Liberty and Smoking

This story from the guys at Eursoc illustrates nicely the common problems of US and EU (and Canadian, for that matter) governments and the creeping influence of government in democratic societies. Tocqueville warned the world of the perils of "democratic despotism" -- rather than dealing with one iron-fisted ruler, societies become strapped down Gulliver-style by hundreds of inconvenient little laws.

The American Declaration of Independence explains that "Mankind are [sic] more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed." While this is hardly a call for revolution -- it could hardly be further from that -- this story perfectly encapsulates the "sufferable Evils" of government. Indeed, democracy is even more disposed to "sufferable Evils" than dictatorship (though somewhat less likely to foster insufferable Evils.)

The fact that there is debate about whether I'm allowed to write 'Mankind' rather than 'Humankind' is just one outcome of this new despotism.