TheAgitator.com
British Nanny State Bans the Word Orwellian
Friday, November 20th, 2009Okay, so the word hasn’t been banned. It’s just been rendered useless.
Health and safety inspectors are to be given unprecedented access to family homes to ensure that parents are protecting their children from household accidents.
New guidance drawn up at the request of the Department of Health urges councils and other public sector bodies to “collect data” on properties where children are thought to be at “greatest risk of unintentional injury”.
Council staff will then be tasked with overseeing the installation of safety devices in homes, including smoke alarms, stair gates, hot water temperature restrictors, oven guards and window and door locks…
Nice also recommends the creation of a new government database to allow GPs, midwives and other officials who visit homes to log health and safety concerns they spot.
The guidance aims to “encourage all practitioners who visit families and carers with children and young people aged under 15 to provide home safety advice and, where necessary, conduct a home risk assessment”. It continues: “If possible, they should supply and install home safety equipment.”
The proposals have been put out to consultation and, if approved, will be implemented next year.
This is double good.
That could never happen here, because we have the 4th Amendment and politicians, courts and ctizens willing to protect it right? Right?
Regulations 2.0 will delete the word unintentional in order to mandate indefinitely quarantining all siblings.
And don’t forget, the UK “child welfare” authorities have very great powers already to remove children from parents for almost any pretext whatsoever, including any unrealized but “potential” future harm they can imagine might happen. These “inspections” will end up being the doorway to a much greater, literal, “nanny state”.
Here is what we’ll do. First we need to establish a data base of what people are doing. Then we’ll know exactly who we have to arrest when we criminalize those things. And, just to make sure we don’t get too much backlash, we’ll call it the “Government Loves Children Act”.
Traveling to Britain is like visiting our future.
What deprives the word “Orwellian” of its meaning are overwrought libertarian handwringers who try to draw analogies between:
(1) a novel about an all-powerful surviellance-state government that tortures and murders its citizens on a grand scale while waging an endless series of false-flag wars, and
(2) arguably over-ambitious public health agendas on smoking, excess alcohol, and home-safety childproofing.
I don’t want to hear the word “Orwellian” ever again unless we are talking about: (1) government redaction of old newspaper records (2) installation of two-way televisions in a person’s bedroom or (3) caging somebody’s head with a live rat.
I don’t give a flying fig how much you hate and resent non-smoking bars, individual health-insurance mandates, or seat-belt requirements, nothing “Orwellian” is happening to you unless and until you are being forced to chant hate slogans in front of a video screen of Emmanuel Goldstein.
Grow up already.
hahahahaha! You’re joking, right?
You’re right, Danny.
We should sit and wait until the government is caging people’s heads with live rats before we get concerned.
I hope our kids are over 15 by the time this happens here in the U.S., because we would be screwed. We don’t babyproof, we supervise. Our 3 year old helps us cook and homebrew, the baby eats actual foods instead of gerber purees, etc.
I think it’s particularly funny that they’re doing this at the same time as we’re seeing a fairly significant cultural backlash against bubblewrapping kids. http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/can-these-parents-be-saved-asks-time-magazine-cover-story/
Radlley, you are a top-notch guy, a hero in my book, and I mean you no disrespect. I am not saying there is no cause for concern.
I’m just saying that this word “Orwellian” is getting seriously diluted — going into ‘Godwin’ territory — and it should be used more aptly.
Whatever Big Brother and the Ministry of Love were, they were not a “nanny state.”
Socialized medicine still has house calls? Who knew?
We’re being safened to death. How long will it be until there is nothing more to life than the preservation of it?
One of the key elements that makes a state “Orwellian” is that it uses surveillance to control it’s citizens, which is precisely what this article is about.
As for “going into Godwin territory”, I suppose we should consider ourselves safe from totalitarian nationalism as long as there are no senior government officials Little Tramp mustaches. We shouldn’t be comparing what happens in the U.S. to what happened in Germany until we are actually just like them, right?
WTF is in the water over there?
Danny, being watched by government in your own home is Orwellian.
Pretty soon the government will recruit kids to report on their own and other parents. That is, if they haven’t already thought of it.
To borrow a notion from “Schillender’s List” I hope I am liked enough by the neighborhood, brainwashed kids to be “put in the good line” someday.
As I see it, Britian is slowly fulfilling all the requirements to be called “Orwellian”. Not quite there yet, but this new measure is a great step backward for them to that goal. Here in the US, we’re not even close. There is a point where everyone would be pushed together, pushed into common agreement that Government has overstepped its bounds, and would push back.
