his car confiscated right there in the street after a police ANPR camera caught him driving without insurance.

Jacob, I think discussing this you is pointless as you do not see bothered to actually grasp what I am saying. I do not expect you to agree, but it irks me you are not actually addressing the points I have made.

One last time.

We are NOT headed for a new Nazi Germany, in the mass murder, gas chambers and invade-the-Sudetenland sense. That is my whole fucking point about the NEW totalitarianism. They will not murder you for being difficult, but they certainly will throw your arse in gaol if need be. However the fascist approach to economic control has indeed come into favour in a kinder gentler post modern form, assigning increasingly nominal private ownership of the means of production whilst removing control over them... i.e. making ownership consist of liability but with increasingly less control.

In that sense, it will indeed be more more like Nazi Germany (which always had lots of private companies that could exist as long as they were doing something that conformed with overall political objectives) rather than Soviet Russia.

A doubt Hannelore would care if you believed her or not, but I am pretty sure that she did not (a) care if the 'politicals' (to use the word she always used) killed each other (b) have much of an idea at the time what happened in downtown Hamburg (at least before it started getting bombed), let alone in the rest of Germany much beyond her small rural community in Schleswig-Holstein.

I think you greatly underestimate how little apolitical 'normal people' care about or even notice what you and I might regard as the burning issues of the day. People are terrifyingly ignorant. The modern equivalent is the lumpen of Britain being more concerned with who just won Big Bruvvah and yet are oblivious to where the term 'Big Brother' actually comes from or who Orwell was, or the fact there are more CCTV cameras watching them per capita than in Israel, a country under constant terrorist attack. As a result I have no problem believing a great many Germans were ignorant as pigshit about what was happening or only 'understood' in the most abstract way... that is in fact a major part of the frigging problem both then and now, except there is less excuse for it now.

I noticed this, hidden quite cleverly....

I hope we would all accept that workers in dangerous industries have a right to be provided with the appropriate protective equipment; their employer owes them a "duty of care". We don't accept the argument that no-one is forced to work down a mine or in a foundry, and if you do not want to be put at risk by the employer's disregard of safety, then he can always find some Poles willing to put up with it.

True commiespeak as ever. If you have an employer,
then that makes you an employee, and not a worker.
As to what's happening to Britain, the forecast is
chaotic and gloomy for the time being. The criminal
element is coming into their own. Look for smoking
and the quaffing of alcohol to go underground.
The same will happen with food as it continues
to come under the reins of those full of themsuperiorselves.
Of course they have most certainly set the
ship of state on a collision course of failure.
Therefore plan quickly to hide your precious libraries
to keep them from being burnt down by the
barbarians of religious or secular movements.

There is nothing civilized about any form of totalitarianism

We live in a time when freedom is being looked at askance. When people are being made to feel that it is somehow "selfish" to demand to be left alone, to be free. In fact, here is my slogan for the up and comming nanny-state:

FREEDOM IS JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR SELFISH!

I'm thinking of having T-shirts made. Who's with me?

Jacob,

I fear you are wildly optimistic regarding the men in Brussels. When the tools for total state awareness and control are in place, do you think there's any chance the people in power won't use them? After all, we can't let a few outliers stand in the way of progress.

I am a monster. What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it, but it must be done. -- The Operative

So Huxley was right about the future, not Orwell.

After the revolution, fellow co-allies, you might want to consider that today's politicians simply have too much time on their hands. If we still want some minimal government structures, perhaps the politicians of the future can be fully occupied in constantly reviewing old laws. I propose that ALL laws have an automatic sunset clause and need to be constantly reviewed to be effective. If they're occupied in updating and passing established laws, they'll have much less occasions to make new laws!

Quite right. People are stubbornly unable to separate the form (goose-stepping) from the substance (total control).

However, I have a quibble: Our current crop of post-modern totalitarians has not employed violent repression . . . yet.

The new totalitarians already find enthusiastic support the only acceptable response to their views, and they are not finished building their Utopia.

