Denormalisation.

An Orwellian sounding word if ever I heard one, and if the Devil is right I reckon will be heard more and more in the UK as the government's war against it's own citizens' freedoms continues. The Devil focusses on smokers, drinkers and fatties but let's be blunt, it won't end there. Not with a word like denormalisation being used to describe the process. Anything that doesn't meet the government decreed definition of normal is a target, simple as that, and once something is considered to be un-normal it begins. And when you think of it in those terms you realize that denormalistion, recent though the term may be, is a process that's been going on for quite a while. What are now illegal drugs were once legal to own and use was largely left to individuals, but since they were never that widespread they were easily denormalised and banned. This took place before I was even born. The denormalisation of private gun ownership in the UK goes back further still, roughly to the time of my grandfather and great grandfather. Here in Australia bikie gangs are a target of denormalisation, though I've not heard it called that. The principle is the same, however: most normal people are not in bikie gangs, therefore bikie gangs are not normal, therefore freedom of association can be dispensed with.

I think in many respects the UK is probably further down this slippery slope to the almost complete loss of individual freedom, and it'll always be harder to enforce in a country like Australia with large relatively unpopulated areas. Smoking for example - I don't know if it happens but where there may be outback pubs hundreds of miles from the nearest cop I wouldn't be surprised if the ban is quietly ignored when it doesn't suit. In the cities some bastard would probably dob them in, which I find a little sad as it doesn't live up to the mental image I had of Australia and its people before I made the move here. But compared to the UK? Where an army of busybodies, paid for by the long suffering and repetitively fucked taxpayers, have been hired to police the ban. Where even children are recruited to serve as "eyes and ears" of the citizens' masters in town halls and ultimately Westminster and Brussels. Where the legal mechanisms for the Big Brother state are largely in place, where vast numbers of citizens' DNA - including that of children and even babies - is kept on record despite never having been found guilty of a crime. Where there are now millions of CCTV cameras monitoring the populace (it's recognised that they have almost fuck all effect on crime). By comparison the control freaks of Australia are rank amateurs. They need to be watched if you ask me, but not as much as we need to watch Europe in general and the UK in particular. I'm afraid that's the model that many supposedly democratic governments want to follow. I hope the British people wake up in time to pull back from the Orwellian brink that the country is teetering on, but faling that the people of other countries should take whatever happens there as a warning.

When they came for the gun owners,
I remained silent;
I did not own a gun.

Then they came for the drug users,
I remained silent;
I did not take any drugs.

Then they came for the smokers,
I did not protest;
I did not smoke.

Then they came for the drinkers,
I did not speak out;
I was never much of a drinker.

Then they came for the bikies,
I said nothing;
I was not a bikie.

When eventually they came for me,
nobody spoke out;
there was no one left to speak out for me.

The future's dark. The future's fucking terrifying.