Nanny State – The Burning Platform

Wards of the Nanny State: Protecting America’s Children from Police State Goons, Bureaucratic Idiots and Mercenary Creeps

When an opponent declares, ‘I will not come over to your side,’ [Hitler] said in a speech on November 6, 1933, “I calmly say, ‘Your child belongs to us already.’”—As reported by historian William L. Shirer

It’s not easy being a parent in the American police state.

Danger lurks around every corner and comes at you from every direction, especially when Big Brother is involved.

Out on the streets, you’ve got the menace posed by police officers who shoot first and ask questions later. In the schools, parents have to worry about school resource officers who taser teenagers and handcuff kindergartners, school officials who have criminalized childhood behavior, school lockdowns and terror drills that teach your children to fear and comply, and a police state mindset that has transformed the schools into quasi-prisons.

In your neighborhoods, you’ve got to worry about the Nanny State and its network of busybodies turning parents in for allowing their children to walk to school alone, walk to the park alone, play at the beach alone, or even play in their own yard alone.

And now in the last refuge for privacy—one’s home—parents are being put through the grinder, their actions scrutinized and judged by government goon squads armed with outrageous, overreaching, egregious laws that subject families to the hyped-up, easily offended judgment of the Nanny State.

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Philadelphia’s Soda Tax Is About Raising Revenue, Not Public Health

The liberal do-gooders again revealed to be lying sacks of shit. They pose this tax grab as a health issue and then at the last minute decide to include diet soda in the tax. There is no sugar in diet soda. City Council passed it yesterday. Nothing but a bunch of left wing Democrats raping the poor to prop up the gold plated pensions of the union drones.

Guest Post by Anthony L. Fisher

Alexander Kaiser, pooliestudios.com / Flickr

New York Times health reporter Margot Sanger-Katz, who has cheer-leaded for increased taxes on soda for some time, published an article yesterday in praise of Philadelphia’s “novel strategy” to promote its proposed (and likely to pass) measure increasing the price of sweetened drinks by one-and-a-half cents per ounce.

The game-changing strategy to sell a regressive tax that will disproportionately hit the pockets of the poor, as well as grant even more power to the government to regulate the personal choices of private citizens? Framing it as a revenue source, rather than as a do-gooder health measure.

While it is true that there is an obesity crisis in this country and high-calorie and sugary drinks certainly do play their part in expanding American waistlines (though that part is frequently overstated), like so many Nanny State initiatives, Philadelphia’s proposed tax is confusingly inconsistent right out of the gate.

Nanny States of America – Parents Arrested for Letting Kids Play on Beach, Girl Given Detention for Hugging Friend

Guest Post by Michael Krieger

Screen Shot 2015-11-06 at 4.04.25 PM

I haven’t covered the American nanny state in a while, but two articles recently caught my eye and I simply have to share.

The first one relates to two parents charged with “reckless endangerment of a child,” for letting their two boys play on a Cape Cod beach for an hour unsupervised.

From Reason:

Parents who let their boys, ages 7 and 9, play on their own for an hour at a family beach will be arraigned later this month on charges of reckless endangerment of a child.

Charles Smith and Lindsay Pembleton of Niagara Falls were vacationing with their kids on Cape Cod. The boys wanted to stay at the beach for a little longer rather than walk back to the nearby campground (which is, according to one commenter, accessible via a car-free path). The parents said okay, but told them they couldn’t go in the water, according to The Cape Cod Times.

By the time a lifeguard spot the children, they were—gasp—wet from the rain. What’s more, they were “standing around a food truck with no adults in charge.”

Thankfully, the police were called before any of that wetness and unsupervised food trucking could escalate into something worse.

Even though over 90 percent of sex crimes against kids are committed by people they know, not random beach inhabitants, the cop decided to file reports of suspected abuse or neglect in both Massachusetts and New York. And, for good measure, she also “applied for criminal complaints against them in Orleans District Court.”

Moving along, we find ourselves in Florida, a state which always provides a disproportionate amount of “this can’t be real” type stories.

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Doug Casey on the Nanny State’s Interference in Our Lives

By Doug Casey

(Interviewed by Louis James, Editor, International Speculator)

This interview was first published on March 14, 2012

Editor’s Note: In yesterday’s Weekend Edition, Casey Research founder Doug Casey explained why you should be skeptical of government “science.”

In today’s edition, Doug says the nanny state is tightening its grip on people’s lives…

Louis James: If we end up in a totalitarian police state or nanny state, I don’t want my children to lift their manacled wrists before my eyes and ask me why I didn’t resist while resistance was possible.

Doug: Indeed. In spite of the blatantly obvious and disastrous results of Prohibition, politicians have declared open season on drug users, then smokers, then gun owners – All Things Fun. How far can it be from regulating politically incorrect eaters to regulating just about everyone’s choices on every subject?