As things progress, we'll find it takes an ever-smaller set of non-compliances to get that visit from the Boys in Blue. Which still may become black, with ever bigger sticks.

I was having a discussion recently with someone about the tyrants on the board of his Home Owners' Association wh were ordering him to take down some rose bushes and park his car pointing into the drive way not out of the drive way.

There seems to be some irreducible fraction of the population who's major motivation in life is to impose petty tyrannies on others with the force of law. These people are drawn to the governing boards or HOAs like flies to excrement.

My modest proposal is that libertarians in Britain do everything in their power to get as many Home Owners' Associations established as possible so as to give these junior Pol Pot's free reign to their nasty impulses in an environment where the worst they can do is to order someone's roses pulled out or bushes trimmed. They will be helplessly drawn to these opportunities for minor unaccountable power like flies to fly paper or mosquitoes to an electric bug zapper.

I had actually forgotten that a sad old "academic" like Le Grand was still around; amazing really, these old decaying egalitarians, Marxoids and the rest, cannot we set up a sort of old folks' home for these bastards?

Jacob:

If you do not believe Perry, you can take it from me - I did live behind the Iron Curtain, in one of the Russian satellite states. Even in the last years of the regime, when actual persecution was minimal (they no longer would shut off electricity to apartment buildings, in order to check what videotapes were in your VCR's, for example - even though in theory even owning a VCR in itself COULD get you in trouble), we were clueless beyond belief about the outside world. Now we know they could not triangulate your radio-receiver for listening to "Free Europe" - but we did not then, and thus we did not do. Now we know the West was more right to be afraid of us than vice versa - but sure did not appear that way then. Even when the propaganda was not nearly as intense as it had been in years past, it was deadly efficient, as it was building on the foundation laid earlier. Very, very few actually got hauled off to jail or to a labor camp (and even fewer even knew those camps existed) - the knock on the door almost never came. But if you heard it and saw the guy in uniform on the other side through the spy hole, change of underwear was an imminent concern. No one HAD to show up for those hideous parades - but enough did. You dismiss Perry's recount of his relative's impressions, but I have to tell you they do jive with mine. We knew who the leader was, but not what he was up to, and certainly (what turned out to be) only legends of what he was doing before the "dawn of Socialism." And most did not care - it was so much safer not to be interested.
I understand why you find it hard to believe, but it did happen. The totalitarian state can be extremely efficient at what it is trying to do - do not dismiss the Putins and their ilk as dumb - they are willing and happy to employ tools and tactics you would not.
I can go on, but will likely bore most of the readers, just wanted to say that Perry does have the right intuition, all the more surprising to me since (if I am correctly informed) he did not live under Commies.

This "totalitarianism = the National Socialists sending millions of Jews to the gas chambers" stuff is simply wrong.

As I have already pointed out even Mussolini (the first user of "totalitarianism" in government) did not go in for this - Fascism was a about the total state, not racialism (although Mussolini did imitate the race laws of Hitler after he made an alliance with him).

As for the leaders of Europe following the ideas of the masses - SIMPLY WRONG.

In fact it has always been wrong.

For example, Bismark subsidised socialists groups back in the 1860's to try and undermine the Liberals (Liberals in the liberty sense).

The new Liberals of Lloyd George and co were not elected in 1906 by promising welfare schemes - there was no great demand from below for these schemes (as Joseph Chamberlain had found when his radical "Birmingham Progamme" for nation wide welfare statism went down like a lead balloon when he launched it in 1865).

In the American context there was no demand from below for things like the New Deal of F.D.R. or the Great Society of L.B.J. - these things were thought up by academics and then pushed through by politicians AFTER they came to power.

It is the same with the "New Freedom" (President Wilson could sue if he was still alive) supported not just by New Labout but my most of the Social Democrat, Christian Democrat and Liberal party politicians.

Under the "New Freedom" (often just called "freedom" now) freedom is being "part of society" (society being defined as the state) not being "excluded" from its various benefits and activities.

Things change fast and they do NOT change from below.

As late as the 1970's I can remember most of the things that are held sacred now being openly mocked in popular entertainment - it was only gradually that the elite has made most people ashamed to believe certain things and led them to believe (or at least accept) other things.

