The Ban Plan

When the Righteous find a method that works, they stick with it absolutely. That is both a strength and a weakness.

Strength, because once they embark on the plan, they stick to it absolutely. They cannot be diverted or distracted from their step by step progression. All of them follow the same steps and in the same order. Inconvenient facts are adjusted or ignored in favour of their goal and their really big strength is that they can convince their followers to actually believe their goal is right. The facts must be wrong. Reality must be spun until it conforms. If enough people believe something then it must be true. Reality by democratic decision, not by physics or chemistry. Once the Righteous plan is started, it's very hard to stop.

It's also a weakness, because they will use the same step by step plan again on an entirely different target. And again. And again. After a few such implementations, it becomes easy to see the plan in its early stages but it's still difficult to stop it. There are just too many who will fall for this plan, no matter how many times it is implemented.

The Ban Plan must surely, by now, be obvious to everyone and yet it still works. Smoking was an easy one to start with. There were already plenty of people ready to fake a cough or do a bit of theatrical hand-waving if a smoker approached within a hundred yards of them. I've even had someone fake a cough at me while I was rolling a cigarette. They couldn't wait for me to light it. Oh, the Ban Plan was easy to implement with a ready-made army of indoctrinable suckers.

You all know the tune by now. One, make it socially unacceptable. Two, make up some very large figures preferably involving deaths, costs to the taxpayer, NHS collapsing under the load etc. Three, when you have an army of outraged idiots, start imposing controls. Just little ones at first, just to get the rest of the country used to the idea that the Thing to be banned is a Bad Thing.

Then ban it.

The ultimate aim of the Ban Plan has nothing to do with health or environment or anything that people might really want. It's a means to exert control and as the Ban Plans continue, pretty soon you have a population who aren't sure what's allowed and what's not and will agree to anything just to be left alone. Even things that have gone unremarked for generations, like taking a photo in the street, are suddenly viewed with suspicion by minds that are conditioned to think 'Well, I don't do that, and if I don't do it, it must be illegal'.

We saw the whole thing through with smoking. The same technique is now being applied to alcohol and it's already well advanced. Overweight? You've seen the plan progressing too. Filament light bulbs were billed as evil polar bear killing machines and their end is imminent. Batteries are now in the sights.

"Batteries?" you ask. "Leg-iron's lost it this time. Why would they ban batteries? It's absurd."

Yes it is. While government installs massive computer facilities that consume huge quantities of power while achieving nothing, your filament light bulb has to be removed because it's killing the planet. If you drive, you are the sole cause of pollution even though six of those huge container ships wandering the high seas produce more pollution than all the cars in the world - and there are hundreds of those ships. People can stand on a busy street and inhale exhaust fumes all day long but they only cough and splutter when someone lights half a gram of leaves wrapped in paper. We have more CCTV cameras than any other country, you can see most of the country with Google Streetview, yet people believe that anyone taking a photo must be breaking the law even though it's been repeatedly stated that they are not. Of course a ban on batteries is absurd. It's all absurd. It always was.

Because it's not about making life better for the likes of you and me. It's about control and the more absurd the subject of the ban, the better. Ordinary things become objects of terror. People are really convinced they will die if a smoker lights up in the same hemisphere as them. People are really convinced that all photographers are terrorists and that anyone who so much as glances in the direction of a child is a paedophile. People are really convinced that anyone who drinks more than the government-alloted ration must be a violent thug who goes home and nails his children to the wall every evening.

People believe it is right to punish car drivers at every opportunity. It is right that smokers, drinkers and the overweight are treated as subhuman. It is right that photographers must be stopped from taking pictures in CCTV-covered streets. It is right that filament bulbs must be eradicated.

In the comments to the original Mail article, there is this...

We should recycle batteries as they contain rare precious metals. Take zinc which can only be created when a Red Giant sun dies in a particular way; when the earth formed we got some of it from the debris. We take this rare metal, formed by cosmic accident, make batteries out of it and then just chuck it in a bin to go to landfill without further thought. There is no endless supply of zinc. Recycle now or your grandchildren will be mining landfill sites for materials.

...it is right that battery users and suppliers should pay for special measures to recycle them. They are hazardous materials (funnily enough, they're not hazardous when you buy them. Yet) and contain the stuff of stars which is precious and rare. Zinc? Rare? You can roof your shed with sheets of the stuff and buy zinc-based creams by the gallon. It's in pig diets as a pathogen control agent. We use it all the time. It's cheap, and rare things tend not to be. Yet this idiot believes the hype and he's far from alone.

Yes, a ban on batteries is absurd but then classifying used batteries as hazardous waste is absurd too. It's only the first phase of the Ban Plan. Once the 'hazardous' label is ingrained in people's minds, it's a small step to make the unused ones hazardous too. Then, warning labels, age restrictions, and so on. Just like before. Every time. Soon they'll be classed as 'not Green' and we'll be 'encouraged' to use rechargeables instead. Then it's bye-bye Duracell.

Why? What's dangerous about batteries? Nothing at all. It's not about protecting you, it's about controlling you.

What is dangerous is the Ban Plan. Very dangerous indeed. For example - what causes lung cancer? Go on, think hard. What causes lung cancer?

Did you think of blue asbestos? No? Did you think of thorium from granite? No? Hot showers? Exhaust particulates? Human papilloma virus? Pure genetic bad luck?

Your first thought was 'smoking' and if you ask anyone what causes lung cancer, it's the response you'll get. Ask for a second cause and you'll usually be hard pressed to get one. It's so ingrained that any doctor, on diagnosing lung cancer, will put it down to the patient's smoking or if they don't smoke, to contact with smokers. No other cause is considered and no other cause is investigated any more. Other causes of lung cancer just don't exist in the Righteous-indoctrinated mind. So there will never be a cure. Nobody is looking.

Throat cancer is now caused by drinking. Other causes are being quietly forgotten. Diabetes is caused by being overweight. No other cause is possible. Research into these diseases is crippled because anyone suggesting that they might not all be caused by the Bad Thing won't be getting their grants renewed.

It's not just climate science that's been reduced to a laughing stock by the Righteous. All science is going down the tubes because of the Righteous single-issue mindset. The Righteous don't care. Reality is shaped by concensus, remember? If enough people believe it, it must be true.

And people who believe what they are told to believe are under control.

That's all the Righteous want.