On being a boring old fart...

There is a long-standing tradition in NZ of celebrating (of all things) the “Gunpowder Plot”, of Guy Fawkes and his ill-fated attempt at a bit of meaningful terrorism at the Houses of Westminster. Those interested can follow up on his involvement in the plot to kill the Anti-papist King James I (he of the King James Version) and as many of the then Parliament as possible.

The celebration on November 5 has changed a bit – the bangers are no where near as big or powerful, the range of candles is now immense, the rockets don’t really rocket any more, the bonfire has been legislated out of existence entirely…

And that decline (over 30 or so years) has “all been for our own good!!”

David Tennis Ball Benson-Pope started the ball rolling last week with a solemn warning that “if we did not behave ourselves, the government would make fireworks illegal…” As in this op-ed in the Taranaki Daily News –

Government bans always strip most from the law-abiding
23 October 2006

Once a schoolteacher, always a schoolteacher, writes the Taranaki Daily News. Or so it seems with Environment Minister David Benson-Pope. If the nation does not behave this November 5, he warns, he will report to the principal and the board of trustees and have fireworks banned.

Unfortunately, this will open the way for the Law of Unintended Consequences. The field will be surrendered to those folk – plus a new crop freshly deprived of legally purchased excitement – inclined to smuggle their own or look up explosive recipes on the Internet. Or perhaps Mr Benson-Pope will also introduce China-style State filters that block certain unsavoury topics. A cursory search using "fireworks homemade" currently offers more than 800,000 sites, and even if just one in a 100 were useful it is still a sizeable armoury of mayhem at the flick of a button.

The minister will also need to ban sales of sulphur, carbon, chlorine, aluminium powder and a dozen other common chemicals that famously add colour and zip to fire crackers.

Shotgun powder, of course, will also need new permits.

Better ban matches and lighters, just to be on the safe side – in case someone cuts out the middle thrill and goes straight to arson.

Come to think if it, that already happens.
…
Yet, curiously, the behaviour of a hard core of fireworks abusers has become worse over this time, with the latest ultimatum meaning that a few unstable and badly raised youths are in danger of spoiling the fun of the universal child in everyone else, no matter what their age.

Could there be yet another message in this quandary pertaining to child-rearing responsibilities and the diminishing effectiveness of the courts in punishing those who deliberately and seriously endanger others?

I can only hope that was written with tongue somewheres toward the side of the jaw, if not past and well into the cheek because given the attitude of Helen’s mob in the past few months anything could be possible. But to return to the fireworks -
I can remember instances such as a cat with a skyrocket strapped to its back, pensioners being too frightened to leave their homes, a mentally retarded boy who had bangers stuffed in his ears… there is a long and sad catalogue of offences deriving directly from the abuse of fireworks in this country. On the tv news Friday evening was a sequence showing some bright young sparks shooting at buses and other vehicles with roman candles. That is before you start on the intentional arsons, the accidental house burnings, the scrub fires (one that started from a family bonfire at Coopers Beach in the early ‘70’s could potentially have burned out at least nine houses had the wind blown in the wrong direction), and the stock losses from panicked animals.

The other side of the debate, and also including the “Once a schoolteacher…” thought (not sourced as direct from Taranaki Daily News so that this could well be that link) comes from Finlay McDonald…

Reluctant though I am to endorse David Benson-Pope's own gunpowder plot to ban fireworks if we don't behave, there is a good argument for putting this desultory date out of its misery: as a festival, it's become a bit of a fizzer.

...

What began as a truly visceral celebration of religious nastiness, treachery and torture is now just a damp squib, one more opportunity for The Warehouse to cash in on some empty calendar entry, another sanitised, commercialised non-event for the occupational health and safety culture.

...

What's really funny is that until 1959, apparently, it was technically illegal in England not to celebrate the date of Guy Fawkes's arrest, according to the Fawkesian Society's history of the plot and its aftermath.

...