They already do that in the states through the D.A.R.E. program.
Danny,
You obvliously fail to understand what Orwellian means. Reading your statements above is like hearing the CIA refer it’s form of torture as enhanced interogation techniques. If you really believe that allowing government agents unrestricted access to your home for “inspection purposes” isn’t Orwellian because it doesn’t result in a bag with rat in it, you have failed to comprehend what Orwell was saying in his books. I am floored that you would define “Orwellian” as only the specific police state in 1984 and not realize that he was using exageration to get his point across about overzealous monitoring by the state. That is just sad.
New guidance drawn up at the request of the Department of Health….
Shouldnt that be Ministry of Health?
The subject link was a short vague, somewhat confusing news article about a yet-to-be-enacted proposal. I saw no reference to “unrestricted access” or anything of the kind.
As best can be discerned from the unclear language used in the article, health officials might push some baby-proofing retrofits on a family if the official gets tipped off that there is a dangerous condition. And they might “collect data” along those lines by means that are not specified.
How this fits in with a sci-fi novel about a society in which all individualism is obliterated by a government that maintains a perpetual state of crisis through contrived wars is beyond me.
The board is succumbing to Gumball Discourse. Insert a coin, turn the crank and — pop! — the “Socialism” denunciation comes out of the flap. Do it again and — pop! — the “Orwellian” denunciation come out. Do it again and — pop! — Hitler. Pop! — Pol Pot. Pop! — Nanny State. Pop! –Jimmy Carter.
Nothing on the merits in ordinary language. The buzz words alone are rich enough to become a language unto themselves.
Raising kids is just too risky for the peasants to handle. It is best if we put all children in state run homes. How can you possibly be the best cog for the machine with all that parental distraction?
And yes, you are nothing but cogs for the machine.
Welcome my son . . . toOOOoo the MMMaaaaCHINNNeeeeee!
Sorry Pink Floyd induced acid flashback.
Or is it an acid induced Pink Floyd flashback?
Obliterating indidualism: Thousands of new laws (at state and federal levels) each year and each one restricts freedom and strengthens state control, everyone a criminal, laws (enacted via regulatory boards/agencies) with criminal charges being passed in absence of any citizen vote, and exploding prison populations. The default is always “the state experts know best because they are the state’s experts but if it turns out they were wrong there are no penalties or recourse for your damages…and here’s the huge bill for all this.”
Contrived wars: general paranoia, CDC, transfats, vending machines, reefer madness, MADD, teen sex, sexting, helmet-everything, click-it or ticket, global warming, affordable housing, licenses for hairdressers and babysitters, and let’s export democracy everywhere.
In this case, the only Gumball Discourse I see is that every crisis (real or imagined) is met with a solution of additional freedoms taken away and more government planning by the planners who swear they have the right plan this time.
But, yes, the site does tend to post a lot of pro-libertarian stories. Weird.
What’s all the fuss about? Just make your kids safer so the nanny-state has nothing to bitch about. What I do is REQUIRE that my eight year old wear ear muffs and eye protection even though what she shoots is only a .22. “Awww, Dad, do I have to? It’s not that loud.”
Why don’t we put pads on the kids?
Helmets and gear and mouthpieces!
We can pad the floors and walls,
Put cameras inside bathroom stalls!
Yeah, I know the song is really about the pathetic crap passing itself off as punk music nowadays, but this particular bit (especially) really fits with the ludicrous nanny state.
Danny, Orwell’s world of 1984, presumably, didn’t come all at once. The citizens of Oceania didn’t wake up one day to that government. It came gradually. Piecemeal. By your standards, you’d never speak up — after all, they probably saved the debut of Room 101 towards the very end, so there were no rat helmets! Everything’s great!
Also, you’re assuming that the government will be held to its account, and only take the exact powers it says it will. I don’t know about you — and to admit, I’m only 32 — but never in my lifetime have I seen that be the case.
Boyd @#22 — That’s moving to Brave New World, not 1984. Can we keep to one dystopian novel per thread?
this is already happening here- every time someone calls 911 for themselves or someone else, the govt is invited in. I’ve seen cops enforce laws against having more than 2 dogs on heart attack calls. the guy had 3 little dogs in a spotless house with a nice yard. no neighbor complaints. people constantly use DFS as a weapon against people with children. we already have parents drug testing and electronically monitoring their children due to govt propaganda. kids turn their parents in for minor drug violations at the behest of DARE. anyone who reads this site knows we can go on and on…
‘Orwellian’ fits as far as I can tell.