L: Not far…

Doug: And it gets worse. Now that we have socialized medical services in the U.S. (which is not the same as health care), genuine bad health choices that used to be individuals’ problems have become everyone’s problems, because we all have to pay for them. Socialized medicine is terrible; it’s entrusting medical services to the same bankrupt organization that can’t even deliver the mail reliably. It’s also a powerful excuse for the nanny state to monitor, inspect, interfere with, and control all aspects of our lives, from what we eat and drink all the way down to what we do in the privacy of our bedrooms…because everything can impact our health, which is now society’s obligation.

L: But it’s all for our own good. “If it saves one child…”

Doug: If it saves one child, how many children does it kill? If you ban Freon over an unproven fear that it contributes to ozone depletion, for example, and require use of a more expensive, less efficient, and incidentally more toxic and corrosive substitute, all because it might save one child, how many babies did you kill with spoiled milk and meat? What other consequences to your intervention are you ignoring?

This reminds me of the time Madeleine Halfbright was told that the sanctions she saw imposed on Iraq had killed about half a million children, and she answered: “Yes, it was costly, but we think it was worth it.” These people are hypocrites, and extremely dangerous. Sociopaths. They don’t care about saving human lives; they are more than willing to expend any number of them, like pawns on a chessboard, to advance their quest for power.

L: Bastiat’s broken window all over again: “the seen and the unseen.” But you’ve got to have a good cover story, like saving children’s lives.

Doug: Of course. If you say you’re doing it for the children, you can get away with almost anything.

Continue reading “Doug Casey on the Nanny State’s Interference in Our Lives”

Doug Casey on the Nanny State

By Doug Casey

(Interviewed by Louis James, Editor, International Speculator)

This interview was first published on March 14, 2012

Editor’s Note: As you may have heard, the World Health Organization (an arm of the United Nations) issued a major report this week. The report claims that eating processed meat, like bacon, causes cancer. The report also says eating any kind of red meat may cause cancer.

In today’s Weekend Edition, Casey Research founder Doug Casey explains why you should always be skeptical of government “science”…

Louis James: Doug, you’re going to love this. There’s a new study out purporting to show that eating any amount of any kind of red meat is bad for you; making you 13% more likely to die, in fact. So, with your growing herd of cattle in Argentina, you’re close to becoming a mass murderer.

Doug: I saw that. I wonder what you have to do to make it 26% more likely to die. If I go back to skydiving, does that mean I’m 1,000% more likely to die? It’s rather strange, in that I always thought we’re all basically 100% likely to die.

It’s yet another sign of how degraded U.S. society has become, that something so ridiculous can be passed off as news. According to the LA Times article I read, the “study” was just a survey of people’s reported eating habits. So, at best (assuming people responded accurately and honestly) the survey might show us a correlation. But even a high-school student should be able to tell you that correlation does not establish causality. The typical science journalist may be even more ignorant and misinformed than the typical financial journalist, which is saying something. It’s why I read the papers mostly for entertainment.

L: The study failed to consider, for example, if those who reported eating more meat happen to include more people who ride motorcycles, party hardy, or engage in other higher-risk behaviors, which could easily be true of steak lovers. This survey wouldn’t catch such patterns. And yet I read one of the authors claiming:

“This study provides clear evidence that regular consumption of red meat, especially processed meat, contributes substantially to premature death … On the other hand, choosing more healthful sources of protein in place of red meat can confer significant health benefits by reducing chronic disease morbidity and mortality.”

Doug: It sounds as if the authors might have a political agenda. But what do you expect from government “science?” Much of it is politically driven, and if you don’t arrive at politically correct answers, funding might dry up.

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Maryland Parents Investigated For Neglect After Letting Their Kids Walk Home From School Alone

Guest Post by Michael Krieger

It’s one thing for an 80 year old to nostalgically lament that things aren’t as they used to be. The problem is, I’m only 36 years old and this country already barely resembles the place I grew up in.

I’ve mentioned in the past how I used to ride the New York City public bus to and from school by myself starting when I was around 9 or 10 years old. Many of my peers started taking the then dreaded subway by themselves around the same time. Bear in mind, this was NYC in the 1980’s, a far different place than the Disneyland for Wall Street it has become since. I can’t recall a single child abduction happening to anyone at my school, but what I can remember was a teacher being fired for molesting young boys. Makes you wonder about where the real danger lurks, doesn’t it?

This transformation into a nanny-state, snitching culture has severe negative long-term repercussions for U.S. society, as well as the economy, if the trend isn’t reversed. I have written about this dangerous change many times in the past, and links to prior articles will be attached at the end of this post.

First, let’s take a look at the ridiculous circumstances now faced by these Maryland parents for simply allowing their children a rite of passage that kids from time immemorial have enjoyed. From the Washington Post:

It was a one-mile walk home from a Silver Spring park on Georgia Avenue on a Saturday afternoon. But what the parents saw as a moment of independence for their 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter, they say authorities viewed much differently.

