Author: America regressing

[unhappycamper]

Author: America regressing
By David Harsanyi, Denver Post columnist
Article Last Updated: 09/21/2007 11:22:22 AM MDT


In his 1996 State of the Union address, President Bill Clinton felt the need to let Americans know the era of big government had ended. This curious assertion was meant to allay the growing concerns of Americans, who had begun to see government as stepping over the bounds of its charge.

Clinton's words rang hollow. In many respects, the big government was simply refocusing, consolidating, and beginning to cast its eye toward regulating private matters that had previously been out of bounds. "Big" intrusive government was now also in the hand of local city councils, which could often put the big boys to shame.

Though Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich started getting crabby about the nanny state in the mid- 1990s, by the time George W. Bush, a Republican — purportedly the party of less intrusive government — was elected to his second term in 2004, the new and improved nanny state was only expanding its authority. "We have the responsibility that, when somebody hurts, government has got to move," explained President Bush on Labor Day 2003. Twenty years ago, this kind of brazen promotion of the state would have been unheard of coming from the lips of any respectable Republican — and barely any Democrats would have dared to give voice to it.

~snip~

Today, politicians of both parties brazenly endorse nanny policies in response to the slightest anxiety or unsettling development. Many Americans have felt the government's evolution from strong and active to smothering grandparent. In 1995, a Gallup Poll found that 39 percent of Americans believed that "the federal government has become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and choices of ordinary citizens." When the word "immediate" was removed from the question, 52 percent of Americans agreed. By late 2006, a CNN poll found that an overwhelming majority of Americans believe that the size and cost of government is intrusive. When asked about their views on the role of government, 54 percent of respondents said that "it was trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses." Only 37 percent believed that government should do more.

~snip~

Yew may have been proud — and certainly he was successful, as Singapore is one of the most prosperous nations in the world — but at what price? In 1999, The Economist dubbed Singapore the "world execution capital." For years, media coverage in the nation was stifled, opposition political leaders jailed, and endless draconian nanny rules imposed on the population, from penalties for infractions like spitting or chewing gum to detention without a trial for nonviolent acts against the government. "Freedom of the press must be subordinated to the overriding needs of Singapore," Yew told the International Press Institute's assembly in 1971.

While we're still a long way from Singapore's access, nannyism is a growing problem and a dangerous slippery slope. The more government feels comfortable subverting our right to live as we wish — while not hurting others — simply to create a more agreeable society, the state will feel increasingly comfortable sabotaging our rights on all fronts.


Rest of article at: http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_6960313

[fasttense]

1. Oh yeah a nanny state, but what a deranged and psychotic nanny.

If we have a nanny state it is a deranged and psychotic nanny that we are subjected to. When a child has a gapping wound in her hand, like the drowning victims of Katrina, instead of bandaging and cleaning the wound, the nanny leaves it to fester for a week and then rubs salt in the wound by sending down armed guards. When the child is caught with her hand in the cookie jar, like a pot smoker with too much marijuana on him, the nanny locks the child up in the basement for a month with the monsters, much like the state locks up pot smokers in jails filled with mother rapers and murderers.

When the child points out her piece of cake is a quarter size of her brother's piece, the nanny cuts off another huge hunk of the child's cake and gives it to her greedy brother, much like the rapacious corporations and CEOs who get tax cuts and fees waived while the average Joe gets told that's how the free market works.

If this is a nanny state, we need to fire the mad woman and hire someone who's not off their rocker.

[flashl]

2. AMEN. n/t