“Nanny Laws” are a huge pet peeve of mine here in California. The latest is a ban on texting while driving. Why not propose a ban on eating cheeseburgers while driving? Or a ban on using a curling iron? How about a ban on fiddling with your air conditioner, stereo, windshield wipers, or a ban on changing songs on your iPod. You see the slippery slope? For some more perspective, check out this article from last year: Nanny State 911
We must be free to make our own decisions (even the bad ones), so long as we do not infringe upon the rights of others. If we turn over all our decision-making power to politicians and bureaucrats, we have become nothing more than a bunch of sheep blindly following our shepherd master.
*Update: here’s another article with some great criticism of these Nanny Laws. An excerpt from the article describing some idiotic actions of the LA Ciy Council is below…
The Los Angeles City Council has issued a moratorium banning new fast food restaurants in South Central Los Angeles for a year. This ban covers a 32-square-mile area with 500,000 low-income racially-mixed minority group residents. According to the food fascists of the L.A. City Council, South Central L.A. has too many greasy fast food joints and not enough white-table-cloth healthy restaurants and locally grown organic grocers.
The L.A. City Council believes the adults of South Central L.A. can not make healthy food choices. Next, it will require all L.A. fast food places to show calories next to their menu items. Finally, the council is considering a ban on all outdoor smoking.
The L.A. City Council has appointed itself to the questionable position of societal nanny. However, Angelinos aren’t the only people facing a nanny. All Californians face nanny-state laws imposing safety, health, and morality.
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21 responses so far ↓
1 Jeremy Osborne // Sep 27, 2008 at 1:58 pm
People are really afraid to take care of themselves, and that’s what I believe this comes down to, which is embarrassing and sad to me.
2 Jeremy Osborne // Sep 27, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I should add, that I agree with you about the idiocy of these laws.
3 Todd // Sep 27, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Jeremy, I suspect these laws have to do with the political leadership we have here in California. What ever happened to personal responsibility anyhow? Don’t these lawmakers have more pressing problems to think about? And why did Arnold sign off on this? California is rife with problems, and text messaging is surely not anywhere near the top of the list!
4 Jeremy Osborne // Sep 29, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Responsibility. That is one of my favorite words. I believe most people have no clue at all what responsibility actually means, hence the continuation of laws like this, and bailouts, and the list goes on.
5 Todd // Sep 29, 2008 at 8:43 pm
and how about accountability? we’re in this banking mess because some high ranking folks out there have been asleep at the switch. it’s time to start naming names and airing some dirty laundry. throw the bums out.
6 Jeremy Osborne // Sep 30, 2008 at 7:34 am
You are correct. Leaders who screw up should embrace the consequences of their actions and take it like a human being. For accountability, we cannot let ourselves off the hook, either. That doesn’t mean that you and I can fix everything, but you and I and others who want freedom and responsibility will only live in that world when we stop putting up with the status quo problems, and the people who seem to repeat the status quo problems. We, and I mean humans, must go from, “It doesn’t matter,” and actions that reflect that frame of mind, to, “It does matter,” and take actions that reflect that frame of mind.
7 Todd // Sep 30, 2008 at 10:02 am
YES! With freedom comes responsibility.
8 Jeremy Osborne // Sep 30, 2008 at 5:10 pm
This is a very refreshing exchange, even if confined to the limiting world of text within HTML. The other way a friend of mine used to say a version of your quote was this:
“Spiderman got it wrong. It’s not with great power comes great responsibility. It’s with great responsibility comes great power.”
9 Todd // Sep 30, 2008 at 5:13 pm
With enough further exchange we may set a comment record for this blog. This is the post to beat.
For some reason these Nanny Laws piss me off more than a $700+ billion lipstick on a bailout. Is that wrong?
10 Jeremy Osborne // Oct 4, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Because I believe that competition makes all involved stronger, we must make sure this competes with your Mac article
To me nanny laws are the result of some beleaguered devil plagued weakling, pretending to wield the sword of the archangel Michael on a personal crusade of shock and awe. Should the “nanny” vanquish another’s perceived demons, he’ll get a shot of spiritual heroin and numb himself to his own foibles. However, pit an intelligent and rational person against that law in court, and bam, the idiocy of the law is likely revealed.
The bailout pisses me off more. I’m an intelligent, mature human being who has grown _because_ of the adversity I’ve overcome. This bailout, bah, I could rant for hours about how much it coddles people who are weaklings when it comes to money, my money. Now they get to waste MORE of MY money that I have rightfully earned??? WTF is up with that?
My water polo coach gave me two great sayings for life, and one of them applies here: “How you practice is how you play.” Those losers who are getting a piece of the bailout, I believe they have demonstrated sufficiently that they deserve to sit on the bench of the money game because they obviously can’t handle the pressure of professional sports. Worse, we have now sufficiently demonstrated we have horrible and spineless coaches–aka our congressional leaders–who are willing to coddle these losers.
There’s a guy who, EVERY day between the hours of 7am and 9:30am when I am biking into work, is singing for a few bucks. He doesn’t beg, he stands outside of Starbucks and sings. He isn’t half bad, and damn the guy has soul. The fact the guy is literally there EVERY DAY, and demonstrates the most basic discipline and resolve I see in so few people anymore, I would rather see him with a chunk of this bailout than those fucktards behind this mess. Grrrr.