For example, look how fast the traditional family has declined - this was not an accident, still less part of some natural evolution. It was a deliberate aim of policy - policy created by an "enlightened" elite and put into effect (with more or less knowledge) by politicians and administrators.

"But the Fascists were in favour of the traditional family" - it does not matter that the AIMS of the modern controllers are different, what matters is that their METHOD (the control of civil society by the state) is the same.

I noticed this, hidden quite cleverly....

I hope we would all accept that workers in dangerous industries have a right to be provided with the appropriate protective equipment; their employer owes them a "duty of care". We don't accept the argument that no-one is forced to work down a mine or in a foundry, and if you do not want to be put at risk by the employer's disregard of safety, then he can always find some Poles willing to put up with it.

True commiespeak as ever. If you have an employer,
then that makes you an employee, and not a worker.

Sorry, but I think that is taking semantics to a ridiculous level.

You have not addressed my point: if tobacco smoke is an environmental pollutant (and I think it is, though not as dangerous as zealots like to claim), then by what right can an employer expect his employees/workers to work in it? It really is no sort of argument to say "they can just work somewhere else", because if we go down that route you imply that employers do not have a duty to provide their employees with a safe place in which to work.

As to the way Britain is drifting into soft fascism, I take that as a given. However, I really don't think that from a libertarian point of view, the ban on smoking in public places is a good battle to fight. The salient point about smoking is just that: the smoke. It is inflicted by a smoker on all people around him, and that is what makes it objectionable. I don't suppose we will agree on this, but that is my opinion.

Eric.

As you know the Operative changes his mind when he sees the results of the state having unlimited power - even for a "good purpose".

It was part of the strength of the film Serenity that the change of heart by the Operative does not feel false in any way - the character is a murderer (and much else), but he is also the sort of man who could have just such a change of heart.

In a free society, people would be able to speak in public without fear of reprisal for the content of their speech, because there wouldn't BE any reprisals.

Most people probably can in the present-day United States. Pharmacists won't generally risk their jobs to have a problem with abortion unless they refuse to dispense morning-after pills, and maybe not even then. The guy who works as a chemist at the brewery can have an RMGO "It's a Right Not a Privilege" sticker on his car. The lady who does my taxes has a "The Only Bush I Trust Is My Own" sticker on her car and the accounting firm where she works seems to be solely concerned with her performance as an accountant.

All of which is fine. It's (supposed to be) a free country.

Well, unless you happen to be a local government employee: then, your opinions are those of the Mayor or the City Manager. Even when you're off the clock. Post here using my real name, even omitting my job title/employer's name, and it's my ass.

I'm sure that the KGB kept a very close eye on the Ministry of the Interior militia, too.

I'm also sure that I was going somewhere with this, but I fear that several bottles of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale were harmed in the making of this post.

John K:

because if we go down that route you imply that employers do not have a duty to provide their employees with a safe place in which to work.

My employer won't provide me with a safe place in which to work. Who do I call?

It was part of the strength of the film Serenity that the change of heart by the Operative does not feel false in any way - the character is a murderer (and much else), but he is also the sort of man who could have just such a change of heart.

That was the same strength in "V For Vendetta" and the "Star Wars" double trilogy. Det. Finch, Darth Vader, and the junior officer who ordered the soldiers to hold their fire outside the Parliament all were able to have that same change of heart.

For some reason, for me, that's the difference between a powerful and compelling story, and a one.

My employer won't provide me with a safe place in which to work. Who do I call?

I don't know. Where do you live? What job do you do? If you work at a nuclear power plant, would you object if your employer asked you to move radioactive items without any safety equipment? Would it be acceptable for him to say "you don't have to work here, if you don't like it I'll get some Ukrainians in to do the job"?

John K:

By your reasoning, there should be no policemen, no military, no miners, no firefighters. That duty sounds pretty dodgy to me - how about a sign at the gate "This is a smoking workplace - please do not apply if you object second-hand tobacco smoke!", and let the market sort out if smoking or non-smoking businesses survive by attracting better employees? Disclosure I am all for, but where does this duty to actually provide a safe work environments stem from?

