This is a series I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and although it will only have 6 parts, I feel as though it could almost be an ‘everlasting series’, with new topics being created by over-zealous bureaucrats on a daily or weekly basis.

I haven’t always been the kind of person to chafe against the diktats of our small-minded brown-cardigan class, in fact when I was a child my heart fairly burst with pride from how well I followed ‘orders’. For example, I enjoyed that smug sense of goodness and superiority when I wore my helmet when riding my bicycle as a kid and saw the ‘naughty’ children riding without. This continued for many years, for example I’ve never tried a cigarette in my life, despite no shortage of peer pressure when I was younger, and I used to tell people with pride that I had a plan to eliminate smoking which involved increasing the minimum age for buying cigarettes by one year every year, meaning that in only 60 odd years smoking would be gone forever. I was a straight-as-a-die type, always quick to obey, and always instinctively siding with the ‘powers that be’.

In short, I was a ‘good kid’. My how times have changed since then.

Firstly, I’m not a kid anymore. I’m an adult, and where I used to need others to tell me what was right and wrong, now I have to figure it out for myself. In fact, I’m a father now, and I have to teach the next generation right from wrong! Which is a scary thought for all concerned!

The years since childhood have broken my unwavering faith in the powers that be, and with good reason. I’ve lost count of how many times ‘experts’ have turned out to be wrong, whether that’s on the ‘butter vs margarine’ debate, where they’ve changed their minds more times than I can remember, or overpopulation, where the experts predicted billions starving to death by now, but instead global poverty and malnutrition are at historic lows, or whether that’s ‘bicycle helmets save lives’, which seems obvious on the surface, but is frustratingly hard to prove when you get in to the numbers, and as noted below, the damage caused by the unintended consequences of the law may very well outweigh the benefits… in these and countless more ways during my life I’ve come to see that those who say ‘trust us, we’re the experts’ are often wrong, and occasionally downright stupid.

Add to that the slowly dawning realisation that not everyone can be trusted, and that those in positions of power are just as prone to personal agendas, self-interest, and confirmation bias as the average ‘man in the street’, the difference being that people with power can make everyone else suffer for their flaws and mistakes…

And finally, throw in some bitter personal experiences where those in government, in power, and those who I was supposed to trust, obey, and rely upon ‘for my own good’, let me down in the very moments I was supposed to rely on them the most… and you soon arrive where I am today: Skeptical of governmental authority, skeptical of claims to be ‘looking after me’, refusing to place my life and my future into the careless hands of ‘others’, and determined to protect my own personal liberty from those who would take it from me, no matter how small or large the loss.

In short, I wasn’t raised as a libertarian, far from it. But I became one through watching the utter incompetence, mendacity, and ‘cruelty-by-process’ of the system that was created ‘for my own good’.

I was asked some time ago whilst speaking at a libertarian conference ‘What can we do to improve things?’ And my answer was simple: Fight back. We need to take a stand against all the ‘little’ things, the little rules, laws, fines, and lifestyle regulations, all the ‘Nanny State’ crap that often seems too small or insignificant to spend the energy to fight back on… it’s in these ‘little’ things that we need to fight back the most. Death by a thousand cuts is still death, and if we allow all the ‘little’ things to pass without a fight, then before we know it we’ll be faced with ‘big’ things and we’ll have lost the will and the power to mount an effective defence of our personal freedoms and liberties.

Many aspects of ‘Lifestyle Regulation’ can be justified by bureaucrats on a ‘public health’ or ‘greater good’ sort of argument. But these arguments rely on enormous assumptions which in many cases turn out later to be wrong.

