He Who Touches The Cables Dies.

In my native Country, below high voltage electricity poles a simple writing explained the situation: “chi tocca i fili muore”, “he who touches the cables dies”.

No money was spent to explain on TV to stupid teenagers that stupidity can cost one's life; with good reason, because a stupid teenager will be, in case, more excited than dissuaded by such nannying exercises.

Instead, the message was told very cheaply, and very efficiently, in very dry words. I have no knowledge of mass deaths of stupid teenagers willing to show to their friends how brave they are. It's fair to say simple words, and letting people free to pay for their own mistakes if they really want to, worked rather well. You “feel” that you are entitled to touch the cables? Your choice. But you will die.

Not so in XXI Century England, where a man can trespass just outside of Waterloo station, and the rail managers immediately proceed to interrupt electricity along the rails, and to completely paralyse one of the biggest stations of a big Western Country for more than half an hour, and cause delays of above forty minutes in total to every single train. You “feel” you are entitled to trespass on the rails? Fine…

Nor can it be said that, once it is decided that stopping the electrification of the line is the thing to do (with which even I might agree, on a good day) prompt action was taken to remove the trespasser. There is in this country either no rail police, or if there is it has no power, because if you need more than thirty minutes to arrest a trespasser outside of a huge station it is clear these people are completely powerless. Summa summarum: this country is run like a kindergarten in the hands of old aunts, only worried that the worst rascals do not catch a cold.

Let us think it further: if youth are seen climbing the pillars of the high tension cables, are tens, or hundreds of thousands, of people left without electricity so that the idiots may not harm themselves? Why are not all bridges built in a way that prevents people from throwing themselves from them? Should we suspend underground service in London, until all the lines are provided with security barriers preventing idiots from dancing on the rails whilst drunk? Why are the white cliffs of Dover deprived of barriers? Why are motorways not closed everytime some drunkard wants to cross them (yes, it happens…)? “There was a man walking on the M4 in the direction of Heathrow. The entire motorway will now be shut for 40 minutes whilst the police arrests the trespasser. We “feel” with all those who will miss their flight because of this trespass”. Not bloody likely….

This could go on forever, but you understand what I am aiming at: a society that negates personal responsibility to the most absurd extremes – albeit these extremes are not universally applied or, better said, are only applied where the populace can still swallow the consequences – is a society heading toward self-castration, and producing a huge mass of dumb oxes paying the price for the antics of a bunch of idiots.

People aren't expected to pay the price of their actions anymore. “He who touches the cables, dies” isn't good enough. On the contrary: everyone must be protected from the price of his own stupidity, no matter the cost.

This extreme nannyism goes hand in hand with the deification of human life that has followed the loss of faith. Once, in Christian time, it was very simple: by killing that man, you have renounced to your own right to live; therefore, you will swing at the lower end of a noose.

By touching the cables, you have met the destiny of those who do so. By trespassing and walking on a train line, you have accepted the risk involved and about which you had been warned. By taking part in an armed robbery, you answer for homicide even if not you, but your accomplice has committed the murder, and even if you were absolutely contrary to killing anyone. You answer for murder because, by deciding to take part to the bank robbery, you have accepted all the consequences of your action, even those you would not have brought about.

Why do I tell you all this? Because, as the Earl of Cavour used to say, tutto is tiene: everything is linked to everything else.

In a world in which Waterloo Station is paralysed for 40 minutes by what probably was a drunkard, a madman, or both, it seems perfectly normal that someone else should change Church rules to please the adulterers. No one is responsible for anything, you see. When the madman trespasses, you block the station. When the adulterer trespasses, you block the Church.

I am not sure (lawfully) refusing to switch the electricity off would be wrong; no one stopps rivers from flowing under bridges, either, and if – say – a drunkard throws himself from a bridge he knows that the impact it's going to be hard; but I personally would prefer to stop the electricity, have the idiot arrested in six minutes net (abundant time; it was near the station; near enough to block every train), let his teeth get acquainted with the police stick, prosecute him, have him convicted, frock him so hard the news goes around, and have all the trains running again in eight and a half minutes; ten, tops.

Similarly, I am not sure adulterers in this country should be told every week that they must refrain from communion, are giving grave scandal, and will probably go to hell unless they reform themselves. But boy, there should be enough common sense around to let them know what they are risking, the position in which they are, and what God has said it happens to public adulterers:

He who touches those cables to the end, his soul dies.

Mundabor