Paved with good intentions

I thought I'd post something relevant to the party season.

Apparently the original source of the Party Safe logo.
Presumably the QLD Police have permission to use this.

Below is a note I received in the letterbox some time in the past year (names and dates removed to protect the innocent).

At first glance it's an extremely praiseworthy and considerate thing to do. I'm sure that if this blog had a big readership I'd be regaled with multiple horror stories (some of them maybe even true) of criminally inconsiderate neighbours partying to the point of a full-on Ferguson riot every other night; and everyone would be telling me how lucky I was to live in such a genteel neighbourhood.

But think about it from a different angle: Have we gone so far down the road to a totalitarian Police State that you have to register with the cops whenever you're going to have a party?

I checked out the web site referred to on the note and it appears that the registration process involves such things as getting supplied with identification wrist bands.

For a kid's birthday party!

Next there will be guards taking people's fingerprints at the door and making them step through a metal detector. Maybe they'll ban candles on the birthday cake as a fire hazard and you'll have to cut it with a plastic spatula (knives, of course, having been outlawed).

Don't get me wrong; I'm not criticising the people who sent this note. They're thoughtful people going out of their way to do the right thing; which is more than I could say for some. I'm just saddened that, these days, the "right thing" appears to be to unquestioning obedience to the Orwellian dictates of a Police State.