Danielle and Alexander Meitiv say they are being investigated for neglect for the Dec. 20 trek — in a case they say reflects a clash of ideas about how safe the world is and whether parents are free to make their own choices about raising their children.

The Meitivs say they believe in “free-range” parenting, a movement that has been a counterpoint to the hyper-vigilance of “helicopter” parenting, with the idea that children learn self-reliance by being allowed to progressively test limits, make choices and venture out in the world.

The fact that parents who want to allow their children to engage in normal behavior have to resort to terms like “free-range” parenting, which makes you think of livestock, tells you all you need to know.

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THE MORE RESTRICTIONS, THE MORE MORONS

Guest Post by Pater Tenebrarum

We are all Idiots who Have to be Saved from Themselves

“Forced by the verdict of a German court, a long-established fishmonger in Hamburg had to attach a sign above his shop’s counter recently, which informs his customers that “fish may contain fish bones”. Packs of peanuts meanwhile contain, as requested by law, the hint that they “may contain traces of nuts”. For the same reason, irons nowadays often bear the request to please not iron things while one is wearing them. Who would have thought?”

The above is from a recent report in the Austrian press. German best-seller author and journalist at “Der Spiegel”, Alexander Neubacher notes in his new book “Total Beschränkt” (“totally restricted”) that this “over-protective policy” actually creates the very helplessness which it ascribes to citizens. He asserts: “Prohibitions are triumphing over reason – the more restrictions, the more morons” (in the German language, the sentence lends itself to word play: “je mehr Beschränkungen, desto mehr Beschränkte”).

He points out that “the State wants to wean us from thinking with ever more regulations, and makes us into idiot citizens who have to be saved from themselves”. The paternalistic infantilization of citizens by the Nanny State is nothing new, but it has become such a scourge in Europe that it has actually spawned an entire literary genre of complaints by now, one that is apparently selling extremely well.

wmiccj Citizen, you clearly need help: the image Europe’s bureaucrats have of their fellow men

(Photo via taringa.net / Author unknown)

According to the article, Mr. Neubacher’s book should be regarded as the new “standard work” on the topic. The bureaucratic nannies in the EU have provided him with a formidable wealth of material.

Thus the reader learns e.g. that on German territory, bicyclists using an electric bicycle that “only supports pedaling” may have a blood alcohol level of up to 1.6 per mil without being in danger of losing their driver’s license, whereas drunkards using an electric bicycle that “also works while idling” may not exceed a 0.5 per mil threshold. In parts of Berlin, no second bathrooms, no open chimneys and no elevators may be added in apartment renovations; on drilling platforms and wind farms in the North Sea there not only have to be medical supplies and cookies in storage in case of emergencies, but also a “pack of cards”. Prohibitions, says Neubacher, are generally overrunning our daily lives like “knotweed on a cemetery wall”.

Beware the giant knotweed

(Photo via phyllophilus.blogspot.co.at)

Responsible Parties

Montesquieu, who died in 1755, formulated a general rule for a well-run state that has been long forgotten: “If it is not necessary to make a law, it is necessary not to make a law”.

Neubacher not only provides an extensive encyclopedia of the protective siege, he also names those responsible and their motives: politicians, he says, believe they need to be seen to “do something” – and it is easier to pass rules and regulations concerning completely unimportant details of life, than actually doing something substantive. So these regulations are in a way decoys, designed to distract from the politicians’ ineptitude.

portrait-of-charlesmontesquieu Charles de Montesquieu: purveyor of good advice that has been ignored

With regard to this, we would however note that we are even more worried that they might actually do something “substantive”, so our concerns certainly differ from Mr. Neubacher’s in this particular respect.

Neubacher also points out that an entire industry has sprung up under the guise of supposed “consumer protection”, with numerous influential industry lobbies benefiting greatly from regulations and paternalism, which have created “profitable, crisis-resistant business segments, that make a lot of money on the back of Nanny State regulations”.

This is e.g. immediately obvious when considering the ban prohibiting the use of incandescent light bulbs in the EU: allegedly introduced to “save the planet”, the ban’s man aim has always been to “increase the profits of Osram”, which along with other lighting producers lobbied heavily for its introduction. Ever since, Europe’s citizens have been forced to sit in lighting reminiscent of a morgue. As Lord Christopher Monckton remarked to this, given that this morgue-like lighting is highly likely to discourage reading, the continued dumbing down of the population has probably been given a major shot in the arm by the light bulb ban.

Among the many examples for connoisseurs of the prohibitions and regulations created by the “preventative-bureaucratic complex” in Neubacher’s book, we also find the recent establishment of a cemetery for lesbian women in Berlin – where men, you guessed it, are prohibited from being buried. Thus the bureaucrats have ensured peace of mind for members of Berlin’s lesbian community even after they have shuffled off this mortal coil. One cannot even escape the nannies by dying anymore.

Germany-opens-lesbian-only-cemetery.-Photo-SMH Inauguration ceremony of the new “lesbians only” cemetery in Berlin.