Nanny State

            I had a loving mother who cared for me and taught me to think and act as an adult and, when it was time, she sent me out into the world.  My mother did a good job of raising me and I have not forgotten her lessons.  In a way, the Founding Father did the same for all Americans.  They showed us the way to live as a nation.  They even wrote it down in the Constitution.  Sadly, many of us have forgotten the lessons of the founders.  Today, bureaucrats and politicians from the statehouse to the Whitehouse want to mother the citizens of this nation.  Generations of entrepreneurs, explorers, soldiers and sailors made this nation free and strong.  Have we given up our birthright of freedom for the security of the nanny state?         

          Nowadays, political nannies tell us how much water our toilets and shower my use, what light bulbs we can buy and ban unsaturated fats from our food.  And like a mother, they tell us that it is for our own good.  Information is fine, but don’t tell me what I can eat or how to flush a toilet.  I don’t want a new mother. 

          Oregon, long a bastion of liberal nannies, has recently seen bills introduced to ban biking with headphones, require a prescription to smoke and impose special taxes to discourage drinking soda.  The first of the embedded videos from Reason.tv pokes fun at some of the more absurd nanny laws of the last year.  The second video is a more serious look at Los Angles city regulations limiting fast food restaurants. 

          Politicians today can’t seem to solve the real problems, like the debt crisis, so they pass laws that make it look like they’re doing something and make them feel good.  They may feel good about the nanny state laws they have passed, but all they have really done is limit freedom in a way that would sicken the Founding Fathers.

          This nation was conceived with the ideal of individual liberty, but when politicians pass nanny laws, they limit not only choice but also liberty.  Benjamin Franklin said it best, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”