Quoting Orwell from Wikipedia, “The scene of the book is laid in Britain in order to emphasize that the English-speaking races are not innately better than anyone else, and that totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere.”
Danny’s apparent belief that 1984 is just a “scifi” novel, while technically accurate, strikes me as incredibly naive if he thinks Orwell did not intend it as a warning about what could become.
Once the government starts paying for health care, they can intrude all they want into our lives in the name of “saving the taxpayers money” by getting rid of anything that increases healthcare costs. Did you notice the end of the story?
“About 100,000 children are admitted to hospital each year for home injuries at a cost of £146m.”
I don’t know what Great Britain’s healthcare system is like, but a danger of adopting socialized healthcare is that the government will claim a right to control anything it pays for. Hence a reason they like to use our money to pay for so many things they should stay out of…
#31, beware the hand that pays for things, for that hand will then claim domain over aspects of your life that impact said paid things.
Have you noticed the sudden flurry of studies coming out telling women they don’t need as many breast and cervical cancer screenings as was once thought. I’m sure that’s just new knowledge replacing old knowledge, but I still find it interesting given the interest government has in reducing health care costs (as it takes on more of that cost itself).
E. A. Blair, aka George Orwell, gave the following:”The scene of the book is laid in Britain in order to emphasize that the English-speaking races are not innately better than anyone else, and that totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere.”
After “Animal Farm”, Orwell based “1984″ on what was seen in Soviet Russia in the 1930’s and 1940’s, as well the Cold War. It is science fiction only in it’s temporal place. Big Brother is the “cult of personality”, among other things. The rest was seen in the USSR, for example, the Show Trials when people confessed so very contritely to the most absurd things.
To call Britain’s intrusion into the home as proposed law “Orwellian” is reasonable.
You are quite right Danny. Why, there has been no erosion of freedoms here. The government hasn’t granted itself unprecedented latitude on spying on citizens who have done nothing wrong. The government isn’t continually making itself more and more the benevolent father to whom we must turn for all things. The government would NEVER use ordinary citizens to spy on other citizens or try to convince them that this is the “patriotic” thing to do. NEVER! You are correct. I LOVE my government as they only have my best interest at heart…
USA! USA! USA! (heh heh…I actually laughed at myself typing that last part as I picture myself as a frothing at the mouth patriot who’s governent can’t do any wrong). Now where can I go buy on of those big over sized foam rubber #1 finger thingys in red, white and blue so I can pick my large, over sized nostrils with it?
Seems like a good deal if you own a business that sells and installs safety devices.
Danny, as others have said, we have to oppose this in order to avoid becomming an Orwellian state. I haven’t seen any evidence that it can be stopped however. Maybe slowed. Maybe.
And then there’s the Britain’s “Digital Economy Bill”
“It’s a declaration of war by the entertainment industry and their captured regulators against the principles of free speech, privacy, freedom of assembly, the presumption of innocence, and competition.”
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/19/breaking-leaked-uk-g.html
I can TOTALLY see that coming to America. If the government is soon responsible for paying the bill for all accindents, Why wouldnt they have the right to try to prevent them? . Just think more goverment jobs nd agencys telling us how to live.
#36 | Elroy | November 20th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Seems like a good deal if you own a business that sells and installs safety devices.
Danny, as others have said, we have to oppose this in order to avoid becomming an Orwellian state. I haven’t seen any evidence that it can be stopped however. Maybe slowed. Maybe.
+0http://www.babyproofernewyork.com/
I don’t have a shred of sympathy for the position that we’re all being too paranoid when we imply that the U.S. is heading in the direction of Nazi Germany or Oceania.
I just dropped my wife off at the airport this morning. We walked into an almost empty airport, walked directly up to the ticket counter, checked her bag, and then proceeded up the escalator toward the gates. There, in what might have otherwise been a nearly vacant terminal, was a long zigzag line of people winding back and forth as people patiently waited their turn to get through the security screening. Under the watchful eye of the TSA, you don’t dare tell a joke or make any disparaging remarks about how slow and inefficient they are. You stand there, making the effort to look carefree, nonthreatening, and most of all, respectful. You sense that you are trying to pass a test based entirely on the subtleties of your behavior. Your entire day, if not your entire trip depends on whether just one of these “screeners” singles you out for special treatment. After you’re through, you breath a sigh of relief. You’ve made it past the one hurdle of your expedition ruled entirely by a bureaucracy over which you have no control.