I don't have my Chambers dictionary at work but the etymology of the word "totalitarian" could provide some useful insight into its real meaning.

Origin: 1925–30; totalit(y) + -arian.

- Dictionary.com Unabridged

1926, first in ref. to Italian fascism, formed in Eng. on model of It. totalitario "complete, absolute, totalitarian," from the It. cognate of Eng. total (q.v.). The noun is recorded from 1938.

- Online Etymology Dictionary

By your reasoning, there should be no policemen, no military, no miners, no firefighters. That duty sounds pretty dodgy to me - how about a sign at the gate "This is a smoking workplace - please do not apply if you object second-hand tobacco smoke!", and let the market sort out if smoking or non-smoking businesses survive by attracting better employees? Disclosure I am all for, but where does this duty to actually provide a safe work environments stem from?

Obviously all workplaces are not the same. Some jobs have more risk than others, which is usually reflected in the pay. That does not mean that deep sea fishermen, who have the most dangerous job of all, should not expect their employer to provide a seaworthy boat, with life jackets and life saving equipment. The fact is, if the law did not force them to do so, some employers would not do this, and would try and get away with using Mexican or Filipino seamen who were desperate enough to risk their lives for the money. So I don't accept that a fishing boat owner should just be able to get away with saying "my fishing boats don't have life boats. If you don't like that, work somewhere else."

Sunfish talking about having his opinions curtailed to those of his employers, stirred a vague memory.
Perhaps Paul can help here. Is the following situation correct?
Say you are a local Councillor, perhaps an Independent, taking no party whip.
A constituent comes to you for help to oppose a ring road scheme that will demolish his house.You agree the scheme is a bad idea and even attend the protest demonstration, and write an opposing article in the local paper.
A Council debate on the road is to be held this evening, but when you get there you find you are barred from speaking because you have shown bias.
Now I thought that debating different points of view was what democracy is all about.
Am I correct here?

PS John K, Sunfish is a police officer.
ipso facto, his working environment is "unsafe"

RAB: I believe you are correct in what you say. The Standards Board of England enforce this particular bit of totalitarian thinking. It was an invention of the Prescott era, needless to say. The upshot is that if you are elected on, say, a platform of opposing a wind farm, you will not be allowed, as a councillor, to vote on the wind farm's planning application, because you do not have an open mind on the matter. The fact that that is the reason you were elected in the first place is oldthink.

PS John K, Sunfish is a police officer. ipso facto, his working environment is "unsafe"

That does not mean his employer does not have a duty of care to him, to provide him with the equipment he needs to do his job safely: gun, radio, kevlar vest etc.

Thank you John K. I thought that might be the case, astonishing though it is.
But for gawd's sake, lighten up!
Sunfish's comment was meant to be ironic. Who says Americans dont get it? :-)

John K:

And why not? An employer providing unsafe boats for fishermen (again, I stipulated, properly disclosed) will likely find they are out of business very soon. Not smart business strategy, and yet, none of the government's business to "make it right". It's a contractual agreement between fully informed and willing parties.
If the police officers you talk about get shot without a kevlar vest on, they will suffer significant injury. In an environment with tobacco smoke, you might breathe all your life and suffer no ill consequences - in other words, it's a probability risk, not a direct risk. Traffic cops in the average busy city breathe in way more carcinogens each day they work in the street that they would if they worked out in the sticks but smoked a pack a day - should the government move them all there, or should we ban internal combustion engines, or....?
What do you find so objectionable about people choosing to work in a non-perfect environment? As an economist, I would actually argue that if you have 5 companies, each with 80 non-smoking and 20 smoking employees, you would achieve a Paretto-efficient outcome if you make 1 company smoking, and move all the smokers there, ceteris paribus. Smokers do derive benefits from smoking, believe it or not, just not ones that many non-smokers appreciate, and that can translate into higher productivity at both kinds of companies.
Poke a hole in that scenario, please?