11 Todd // Oct 4, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Jeremy, I’m glad you support the comment challenge. Not only are we writing random comments few will read besides us, we are also providing great entertainment to the people who read these California Nanny Law post comments.
Regarding the bailout, this is Nanny-ish for sure. The really sick thing is that the government is not even spending our money. We don’t have ANY money. The government is printing money for this, which is worse. It further devalues whatever few dollars we all have left in our bank accounts, and spurs inflation - at least that what it seems to do to me. Sure, it may inspire short-term confidence, but as the great Ron Paul says: we need to just take our medicine and really fix the financial system; the longer we wait the worse it will get.
12 Todd // Oct 5, 2008 at 3:43 pm
here is a video of some well deserved CNN nanny rants
13 Jeremy Osborne // Oct 6, 2008 at 9:21 am
One of the best arguments against Nanny Laws, and the like, came from a reporter who focuses on journalism in Iran. The women, especially the younger teenagers, have stated that their biggest complaint is not against Islam or the customs, it’s the state enforcement of the religion. Some of them actually want to wear the Burka, some of them don’t, but they both agree that whether or not they wear it, it should be a personal choice, not someone telling them to do so.
While yes, I with no car, do think many people are just being dumb and ignorant when it comes to dealing with our–aka. the human species–ecosystem, I don’t think there should be a government mandate that people stop driving. Unless human beings freely start being responsible, there’s no hope for us in the long term. Just look at how much fun it is to be a citizen of china in the less progressive areas.
14 Todd // Oct 6, 2008 at 10:03 am
Oooh, personal responsibility for the environment seems like a whole new animal. I recently read an article talking about how taking long-haul airplane flights can wipe-out whatever green efforts you made at home. Carbon emissions from just 1 long haul flight are a lot worse than driving around in a Hummer. I do think it’s great for people to walk more, bicycle more, and drive a lot less…but we all also need to think about how necessary certain airplane trips are etc…
15 Todd // Oct 6, 2008 at 10:05 am
Oh, and can you imagine what a disaster it would be if the nanny state of California tried to limit how much flying we do? What if they start trying to monitor and/or limit each citizens carbon output? It just might happen…
16 Jeremy Osborne // Oct 7, 2008 at 8:04 am
Agreed on everything you said. Since I’ve done a bunch of bitching, we can shine the light on me for a second. I consider plastic and airplanes in the evolutionary stages of improvement in this culture. (Plastic I bring in, because there isn’t a bit of real PCB-esque plastic that we’ve made that has yet disappeared.) If you want to eat, and you want to do business, it’s extremely difficult to avoid plastics and airplanes.
But that doesn’t mean give up, it just means that airplanes and plastics require a fight and thinking. I will have taken 3 flights when the year is out: 1 flight to China, 1 flight to San Diego, 1 flight to Williams, AZ. The first two were for business, and if I didn’t put up a fight, I would have had to taken a second trip to China.
Nanny laws are lame, I’d love to see competition laws. I mean, if you were a legislator, what would you propose in terms of positive reinforcement? Every kindergarten teacher on the planet knows negative reinforcement is lame. But positive reinforcement? What would you want to see in terms of fostering money making, tax revenue generating competition? (And please don’t say another bailout
)
17 Todd // Oct 7, 2008 at 10:03 am
You can also look at airplane flight like zoos. (random analogy here but i think it works)
Zoos are sorta bad for animals, but I generally support them (humane zoos) because it raises so much good awareness of animals in adults and childern, that at the end of the day I think it’s a huge help to animals for humans to see them at the Zoo. Humans feel more compassion for them after seeing them up close.
With airplanes, actually going to places like China, India, Europe, etc.. helps us as Americans understand the rest of the world and be more compassionate/understanding.
18 Jeremy Osborne // Oct 8, 2008 at 8:04 am
Walked by the pile of magazines that sits in the office, and on the cover of the magazine&em;it’s the “End of Science” run&em;one of the sub-topics is, “How can we protect BUSINESS from risk?” (emphasis of the word business not provided by me).
Linked in with what you said above provides the basis of a sound argument for why nanny laws will only generate more corruption, at least if you have some common sense or a bit of wisdom.
Airplanes misused by human beings can be bad, yet the pollution is sometimes worth it if it can provide a positive impact for the human species.
Zoos might not be the best for the individual animal inhabitants, but perhaps for an endangered species, the zoo is better than extinction.
In a thriving economy, individual businesses must die, and the “economy” itself must also take hits, but the ECONOMY will be given room to grow when dead weight is expelled.
And Nanny Laws, especially the bad ones? Anytime you spend extra amounts of energy preventing small accidents, there are always larger ones waiting around the corner&em;there’s some theory to that that I don’t remember. Do you? Nanny Laws are the inverse of zoos, they might actually be good for an individual here or there, but they are bad for the entire system made up of Human Beings.
19 Todd // Oct 8, 2008 at 9:10 am
New Nanny Law: In the interest of productivity and saving keyboards, I propose that the State of California enact legislation to limit the number of comment contributions citizens can leave on any blog.
20 Jeremy Osborne // Oct 8, 2008 at 9:38 am
And my response:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psTUiQzNoxw
21 Todd // Oct 8, 2008 at 9:46 am
rebel!!
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