WELCOME TO THE NANNY STATE by T. Edwin Perry
According to the Governor’s Highway Safety Association, or GHSA, 30 out of the 50 United States, plus Washington, DC, currently have primary Seat Belt Laws, meaning that you can be pulled over and ticketed JUST for not wearing your seatbelt in a car. (In many States, that’s not just the Driver, but the PASSANGERS as well.) Another 19 have Secondary Laws, meaning that if you get pulled over and aren’t wearing your seatbelt, you get ANOTHER TICKET on top of whatever you were actually pulled over for. (The only state having neither Primary nor Secondary Seat Belt Laws is New Hampshire, the “Live Free or Die” state. Ironic, isn’t it?)
Smoking is banned in restaurants and workplaces in most States, with municipal and county bans in most of the states with no statewide ban. Additionally, the purchase of tobacco products is typically taxed by both Federal and State Agencies, with a percentage of the proceeds going towards public health programs, such as Medicaid, as well as “Anti-Smoking” education programs. (Ironically, as tax rates increase, the number of taxable tobacco purchases decline, with many smokers seeking alternatives or even quitting altogether, thus reducing the amount of tax revenue for these programs, spurring even HIGHER tax rates to make up the difference!)
In 2006, the City of New York passed a ban on the use of “Trans Fats” in food preparation, requiring restaurants, like McDonalds, to change their recipes and practices. New York has also passed laws requiring the public display of calories for food items on menu boards, not just in published Nutrition Guides that are available nationwide, to “help people make better food choices.” In March 2010, Brooklyn Assemblyman Felix Ortiz proposed a bill to ban salt in restaurant food preparation or face fines.
You can be fined for not wearing a lifejacket on a boat, for not wearing a helmet on a motorcycle and for crossing the street without going to the crosswalk. You can be ticketed for drinking a beer on a public street, even if you’re of legal drinking age, and you can be jailed for allowing your own teenage child to “have a sip.” You can be fined for viewing LEGAL pornography in any public place, unless you’re reading a Playboy Magazine at a Public Library, and can be charged and convicted of a Sex Crime if your son & his friend find your stash of Hustler Magazines in the closet when you’re not at home.
Welcome to the Nanny State, a reality where the Government, at every level, tells you what is good for you, how to live, and what to do. You can get an abortion, but it’s illegal to commit suicide. You can smoke pot if you get a prescription, but you can’t take Ibuprofen if you’re a teenage girl having menstrual cramps. If you shoot someone for breaking into your house and don’t kill them, they can sue you for their injuries, and if you miss a stop sign or go through a red light, Big Brother is watching, and the ticket is in the mail!
Now, let me be clear about something: I completely understand the desire to protect the public, and that’s what our laws have ALWAYS been intended to be, but it’s a slippery slope between “Protecting the Innocent” and “Infringing on Rights,” and given the nature of Governments and Power, when you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile.
One of my favorite quotes from Thomas Jefferson is, “I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.” In other words, it is not the Government’s responsibility to tell us what we can and cannot do with our own lives. THAT is up to us as individuals. If there is a desire to INFLUENCE those choices, it must be through EDUCATION, not LEGISLATION.
When it comes to the examples of the Seat Belt, the Cigarettes and the Trans Fats, those ships have sailed, opening the door for even more infringements of our rights to choose. It is more important than ever that we remain vigilant of our Rights, and defend them with every breath. Otherwise, like our right to have French Fries in New York that actually TASTE GOOD, we can lose them forever!
Just a little food for thought.
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