Who knows what a modern government would make of another (albeit lapsed) November tradition that predated and influenced Guy Fawkes celebrations, known as Mischief Night, when children were allowed to roam their neighbourhoods looking for trouble and playing pranks. I think it's safe to assume this would be deemed "inappropriate" by the professional worriers of the Rules and Regulations Reichstag.

Now I am not exempt from supporting this celebration of failed terrorism and of excessive punishment. My family has participated in the “pleasures” of a few bangers and roman candles, we have paid for the pleasure of attending a public display on several occasions as well.

But what is actually being celebrated here? Is it the fact that the Papists, Fawkes and the people behind him (for certainly he became the fall guy for some very powerful people), had the gumption to try and kill the Protestant King? Is it to celebrate the fact that he failed? If it were to celebrate the bravery of the person who revealed the plot, then it would not be Guy Fawkes but some other name. And why the “penny for the guy”?

Let’s be honest. The truth is that it is little more than a good excuse for a night outside, with a monstrous great bonfire, the thrill of crackers being set off left right and centre and perhaps the ultimate excitement of the whole box of fireworks accidentally catching fire at once. It has the obvious adrenalin rush that comes with a normally illegal activity. If we return to the first op-ed I quoted –

It has been under increasingly tighter restrictions for the last 30 years in this country, with "bangers" and skyrockets banned in 1994 and all the rest limited to over-14-year-olds and for only 10 days before November 5.

Yet, curiously, the behaviour of a hard core of fireworks abusers has become worse over this time, with the latest ultimatum meaning that a few unstable and badly raised youths are in danger of spoiling the fun of the universal child in everyone else, no matter what their age.

Could there be yet another message in this quandary pertaining to child-rearing responsibilities and the diminishing effectiveness of the courts in punishing those who deliberately and seriously endanger others?

Now there is a good thought!! And (confirmation bias firmly to the fore) a line that I have tried to promote several times in the past, and shall be in the near future as well given the moves to revert the minimum drinking age to 20.

Yep. Guess that I am showing my age at that. Becoming an old, reactionary, spoil-sport boring old fart. Kids these days show no respect – for anyone or anything. There is no discipline… yada yada yada as my daughter says. But let’s stick with the fireworks… Returning to the first op-ed once more –

Less government, not more, should be the order of the day.
Government bans are a heavy but crude weapon, always stripping more from the law-abiding than they achieve among the offenders and idiotcracy.

There is simply no way to issue an edict that will prevent every last twisted soul from tying a catherine wheel to a cat or inserting a double-happy into a chicken.
These people need another type of help.

Don’t know that I entirely agree with that. The help that “these people” need is to be held responsible for their actions, and for the way in which they have raised their kids.

A 14y-o who ties double-happies to toy arrows and shoots them at 6y-os resulting in one losing an eye can legally be held responsible for his own actions. He can stand up in Court and say (probably quite honestly) that “he was never told that it was wrong”. His parents can equally argue that “he is beyond our control” and absolve themselves of any failure or legal responsibility. THAT is part of what is wrong.

Then finding a suitable and meaningful punishment for the 14y-o is difficult. Jail? Enforced confinment with all of those thieves, murderers, blaggards, mother-rapers, father-rapers, vagabonds and ne’er-do-wells, will ruin the poor laddie for life. Of course there is no question of punishing the parents - they have no control... no responsibility... and that might mean the family having to survive without a father or a mother for a period of time. Can not possibly have that!

Perhaps Finlay McDonald has the right punishment for mis-use of gunpowder after all…

When poor old Fawkes was captured, the king ordered that he be tortured -lightly at first, gradually proceeding to more extreme forms - until he confessed.

A couple of days later, the now broken Guy was hanged until only half dead, at which point his genitals were cut off and burned in front of him, his heart and bowels removed, his head cut off (one must presume he was no longer only half dead by this stage) and the rest of his body dismembered and left for the birds.