• They rely on the bureaucrats being right about the science of an issue. Many bureaucrats claim that science is on their side, but more often than not they are relying on politicised science, which is no science at all. I’m always fascinated by how bureaucrats and public health officials can be so much more ‘certain’ about something than the scientists whose work they are relying on. Scientists are (mostly) acutely aware of their limitations and the limitations of the methodologies used to arrive at a conclusion… the bureaucrats who make a living out of politicising the science to push ‘public health’ agendas have no such awareness, and have vested personal interests in making their conclusions seem ‘certain’.This can be seen in the way salt was demonised as terrible for public health, then suddenly that was replaced by fat, now fat by sugar, and soon sugar will be replaced by carbohydrates, which of course were being advertised in my childhood as a ‘healthy’ attribute of food… should I mention the way that we’ve been dead wrong about cholesterol for my entire life? Or the way that the consensus around sun-screen and skin cancer is quickly falling apart?In short, public health is no more scientific than a late-nigh infomercial, and the fads and trends change just as quickly.
• They rely on statistical analysis. Now statistics can be powerful things, and thorough and rigorous statistical analysis can yield deep insight into issues, problems, and potential solutions. But as someone far smarter and more famous than me once said: “If you torture statistics long enough, they’ll confess to anything.” Confirmation bias, false correlations, and ‘fishing’ for the ‘right data’ are all flaws that plague politically driven statistical analysis. I’ve come to the point that I believe almost none of the statistics used in headlines, newspaper articles, or by politicians. If I’m to believe something, I want to see the ‘numbers behind the numbers’. To see just how bad politicised numbers can get, view my ‘Unpopular View #5’ video, all about the Draft Murray Darling Basin Plan and the insanely dodgy numbers they used in the Murray Darling Basic Draft Plan. Sadly, the shoddy work seen in this instance is actually quite representative of most of public health and public policy.
• The ‘unintended consequences’ are almost never considered when implementing public policy. Bicycle helmet laws are a great example of this. Cycling participation rates have been harmed by bicycle helmet laws, which have led to reduced levels of public exercise and fitness, more road congestion, and all the associated problems that come with both of those. As another example, increasing sugar levels in foods was an unintended consequence of the crusade against fatty food. Taking out the fat reduced the flavour, so more sugar was added to compensate, and hey-presto we have a public policy which is doing more harm than good. Examples of this abound and I’ll need to stop myself here before this becomes an essay in its own right.
• The ‘costs’ and ‘benefits’ are very poorly quantified. We regularly hear all sorts of numbers being thrown around associated with ‘public health’ issues, or other areas of lifestyle regulation. Whether that’s the ‘cost of smoking’ or the ‘cost of distracted pedestrians’, or the ‘cost of obesity’. This is a perfect example of what I mentioned earlier about needing to see the ‘numbers behind the numbers’.In most cases, all kinds of things have been included in these numbers that really have no right to be there. For example, the ‘cost of family grief’ is usually given a dollar amount and added on top. Lost productivity, taxes that won’t be paid due to a shorter working life, you name it, it’s in there. Many of these costs are hard if not impossible to quantify, and you can bet your bottom dollar that the bureaucrats who are doing the number crunching have pushed them all as high as they think they can get away with. And of course, on the other side of the ledger, they’re not so generous. When quantifying the ‘benefits of smoking’ or ‘sugary drinks’ or ‘spit roasted pig dripping in fat’, do they quantify the good times had by all? The friendships and connections made? The fact that for most people, these are the moments we remember, the moments that make a difference in our lives, the moments we actually live for? None of that is quantified and added into the ‘Benefits’ side of the ledger, but any whiff of ‘sadness’ is given a dollar figure and added on top.As a practical example, let’s take jaywalking. The pedestrian council are quick to pull out figures concerning the cost of jaywalking and the injuries and deaths that occur. Fair enough, although you can guarantee they’re pushed as high as they could possibly go. But how about we quantify the time saved due to crossing sooner? Sure, it’s 30 seconds saved, but multiply that by a few hundred thousand or million people who jaywalk every day around the country and suddenly you’ve got a serious productivity boost / quality of life improvement from the time saved and spent doing better things like working, spending time with friends and loved ones, not missing the train, etc.If they want to play with inflated figures, they need to inflate both sides of the equation. For as long as they’re playing games with numbers and only inflating the ones that suit them, they’re going to have to accept that I and a growing number of others are going to ignore their numbers as the meaningless manipulations that they mostly are.
• They have no right to live your life for you. In the end, this is what it boils down to. You get one crack at life. One. It’s over before you know it and there’s no respawns, save points, or do-overs. So it’s all very well for a brown-cardigan-bureaucrat to decide he wants to live the safest and most boring life he possible can, that’s his right. But it’s not his right to decide that on your behalf, or the behalf of your children. You may very well die from something you enjoy. Like smoking, skydiving, driving cars on racetracks, keeping snakes, or swallowing swords. Or you may die from something you do just to save a little time, like takeaway food, or jaywalking, or running for the elevator. But that’s your business, because it’s your life. You decide what brings you joy, you decide what makes your life worth living, and you and only you should get to decide how, when, and in what ways you’re going to abuse your own body for your own enjoyment of life. As has been said by others before me, the objective of life is not to tip-toe through and arrive at your grave in pristine condition as a showcase of perfect health, the objective of life is to stumble into your grave having lived a full life, with your body and mind pushed and spent and perhaps even falling apart, but having left your mark on the world and made it a better place.How can we allow people we have never met to push personal agendas and regulate every aspect of our lives ‘for our own good’ when we’re the ones who suffer the consequences of their meddling, and we’re the ones whose lives are diminished?

