Hear, hear, Richard. The nanny state, political correctness and the concept of "rights" (as in "I know my...") have already effectively killed politeness, civility and consideration for others, and are fast converting society into a collection of discrete units simply bumping angrily into each other. A sort of Brownian motion with menaces.

As a smoker, I have never smoked in a non-smoker's house, and when I had non-smokers visit I would air the house well in advance and then refrain from smoking indoors for the duration, except for my little "bolthole" - my office. I also learned from a young age to hold doors open for others (and not just women), to give up my seat on the bus for older people or those in greater need of a rest than me, to avoid making excessive noise during unsociable hours, to clean up after me, not to expect to be waited on hand and foot when I am someone's guest, to be polite in conversation unless repeatedly provoked and all those little but important things that I consider to be the grease that helps life work more smoothly. And I did (and do) such things not out of consideration for anyones "rights", but simply because I care for them. As individuals.

Now nobody bothers to learn (or to teach) such things; they are to busy learning their rights or working out new ways to protect such rights by creating rules and even legislation. They would claim that they do so because they care, but I would dispute that in the majority of cases. They care about their concept of "society", not for individuals.

It's becoming a sick, twisted world, in which "nobody cares, and nobody sees" (Jeremy Taylor). And to continue with the paraphrasis: "Hurry up, Rich, it won't be long before the pubs are closed; I'll buy you a pint, if only we could get across this...oh, bugger!"