stellar echo

One thing that is blatantly obvious is Europe compared to back home in Australia is that everything is much less restricted. Much less a nanny state.

To me it all boils back to one fundamental change of tact where we followed USA down the path of public liability. This seemingly fair system seems to have long reaching consequences to lifestyle as a whole to everyday people.

First some examples.

I was on a train the other day, a small train that winds its way up into some Spanish mountains to a small Spanish village. The train was an old quaint train that let you completely open the windows to enjoy the ride. I thought this was a great idea so i proceeded to open the window.. stick my head out…and nearly got myself decapitated by a passing pole. Idiot. After calming down i thought it was still great that you can open the windows regardless of the inherent risk involved in doing so. If you were a fucken idiot and lost a limb from sticking it out the window then.. well.. that’s really your problem. The point of relevance is that this would never happen in australia. There aint no fucken way that window would of been open-able so a person could lose a limb. Public liability would say that the train operators were responsible for their patrons (even the fucken idiots) and therefore to cover their asses they would ensure that the train was as idiot proof as possible. Hence… no open windows, and any quaint train rides to Australian mountains would be significantly less enjoyable. Hrmm.

Another example…

There are no fucken bouncers here. I hate bouncers. The reason bouncers are so prevalent at every Australian bar boils once again back to public liability. It is *NOT* because there are more fuckwit drunks in Perth, it is because if anyone is king hit, gets injured, slips over while drunk the establishment could get sued. The bouncers sole job is to remove any patrons that could get hurt out onto the street and out of the realm of responsibility of the bar. The manner and technique they employ to fulfill this goal is usually very distasteful.

I fucken hate bouncers.

This is just two examples but i could rattle of cases all day.

Europe is seemingly far more liberal, far more common sense approach. Far less regulated nanny-state. There isn’t a “family first” political party proposing an internet filter to ‘protect the children’, the idea is the parents should do that job.

It’s refreshing, really. And given time to ponder how we as Aussies ended up in such a shit situation, it’s because we followed the wrong group. The yanks, the founders of public liability.