Let me live in peril, please!

[RadioSaigon]

At last! A little common-sense is starting to creep into the politically correct NZ media -all be it this is probably more tongue-in-cheek than anything, it's a start!

Republished (without permission) from an article written by JOE BENNETT and originally published by the Dominion Post and on the Stuff NZ website, 14 November 2007.

Dear Authorities,
Have I got a deal for you? I promise to stop worrying about you if you promise to stop worrying about me.

Yes really.

I do.

Honest.

I know I'm writing very short paragraphs and banging the space bar a lot but this is a radical proposal and I want it to sink in.

The nub of it is that I'm going to accept responsibility for my own well-being. And if it all goes wrong, I promise I won't come bleating. I'll just take misfortune on the chin.

I know you may find that hard to believe but it will all be laid out in the contract in black and white.

But before you sign on the dotted I want to make sure that you know what you're letting yourselves in for so that there will be no regrets on either side. I am keen for you to rejoice as much as I will if the deal goes through.

By "authorities" I mean everyone who seeks to play a role in my life. Some of you are commercial, some of you are pushing a moral barrow, others are bureaucrats, but most of you are people in office. I am grateful to all of you for the care that you have shown me, but I'm telling you now that I am offering to lift the burden.

Let's start with the commercial outfits. You will no longer have to warn me about far- fetched dangers. When I buy a coffee from you I will no longer require a warning that the contents may be hot. When I buy an electrical appliance you won't have to print a booklet telling me not to put the appliance in my mouth or to fiddle with its circuits when bathing. When I get on an aeroplane you won't have to tell me what to do "in the unlikely event of an emergency".

Yes, yes, I know, you're frightened of being sued. Well you won't be sued by me. I'm waiving my rights. Why? Because I am just a teeny bit tired of being treated as if I were a retarded seven year old. Just for once I'd like to feel respected as a grown up. Yes, really, I would.

As for you barrow-pushers, the deal is similar. You can stop warning me about the perils of smoking, gambling, drinking, boating, driving, paedophiles and fat. I do understand that your entire lives are devoted to saving my skin, but I have to tell you, I'm afraid, that your warnings are based on four falsehoods. One is that danger can be removed from the world. Another is that it should be. Yet another is that longevity is the only virtue. And the fourth is that your warnings work.

I know this will come as a shock, but it was recently reported that more teenagers than ever are taking up smoking. This despite the fact that they have done little else in school but study diseased lungs. I could explain to you why they have reacted so disastrously to your campaigns, but I don't think you'll understand.

What's in this deal for you? Well, how about this? I'll stop calling you meddling, myopic, do- gooding, fear-mongering puritans. Wouldn't that be nice? What's more you will get the chance to start an entirely new career doing something useful. Excited? I bet you are.

And now I come on to the biggest category, you people in elected office and the mandarins who advise you. You will all be officially off the hook. You won't have to worry about me ever again. I'll do all the worrying that I deem necessary.

This means you can immediately stop banning things for my good. If I don't like fireworks, for example, I'll just stay away from them.

You won't have to do a thing. Nor for example will you have to make laws protecting me from dangerous dogs, laws that will only be obeyed by people who own nice dogs.

The list of such matters is jolly long, so you'll have lots of spare time to do happy things without worrying about how I'm getting on. Are your juices flowing at the prospect? I do hope so.

And if, as I hope, everyone else signs the same contract, you'll be able to stop trying to help particular sections of society. For one thing, society doesn't come in sections. And for another, however much you try to help any so called section it remains, to use your own phrase, "disadvantaged". Have you ever considered why this might be so? No? Well from now on it won't matter.

Everyone will have accepted that they are responsible for their own fate. And you'll be able to relax in the knowledge that things have flipped the right way round at last. In other words, you will be servants and we will be your masters, which is actually how it's meant to be in a democracy. Yes, really, it is.

I do look forward to your reply.

Most sincerely, Joe

[RakiuraSkies]

Oooooohhh, wouldn't that be nice!!!