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From the Right: The proliferation of the nanny state

Columnist

Published: Friday, March 22, 2013

Updated: Friday, March 22, 2013 02:03

Phil

 

While enjoying my spring break, relaxing and hanging with friends and family, I privately rejoiced in the decision by the New York Supreme Court to strike down the soda ban pursued by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who in his three terms as mayor, through bans and policies, has transformed the Big Apple into an all-but full-fledged nanny state. In a nanny state, the choices of free people in a free society are superseded by the all-watching, always caring, “I know better than you do” government. 

The ruling is not a case of judicial activism run amuck or conservative interfering; it’s common sense. Let the people of New York City, and frankly across America, live their lives by their own accords, not by the accords of government. The proposed soda ban by Bloomberg in New York is another unnecessary intrusion and detour by government into our personal choices and habits. If government can dictate what size of soda a person can drink, then where does the infringement end? 

With his soda ban sidelined (for now) he’s going after cigarettes, trying to force businesses selling cigarettes to conceal them in an attempt to discourage smoking. I’ll admit smoking is not a healthy choice and I would not engage in it, but I would never make it my business as an elected official to force vendors to conceal them from public view. If people smoke, then the consequences are theirs and theirs alone. Smoking is a choice.

Sure, Mayor Bloomberg’s intentions are swell and duly noted, but then again the road to hell is paved with swell intentions. His New York City policies are reflective of a large issue spreading across these United States – an abdication of the personal liberty to the almighty government that claims to know what’s best for the American people. Call me old-fashioned, but I’ve put my faith in the American people to make their own decisions.

Now, the concept of the nanny state is at times difficult to articulate. In my two previous columns I’ve tried to decry the problems with big government and its problem on American society. However, I am stating my opinion, and it can be taken for what it’s worth. When concrete examples come into play, such as the New York City mayor’s efforts to bypass the will of free people and to tell them what they can and cannot drink, it puts into context the ills of big government and why the nanny state must be rejected at all costs!

At stake in this argument over a nanny state and big government is liberty: the liberty of myself, those reading this column and the people of this country. Liberty is what the fight is about and liberty is more than personal freedom. It’s more than the freedom to do as one pleases. It is the freedom to make choices that affects one’s life. 

If I choose to eat 50 donuts a day and drink a soda once before bed and once in the morning every single day, and then one day I suffer a heart attack, I must bear the consequences of my decision. It is not the government’s responsibility to take care of me. I made the choice to eat poorly, and the burden falls into my lap. 

No reasonable person would partake in the food and drink choices I have just described. But the point is clear. In a free society, I should be able to make my own decisions and endure the consequences of those decisions. That is liberty. 

Our founders warned of a society where government cares for its citizens from the cradle to the grave. The minute government becomes our caretaker, we give up our freedom and we will never get it back.  Government need not tie our shoes or blow our noses for us. Government’s function is simple – to protect the rights endowed on us by our creator. 

A government that babies its citizens exploits personal choice and becomes the permanent nanny. Unlike politicians such as Bloomberg and others who shall remain nameless, I have faith in the American people to make decision for themselves. These politicians see the American people as ignorant and too dumb to get out of their own way. They think that their judgment and vision is superior to others. 

The nanny state sees itself as a savior in the form of government. I take the opposite view. It is government that needs saving – salvation from statism. To put it simply, the nanny states trust government. I trust the people. 

Government today is like overgrown bushes needing to be trimmed back. If America is to avoid the ever-growing presence of a nanny state government, then it is time to take a weed whacker, hedge trimmer or good old fashioned scissors and cut back the unkempt shrubbery that has become government. 

 

Phil Boynton is a junior political science major and considers himself a common-sense minded conservative.

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2 comments

paul
Sun Mar 24 2013 14:57
No! A healthier city is not going to be more culturally vibrant. And a culturally vibrant city is not the happiest city. How did you get the inspiration to make that crap up? If anything, a city with the fewest restrictions have more satisfied citizens than those with restrictions placed for member's own good. We were not born yesterday

Actually, Bloomberg's corrupts the statistics on what is healthy or not for his own campaign. He preys on the naive and expresses coercion is best for all. He and his cohorts (i.e the mediocre. Daniel Lieberman who writes one-side abstracts and papers in Harvard's Evolution dept.) are just scratching each others back. Daniel Lieberman's credibility has waned ever since his op-ed in the NY Times. The term "epidemic" has been misused and inflated along with the meaning of "obesity". You should do some research on the correct meaning of those terms. The CDC has been accused of inflating their statistics in order to continue receiving funding from the taxpayers. Australia has accused the WHO of their corrupt statistics also and this has lead to conflict. Your view of a ideal society conflicts with most American values and the intent of the Founding Fathers. Those same Founding Fathers who would be far more concerned by the ridiculous amount of public religiosity in the US in 2013, which they had not intended even within the scope of.... a congregation of eternal dieters who thump their calorie counting bible.

