Thread by @clim8resistance

Senior politicians, academic 'experts', civil servants and "civil society" organisations, have convinced themselves that this is their proper role in society.

What does this tell us about climate change?

bbc.co.uk/news/health-48…

1. Even if it's true that people don't get enough sleep, the idea that it is for the state to intervene implies a fundamental transformation of the role of government and the relationship between government and people.

Most public health policies imply the same.

2. It doesn't need pointing out that the roles are characterised as 'nanny' and 'child'. Most defences of these policies point to the fact of some people not being able to manage their lives properly, to their cost.

But what this really suggests is a hollowing out of politics.

3. That is to say that it is essentially a degenerate political class that casts itself as nanny. The presupposition being that the voter is not competent to manage their own lives. The government takes on its new role and denies the public's participation in politics.

4. If you are not competent to choose what to eat, drink, smoke, or when to go to bed, how can you possibly be competent to take part in decisions about the economy? How can you possibly understand the decisions about the UK's membership of the EU?

5. This erosion of officials' estimation of the public's competence has been going on for a very long time. Almost the entire generation of currently sitting MPs are completely aligned with this way of thinking, and have been during their entire careers.

So, if you're not able to walk down a supermarket isle without giving in to sugary drinks, fat-soaked snacks, and heart-destroying chocolate...

...How can you *possibly* be competent to understand the "challenges" (their word) that climate change poses for politicians?

7. Politicians *love* 'science' that belittles the average person and their ability to manage their lives because this is the relationship between government and people that politicians prefer.

8. This is politicians' tendency in exactly the same way that infants in pushchairs want to check out (and eat) every brightly coloured object in supermarket isles.

It is *their* competence that we must question.

9. One danger is that politicians will create a passive population that really isn't competent to make their own decisions - that the nannyist ideology is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The other is that the government, convinced of its importance will do increasingly stupid things.

10. The government that creates a role for itself as parent/nanny degrades democracy. It does not test the legitimacy of its new function. How could it, if it doesn't believe the public are competent?

11. This contempt for the public is rife. It runs through the entire climate change narrative, through every local, national and supranational governmental body, every government department, civil society organisation, and public body.

12. The contempt prohibits the testing of any aspect of climate change policy. It allows undemocratic, unaccountable nobodies to design the parameters of millions of people's lives, in their own interests. Not just how much you eat, of what and what time you must go to bed...

13. ...Climate and energy policy-makers will design what you and your families are entitled to, for the next century. They will decide how you will live.

It's always framed as being in your interest. But none of them are willing to allow you to express a view.

14. This is because, on their view, alternative and controversial opinions in the public sphere are as dangerous to the public as the mountains of sweets on supermarket isles are to infants in pushchairs. They think they need to protect you from them, and that they know best.

15. They believe that if you hear climate change deniers on the radio, you will instantly become a climate change denier, just as if a toddler is given the freedom, he will eat as much of the sweets on the supermarket isles as he can get his little fingers on.

16. So they do not want diversity of opinions on broadcast media. And they do not want to test the legitimacy of their policies -- their design for your lives and lifestyles. They form consensuses and commission research that reflects these preferences.

17. This hypothesis appears to some as 'conspiracy theory'. This misses the point.

The suggestion is not a conspiracy. It's all out in the open. There's mountains of evidence. The hypothesis is that it is the political class itself which is degenerate.

18. That is to say that we should see the government as the incompetent party: the toddler in the confectionery isle at the supermarket. And it is the voter who should be seen as parent.

19. But politics has somehow been inverted. The problem is most visible in climate change and 'public health' policies. There are many similarities. Latterly, these absurdities have been exposed by the crises around Brexit.

20. Last thing, then. Look through it, from top to bottom, what the political class is absolutely adamant about is that *you* are not competent, and should not be given the freedom to make any decision of consequence about your own life, much less about the economy or climate.