- Harsanyi, David.
Nanny State.
New York: Broadway Books, 2007.
ISBN 0-7679-2432-0.
-
In my earlier review of
The
Case Against Adolescence (July 2007), I concluded by
observing that perhaps the end state of the “progressive”
vision of the future is “being back in high
school—forever”. Reading this short book (just 234 pages
of main text, with 55 pages of end notes, bibliography, and index) may
lead you to conclude that view was unduly optimistic. As the author
documents, seemingly well-justified mandatory seat belt and
motorcycle helmet laws in the 1980s punched through the barrier which
used to deflect earnest (or ambitious) politicians urging “We
have to do something”. That barrier, the once near-universal
consensus that “It isn't the government's business”, had
been eroded to a paper-thin membrane by earlier encroachments upon
individual liberty and autonomy. Once breached, a torrent of
infantilising laws, regulations, and litigation was unleashed, much of it
promoted by single-issue advocacy groups and trial lawyers with a
direct financial interest in the outcome, and often backed by nonexistent or junk
science. The consequence, as the slippery slope became a
vertical descent in the nineties and oughties, is the emergence of a
society which seems to be evolving into a giant kindergarten, where
children never have the opportunity to learn to be responsible adults,
and nominal adults are treated as production and consumption modules,
wards of a state which regulates every aspect of their behaviour, and
surveils their every action.
It seems to me that the author has precisely diagnosed the fundamental
problem: that once you accept the premise that the government can
intrude into the sphere of private actions for an individual's
own good (or, Heaven help us, “for the children”), then
there is no limit whatsoever on how far it can go. Why, you might have
security cameras going up on every street corner, cities banning
smoking in the outdoors, and police ticketing people for listening to
their iPods while crossing the street—oh, wait. Having left the U.S.
in 1991, I was unaware of the extent of the present madness and the
lack of push-back by reasonable people and the citizens who are seeing their
scope of individual autonomy shrink with every session of the legislature.
Another enlightening observation is that this is not, as some might think,
entirely a phenomenon promoted by paternalist collectivists and
manifest primarily in moonbat caves such as Seattle, San Francisco,
and New York. The puritanical authoritarians of the right are just
as willing to get into the act, as egregious examples from “red
states” such as Texas and Alabama illustrate.
Just imagine how many more intrusions upon individual choice and lifestyle
will be coming if the U.S. opts for socialised medicine. It's enough to make
you go out and order a
Hamdog!
October 2007 