Britain is on the fast track toward making that a way of life, not just in airports, but in all public places. And, from there, they will bring it into people’s homes. Once legitimized in Europe, the “land of the free” is certain to follow suit. The idea that government control over people’s everyday lives, in order to be a real threat, must take on a particular look as spelled out by history or some work of fiction, is so ludicrous that it’s stunning that anyone would even suggest it.
Yep, I still like disagreement. I think Danny is doing a fine job of actually saying what he thinks in a reasoned manner (not the best, but quite decent) and also manages not to be terribly disrespectful.
Keep in mind that just because he’s got some passion about the subject doesn’t mean bad things. I disagree with him and I’m passionate about the subject, but I see his style of disagreement as another opportunity to discuss the subject.
Most of what he’s saying is just about the word, “Orewellian” and how he disagrees with its usage. Technically speaking I can understand every point he’s made as actually having some foundation in one style of reasoned thinking or another. It’s the conclusions we disagree about, and I’m inferring a few other disagreements as well.
I’m also guessing that going off half-cocked about libertarians is why he’s gotten the number of down votes as well.
Good responses for the most part, just try not to drive him out of the discussion, I’d like to hear some more (but maybe that’s just me being a fan of drama ).
#39 | Tom Treanor | November 21st, 2009 at
Nothing against businesses like yours. I have just become very suspicious lately of business and government collusion. In my county, Cuayhoga county Ohio, there are ongoing FBI investigations of a couple county commisioners and the county auditors office for kickbacks and bribes. I could see this affecting at a local level with safety inspectors steering business to local businesses connected to the local government and large companies that manufacture devices lobbying congress. That is if this ever came here.
What deprives the word “Orwellian” of its meaning are overwrought libertarian handwringers who try to draw analogies between. . .
There’s also an irony in the use of the term “nanny state” in the post. Nanny state, after all, is a pejorative description of a government that “protects” adults as if they were children who don’t know what’s best for themselves. Here, it’s being applied to a government proposal to protect children who don’t know what’s best for themselves. Is the message that adults don’t need a nanny–and children don’t either?
Danny, is taking your kids away better or worse than the box-o-rats?
I think I get your point, but taking your kids away is a bit farther along than banning smoking in bars.
Well, fuck all this. Why don’t you people just get out and vote? Can’t you see that all of these problems can be be solved with one simple punch of the ticket? You decide. After all, in this country we got both kinds of music: country and western.
I think I get your point, but taking your kids away is a bit farther along than banning smoking in bars.
If you really believe that as a matter of principle that taking kids away from parents is Orwellian, we’ve been living in an Orwellian society for several decades, at a minimum.
Did you realize that the state also compels parents to feed, clothe and educate their children? How can they justify this Orwellian intrusion on the propetry rights of adults to tend to their juvenile human chattel as they see fit. It’s an outrage!
Classical libertarian theory, so far as I understand it, does not deal well with the issue of the rights, responsibility, care and protection of children, because children seem to be an exception to the general principle that individuals own themselves.
Just play dead. The bears won’t bother you. Unless it’s mating season. Then your ass is in trouble.
Just move the “1984″ from sci-fi over to non-fiction section and we done here …
Has anyone here actually bothered to read the draft guidance?
There is absolutely no talk of any sort of “health and safety inspectors”, but better usage of existing data and better recording of existing reports of risks. Based on that, *offer* (not enforce) risk assessments, and where there’s a risk identified on that basis *offer* (not enforce, and not at the homeowner’s expense) equipment to reduce that risk.
More, it explicitly states: “Children and young people learn by taking risks and challenging themselves when playing and in other activities”
The only thing is suggests which is remotely “orwellian” is for further legislation on home safety standards, and bluntly there are things still allowed in UK building codes which are manifestly unsafe, and this has needed attention for years.
Health and Safety checks in the home now!
Soon nobody will want to have children.
With Social Services crumbling at the seams, Family Courts in meltdown & large increases in Care Proceedings since the death of baby Peter, Social Workers will have a much larger caseload, because of the above legislation; more vulnerable children will fall through the net.
Big Brother and the nanny state going crazy, who is going to pay for these Health and Safety checks, you and me the taxpayers.
This Government should put its own house in order, with reference to their expenses, which was dam right fraud.
We might as well be living under the rules of Stalin.
Hey, Asshole @ #7: the “false-flag wars” are being conducted in the UK.
Do you underfuckingstand?