Self Respect?

It is intellectually wearying, tediously infuriating reading about the plight of those poor souls incapable of controlling their self-destructive impulses, demanding that society enact rules and regulations to save them from themselves. As though liberal democracies don't sufficiently go out of their way to save these hopeless cretins from as much self-imposed disadvantages to longevity as they possibly can, to begin with.

Health ministries producing propaganda to try to convince people to exercise, to eat healthily, to desist from driving while inebriated, to wear helmets when bicycling and skiing, to remember to see a doctor, a dentist, to protect their infants from background swimming pools, to deny the opportunity to enhance the environment by spreading deadly toxins.

There seems to be no end to the ways in which human beings can devise methods by which they can shorten their lives.

We are all gifted with free will. We all, ostensibly, have inherited the capacity to prefer life over death, to reach decisions that will enhance our lives, not shorten them. We decide that we will take up a smoking habit while we're young because it's cool. We decide to begin drinking hard alcohol because it's the thing to do, everyone does it, and it's a social relaxant. And recreational drugs, ditto.

So a 14-year-old kid, wanting to be like all her peers impulsively pops six double-strength Ecstasy pills. And it's the last thing she will ever voluntarily do. She involuntarily leaves the land of the living. Yet another sacrifice to curiosity and 'enjoyment' and social entitlements. And who to blame? Society, of course, and government too, and private agencies who entice and corrupt.

Which is why a man from Ottawa is suing Loto-Quebec, with the allegation that its Lac Leamy Casino is responsible for his lack of self-esteem and propensity to drunken stupors that compel him to gamble, even when he has indelibly indicated that this is not really what he wishes to do, by registering for the casino's self-exclusion list.

This man deliberately and with full confidence that it is his right to do so, enters the casino and insists that they have the responsibility to deny him.

Because he managed to access the casino and gamble to his heart's content, drunk and sober, he blames the casino for allowing him to do so. Filing a 60-page suit of claim in Quebec Superior Court, Kent Glowinski, a federal government lawyer, insists that it is the responsibility of the casino to control his impulses, not his own will power and determination as befits a free agent.

He's also suing National Bank for allowing him to withdraw more than his allowable ATV limit, and additionally for permitting him cash advances even while he was drunk. Those ATV machines have obviously not been taught to ignore the demands of inebriated customers. Self-awareness, control, discipline, conscience are all concepts that this man obviously has no understanding of.

Die-hard smokers addicted to their fixes have little responsibility to themselves in cancer avoidance; far easier to sue tobacco companies. Alcoholics are not responsible for their dependence; they're ill. The morbidly overweight whose health has been compromised by their inability to control their eating impulses suffer from a social disease. Problem gamblers have a problem with a society that encourages them to gamble.

They've graduated from church Bingo parlours to hard-core gambling casinos; both in existence because people demand them as a form of entertainment. The only question here is why these immoderate victims of their own compulsions feel confident in blaming everyone but themselves.