Thoughts on Thinking

Or the lack thereof.

As is necessary these days, when delivering a training course I have to go through the domestic arrangements and one of those is that to do with any of the unclean who need a nicotine fix. I had one such attending earlier in the week. We got to discussing e-cigs as Network Rail has banned them from all of its buildings. My delegate then went on to state that you don’t know what’s in them. “Well”, I said, “water vapour, mostly.”

“Ah, but”, he countered, “there’s all those chemicals.”

So, you see, the meme has taken root – the meme that has been peddled by the antis, that e-cigs, far from being benign, far from being a healthier alternative to smoking tobacco (in that they contain no tar), they contain “chemicals”. People don’t stop to think about what “chemicals” actually means. It means, of course, the world around us. There are “chemicals” everywhere. Those found in e-cigs – beyond H₂O and the juice that contains the nicotine are all found in trace quantities.

I see a similar lack of thinking every time I switch on the news. The talking point of the day being public sector pay-rises. Those of us in the private sector – especially the self-employed might wonder what one of those is. But, no, those interviewed all felt that the public sector deserved more. Well, maybe they do and maybe they don’t. Whatever it is, who pays? Oh, yeah, you and I; those of us who don’t get a pay rise.

And, again, on blogs we see the statist propaganda being spouted without passing the synapses. Rickie (AKA Dickie Doubleday, our resident troll) spews out the usual anti-smoking hysteria.

The truth is of course the bloggers who share conspiracies don’t really believe a word of it, keyboard dreamers are in their own little fantasy world in the back bedroom sucking themseleves deeper into some fucked up conspiracy when they read other likeminded oddballs swapping stories, the real deal nutters are lying low waiting for an offical version to be announced about the aircraft in Malaysia before they connect it to how the story was leaked a month before the flight took off.

Smoking dosen’t kill….thats an ongoing cracker of a conspiracy caused by spiteful bastards who somehow have a big plan to control the world and make everyone miserable, how Debs Arnott (ASH) got Outer Mongolia to enforce a smoking ban isnt clear…lol.

Keyboard fantasists are just that, the majority are just lonely oddballs who you can see sitting at the bus stop outside Poundland every day of the week, once they get home the dreaming starts and the fun begins.

It’s somewhat amusing to see the word “truth” being used with abandon by someone who has no understanding of its meaning. But here, then, is the usual spite-filled hate that has become the norm now with the anti-smokers. This hate, this total intolerance of people who hold and voice a different opinion, this attitude of untermensch being hissed out at smokers because they are the latest convenient target is much the same as we have seen in previous generations. Never mind that Rickie’s illiterate, deranged, raving little rant is one hundred percent, gold-plated cockwaffle on stilts that has spilled straight from the propaganda that he has swallowed whole and touched with his over-active imagination, people really believe this fucked-up cack. The Gestapo used this unthinking, mindless prejudice against the “other” as a means of control. Today, it is the smoker who is the “other”. Soon, it will be the fattie or the drinker – if not already, because demonising the “other” and employing useful idiots such as Rickie and other morons like him in the mob, is a tool that conveniently divides us, making control so much easier. There’s nothing new in all of this.

And people swallow it. They swallow it whole and regurgitate it without once stopping to consider whether it might be true or not. The memes, the junk science, the press releases from studies funded by us but carried out by the puritans in the health lobby become the dialogue that persists, despite it being a lie. The big lie is still very much with us and being used by politicians and their third sector puppeteers alike and it is being repeated verbatim on the streets and people accept it as truth – and the untermensch are unclean and must be removed from society – either willingly or be forced, for eventually, that is the end game. For eventually, only the hard-core will be left digging in their heels and refusing. And something must be done, for not doing so will be unacceptable.

And when they come for the finger-pointing members of the screaming mob who were so willing to condemn when it was someone else who was the “other”, no one will be left to speak for them. And maybe, you know, that will not be such a bad thing, for they will deserve all that is coming their way.