So with all that said, I’ve wanted to create this series for a long time. But the realities of life for me today (wife, baby, bills, etc, just like everyone else) is that I haven’t been able to keep self funding my videos like I did when I was young, single, and stupid.

So nearly three years ago I put my idea for the Lifestyle Regulation Madness series down on paper and started looking for someone who might be willing to pay me to make it. All I needed was enough to cover my costs and a bit for my time. But who?

There’s no political party in this country willing to fund such an endeavour, so scratch that idea. And most companies either don’t see the benefit, or are afraid to take a risk with their precious corporate profile, so they don’t want their name attached to a ‘political hand-granade’ like this…

I shopped the idea around and had a few offers… some companies were willing to fund the idea if I were willing to compromise on one or two points and tailor my message to suit them. Of course I said ‘no’. As a public commentator the only thing I have is my integrity, and even if my readers and viewers don’t always agree with me, and don’t always think I’m right, the most important thing is that they can always trust that I’m speaking what I genuinely believe to be true. My voice is not for sale, so no deal. I needed to find someone willing to fund me to say what I wanted to say.

The project sat on the backburner for a few years as I did other videos, worked on other, easier and cheaper projects, and got on with life, working full time, paying bills, and not starving. Late in 2015 I met someone at a Libertarian conference who took an interest in the series. A few meetings later and we were in serious discussions about how many videos, which topics, etc etc. All the while I was expecting them to do what the others had done before and insist I had to compromise in some way on some part of my message in order to meet their ‘corporate objectives’. It didn’t happen. Soon we were talking figures, and finally we made a deal. 6 videos, they would pay for them all, and whilst we agreed on which topics the six videos would cover, and the ‘angle’, all creative freedom after that was mine to do with as I saw fit. I’d found the holy grail, a company willing to pay my bills while I made the videos I wanted to make.

Nothing in these videos has changed from what I imagined them to be 3 years ago. Yes we selected 6 specific topics from a much larger pool of potentials, but everything I’m saying was what I already planned and hoped to say years before I made a financing deal. This isn’t a case of ‘selling out’, but rather a case of finally finding someone willing to pay for what I’ve been wanting to say all along.

And to prove that point, they have specifically asked me to mention that my views do not necessarily represent theirs! That’s right, they’re looking at some of what I’m saying in this series and thinking ‘Oh boy, we better put in a disclaimer…’ So yes, this series has corporate funding, get over it. The views expressed are my own.

So finally after years of trying, here we are. The series is launched! I hope you enjoy it. Please share it with like-minded people who are tired of being told how to live by cardigan-wearing goody-two-shoes whose worst nightmare is the thought that someone, somewhere, is having fun.

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