...I was never a great fox-hunting parson until the law made me one. Unlike many of my predecessors, I did not see that chasing a wild animal with hounds intent on a kill across open country was a necessary attribute of a Christian clergyman, until that is the law compelled me to mount up in defence of free will.
A good Jesuit - there are some believe me - once said that you could never persuade a man into faith. That is, you could never compel him to believe by force of argument. It either happened - with any due prompting - or it didn't. That ultimately was a matter between God and the person.
A similar view I hold with all social morality. We may not care for our fellow person or - God willing - we may. But to legislate that we must care is singularly pointless. The external action may be affected by dint of compulsion, but the interior heart will not give sway unless and until it so chooses.
External compulsion in the absence of internal conversion of manner may give the illusion of well-being but it is nothing more than an illusion. (On that, as with so many things - more than perhaps befits a stout C of E fellow - I am with both the Buddhists and the Catlicks.)
This, more than anything, is why I loathe and abhor the legal ban on smoking in public places. By all means let social mores determine it is a habit to be shunned and scorned. Merely though to criminalise the action in advance of the desire to comply is foolish. We simply delude ourselves into believing that we are a society that has rejected smoking when all we have done is compel its suppression.
Suppression by compulsion. The mark and sign of all and any dictatorship. If you doubt let me ask you this: where in the world can you - are you - executed for using a mobile telephone?
North Korea is the answer.
And if you are not surprised then why do you support the banning of hunting or of smoking? Think very carefully before you answer.
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