What is wrong with society today

[Snoopy]

The thread title is "Standard Grumpy" material but I've been reading Alan Bennett's diaries and this is what he had to say on 8th November 1993. Seems to me that he was right in many ways and that 14 years later nobody has listened.

"The Government is preparing to sell off the forests and nature reserves. I wonder whether it ever occurs to the fourteen-year-olds who staff the Adam Smith Institute that such seemingly unrelated policies have something to do with the rise in crime and civil disorder generally. Paid to think the unthinkable, do they not see that unless the State is perceived as benevolent - a provider of amenities, parks, art, transport even - how should it demand respect in its prescriptive and law-giving aspect? Particularly when the law is represented by Group 4."

  Thought provoking innit?

[Nick]

Ah yes, but that was under Major. Under Blair and Brown things have improved, er, immeasurably, innit

Bennet is usually spot on in his observations btw

[Barman]

He makes a very good point actually and when you think about it successive governments have sold just about everything off in an orgy of pocket-lining.

And the result?

I can?t name one thing that has improved since being sold off ? apart from the bank balances of shareholders of course.

[Misunderstood]

What is wrong with society today?

Everything!  The destruction of the family structure and the neighbourhood as starters and sheer overcrowding to cap it.

I believe the British Isles to be unhealthily overpopulated.  How the hell further immigration can me thought to benefit the country is beyond me.

In the USA a sizeable chunk of the population have never been abroad, they don't need to they have a massive amount of space and distance and diversity in their own country.

The Netherlands however is fabled for it annual explosion that hurls Dutchmen to the four corners of the planet.
Why?  Because they live like sardines in a tin, they need to take a deep breath once in a while.

We are heading towards the Dutch end of the scale.  As a kid, I could go to innumerable places that were quiet and peaceful and apart from the wildlife, deserted.  I would need half a day to travel to a quiet spot today, so we go abroad for our deep breath - same as the Dutch do.

Everything one can think of, from the postal service to the telephone (your call is important to us) network, from the train schedule to the shop queues is far, far worse that when it was administered by quill and ledger.   

Even I, who hardly leaves the house, spends a tidy portion of my time queueing.  Some people seem to spend their lives in a queue.  It makes everybody bad tempered and irritable, and it takes time, the time that you should be doing something more useful - like sleeping, which is yet another reason for being irritable.

Overcrowding may make some people incredibly rich but then, they can afford a bit of peace and quiet and queue-jumping.  The rest of us simply fume in a queue somewhere.

Roll on the next war I say. Knock us down to a healthy 25 to 30 million and watch us thrive on it.