Our local rag is increasingly hysterical about ciggy butts on the
deck. They (the local council) have taken to actually counting them.
Much more interesting than the numerous (every square foot or so
around here and this is not a busy place) splodges of irremovable
chewing gum that sticks to your soles in the warm weather, or the sea
of kebab cartons lying around on a sunday morning, but anyway....
I did a little survey among people that I *know* chuck their rubbish
around willy-nilly (I know because I've seen them...), to ask just why
they do it and why they don't seem to care. They all said pretty much
the same thing - they do care, but they are paying for someone else to
clean it up so they don't bother. Sounds a bit arrogant on first
hearing, but then I thought about it a bit more, and they do have a
point. If you go into a restaurant and pay for a meal, you expect to
be served, and to have your plates and cutlery taken away by the
staff. You don't finish your meal and then carry your stuff over to
the waiter, do you? You just pay the bill and walk away, leaving a
mess on the table. Then I thought, what if the food in the restaurant
was free? I would guess that 70% of people *would* take their plates
to the waiter, and maybe some would even offer to help with the
wa****ng up.
Being forced to pay for things on pain of imprisonment seems, IMV, to
have a detrimental effect on our society - it has taken away the
responsibility from us, just by virtue of them insisting that it is a
service they will provide which we must pay for, and not only pay for,
but pay for through the nose. This can be extended to many other
things - maybe our education system is abused and undervalued because
it is free. Certainly fee-paying schools suffer few if any of the ills
of the state sector, in spite of the fact that the teachers often work
for both private and public schools. The NHS...there are an increasing
number of services you just cannot expect to get, which you certainly
would expect if you were paying for it directly and obviously.
Expectations are very low...
With regards to imprisonment, would it have ever come about that
prisoners were entitled to luxury goods inside, if they were not
'free' (aka paid for by other people's money)? If they had to be
directly paid for out of people's pockets, who would sup****t the right
of prisoners to have anything other than basic exercise, fresh air and
reasonable food?
I suppose this is all leading to an argument against taxation and for
libertarianism and freedom of choice, but the crux of my point is that
being forced to pay for services is actually making things worse
because it is making us cease to care about our environment and
services.
Maybe it even goes some way to explaining the lack of respect for the
police force, who are now seen as agents of the state, not people
employed by us to minimise criminality.
Then you have the post office, which charges a measly 36p for a stamp
to take a letter from one end of the country to another, and yet
everybody complains about it! The more spoonfed we are, the more lazy
and mithering we have become...
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