David Couper
Sat Mar 23 2013 04:21
Phil, for any journalist in 2013 to state that "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" (or the folksier version you promulgate) demonstrates a severe ignorance of the history of civilisation. When Lucretius's "On The Nature Of Things" was rediscovered and circulated in the early 15th Century, the eventual ramifications of this lost piece of genius (the intentions of which, amongst all other great facets, was to suggest people seek pleasure as a high-minded goal, in contrast to the violence and idolatry that dominated Roman Empire-era society) include: the massive reduction in the average amounts of violence in Europe, America, Australia and (more recently) East Asian nations (with lesser but still extant reductions in violence elsewhere); an increase in rationality and reason that led to scientific method, which led to the technologies and better quality of life that the majority of us (you and I included) experience today; and a more civilised approach to how we (read "men") treat women, children, other races, other religions/philosophies, differing sexualities, and animals. In a history littered with horrendous intentions that made the average world of the pre-1400s appear "hellish" to us in modern times, it seems that those with great intentions (whether they realised the future importance or not of such approaches) have led us more towards a "heaven" than a "hell".There is much work still to be done to make society even more pleasant, in order that we can live with reasonable liberty. Political correctness has encroached into some areas of life and society, the results of which are better suited to being termed part of a "nanny state" conception. However, unless you're a libertarian, then of the majority of pet topics the only serious problem Western societies are currently encountering (in my opinion) is the idea of a government-mandated Internet Filter (as my government in Australia has been trying to implement, thankfully to no avail).We've already implemented the unbranded cigarette packaging. Whether it makes a difference or not to overall smoking rates, the fact is that people who smoke tobacco do not bear the long-term consequences of their decision (read "addiction") alone - government-funded institutions (usually called "hospitals" in my country) have to provide treatment to these people for various diseases that, had they not smoked, they would most likely not have had to be treated for, freeing hospital beds for those with more severe (and less explainable) conditions as well as for emergencies. The same can definitively be said for people who over-consume food. I'm not a health nut by any means, and I enjoy soft drink in what is probably too great an amount (thankfully I counteract this with exercise, physical and mental). Australia didn't really need a Bloombergian move within the realm of fast-food establishments to remove "Mega-sized" soft drink cups - McDonalds and Hungry Jacks (our "Burger King") did that themselves, while the structure of meals at KFC makes the prospect of meals of such a nature too expensive.While the legislation may have failed, your problem seems to be that Mayor Bloomberg shouldn't give a rat's arse about the health of the people living in the city that elected him to be their Mayor. Why not? The guy was elected to balance the budget of a phenomenal city. A healthy city is a more effective economic unit than a city full of fat, lazy, unhealthy people who are less productive and take more sick leave, etc. A healthy city is always going to be more culturally vibrant than a fat city. That doesn't mean people can't indulge in the finer things (and foods), but perhaps there are people in New York (and all over America, and in Australia and elsewhere) who, while not eating 50 donuts a day, might eat 12 donuts and drink 3 litres of Coke a day (which I estimate to be roughly 5500 calories), on top of their other caloric intake. Those numbers equate to a serious addiction, along the same lines of drug, alcohol and tobacco addiction. These people are not "rational actors" at all, and they need help. We can't lock them up, we can't force gastric bypass surgery on them, and we can't fine them explicit, one-time amounts for being a certain weight + level of unfitness; however, we can, in each of our societies, increase the debate, the discussion, the dialogue, on such matters, to make people more aware of the ramifications of these "personal choices".I would rather live in a society, governed by people that we have elected (and can of course boot out in equal effort), that is concerned with helping the people improve their physical, intellectual, and emotional health - if we think they've genuinely gone too far, we can easily let them know through censure or removal from office. I think the Founding Fathers would be far more concerned by the ridiculous amount of public religiosity in the United States in 2013, which they had not intended even within the scope of...




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