Being Civil.

Do you remember the English civil war? Well it was 360 years ago. The French revolution was 160 years ago, the Spanish civil war was in 1936, a mere 74 years ago, and the Greek 64 years ago. We have to have very long memories to remember mega civil unrest in the UK.

Now I toured Europe last year on my motorcycle with a fellow smoking mouse. Eight countries all with the same smoking ban. In Germany we did smoke outside a classy restaurant. In Austria we had several lovely meals in local bars and rounded them off with beer and numerous cigarettes. In Italy it was hot. In Switzerland, well I forget, but in France you could smoke in proletariat bars. In Belgium you could smoke in the majority. On other holidays we’ve smoked in numerous Greek and Spanish bars.
And back in Blighty NOWHERE! Where in the UK the smoking ban is universally applied in other European countries the ban simply means the proprietor can implement it if he or she feels it appropriate to his or her establishment. The ban is society wide but its implementation is local and civil. Which raises the question, what is the relationship between the capacity for civil action and the elapsed time from the last civil war? Does a civil war refresh the balance between governmental control and the scope for local/individual civil action? More importantly are we simply losing the capacity to think for ourselves?
Interestingly it wasn’t the CIA, airport security, the department for Home Security, MI6 or any other government body that foiled the last two aeroplane bombers, it was passengers. Logic suggests we should use the resource that works, the civil resource, us. There’ll always be 200+ of ‘us’ on a plane sitting next to and opposite and behind a bomber well capable of noticing he’s on his own, shifty, scared, no luggage, etc and odds of 200 to 1 aren’t likely to succeed, especially when the 200 want to continue living. SB's would have to increase their numbers till the whole 747 was packed out with a Yemeni delegation of explosives experts going to a convention to make it work, which then becomes rather self defeating. Do we really have to be nose-diving into the spot where the Twin Towers used to be before we start taking civil action to reform education, the legal system, the banks, our energy usage, packaging waste, and allow smoking in pubs that find it appropriate?