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Overgovernment Archive

Tuesday

31

July 2012

1

COMMENTS

Overgovernment: Nanny Knows Breast Edition

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements, The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

I could probably populate this blog entirely with the stupid things Nanny Bloomberg does if I so wanted. His latest outrageous policy is to hide baby formula from new mothers in an effort to force them to breast feed:

New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg is locking up the baby formula, because he wants newborns to drink breast milk instead.

He’s using his mayoral power to direct maternity-ward nurses to hide baby-milk formula after Sept. 2 so that new moms feel pressured to provide breast milk to their newborns.

Bloomberg’s mammary-mandate is supported by white-coated public-health officials, who say the scientific data shows that mothers’ milk aids infants’ digestive systems and shields them from some diseases.

His wishes are law because he controls much of the city’s health network in a city-wide version of Obamacare.

Thus illustrates a central problem with granting government control over health care, which is that it gives government the power to throw its weight around when it comes to the most intimate and personal of decisions.

As with most things, there are both pros and cons to breast-feeding, and no one but the individual mother should have any say in the matter. But as usual Nanny Bloomberg thinks he knows breast… er, best.

Thursday

26

July 2012

0

COMMENTS

Overgovernment: Save Our Balls Edition

Written by , Posted in Big Government, The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

Put your mind to ease! America is no longer going to be held hostage by little magnetic balls, thanks to the fine efforts of our beneficent overlords:

The Consumer Product Safety Commission on Wednesday sued the maker of the popular magnetic desk toy Buckyballs to stop the sale of the product because of the risks posed to children.

Some major retailers, including Amazon, Brookstone and Urban Outfitters, have agreed to stop selling these and similar products at CPSC’s request. Children who swallow the tiny magnetic balls can require surgery when they become stuck in their intestines.

Menace to society

Well thank goodness. Without the millions spent on the CPSC, America might have to suffer another horrendous bout of almost two dozen Buckyball accidents over the next four years. Can you imagine the horror?

So here we have a product marketed to adults that, if used improperly by children (i.e. swallowed) can be harmful. Can anyone think of any other adult products that can be harmful to children? Oh, I don’t know, how about all of them!

With millions of Buckyballs sold to date, the CPSC is reacting to 20 or so incidents. That’s it. Meanwhile, how many thousands of kids die in traffic accidents each year? Who cares that cars are for adults, a child could still get the key and take it for a spin! We must outlaw cars! Why won’t you just think of the children?

And remember chemistry sets? Sorry, you can forget about teaching little Johnny about science, what if the tyke chugs a chemical!? And forget about bikes, too…they’re just death on wheels!

If it were up to the big government nanny’s, we’d all live in padded rooms while being fed through straws and forced to watch Obama documentaries for the rest of our lives. Life is full of risk. If each one, no matter how minuscule, provides a sufficient excuse to curtail our liberty, then we’ll quickly find that we have none left.

P.S. You can still purchase Buckyballs here, and help support their efforts to, as they say, “fight hard to keep our products on the market… and our balls in your hands.”

P.P.S. They’ve also released this ad in response:

Sunday

8

July 2012

0

COMMENTS

Overgovernment: Sad Feet Edition

Written by , Posted in The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort, The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

The latest edition of Overgovernment comes from, big surprise, the People’s Republic of Michael Bloombergistan New York, where dancing is a criminal offense:

It was nearly midnight when Stern and Hess, a film-industry prop master, headed home last July from Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Midsummer Night’s Swing. As they waited for the train, a musician started playing steel drums on the nearly empty platform and Stern and Hess began to feel the beat.

“We were doing the Charleston,” Stern said. That’s when two police officers approached and pulled a “Footloose.”

“They said, ‘What are you doing?’ and we said, ‘We’re dancing,’ ” she recalled. “And they said, ‘You can’t do that on the platform.’ ”

…When Hess began trying to film the encounter, things got ugly, Stern said.

“We brought out the camera, and that’s when they called backup,” she said. “That’s when eight ninja cops came from out of nowhere.”

Hess was allegedly tackled to the platform floor, and cuffs were slapped on both of them. The initial charge, according to Stern, was disorderly conduct for “impeding the flow of traffic.”

“There was nobody on the platform. There were, like, three people,” she said.

The charges, including resisting arrest, were later dropped. The couple has filed a Manhattan federal court suit against the city for unspecified damages.

“If you are surrounded by good musicians, that’s going to make you want to dance,” Stern said. “The musician who is playing is legal, but . . . we’re illegal?”

After you have consumed your government allowed allotment of sugary soda, you may only slowly shuffle back to your domicile of origin. Remember, Nanny Bloomberg is watching.

Wednesday

20

June 2012

1

COMMENTS

Overgovernment: Brown Thumb Edition

Written by , Posted in Big Government, The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

Who knew that wanna-be tyrants bureaucrats hate plants?

Last August, Morrison’s front and back yards were filled with flowers in bloom, lemon, stevia, garlic chives, grapes, strawberries, apple mint, spearmint, peppermint, an apple tree, walnut tree, pecan trees and much more.

She got a letter from the city saying there had been a complaint about her yard.

She said she took pictures to meet with city inspectors, but they wouldn’t listen, so she invited them to her home so they could point out the problem areas.

“Everything, everything needs to go,” Morrison said they told her.

…She said she went to court on August 15, and the judge told them to come back in October. But the very next day, men were cutting down most of her plants.

They even cut down some of her trees -– ones that bore fruit and nuts -– and went up next to her house and basically removed everything in her front flower bed.

…Morrison said she had a problem at her last property with code enforcement, so this time, she read the ordinance, which says plants can’t be over 12-inches tall unless they’re used for human consumption. She made sure everything she grew could be eaten, which she told the inspectors.

“Every word out of their mouth was, ‘we don’t care,'” Morrison said.

…Morrison said she used many of the plants that were destroyed to treat her diabetes, high-blood pressure and arthritis.

“Not only are the plants my livelihood, they’re my food and I was unemployed at the time and had no food left, no medicine left, and I didn’t have insurance,” Morrison said. “They took away my life and livelihood.”

But government protects the little guy! Government is so good, in fact, that we should hand it control over our personal health care. What could go wrong?

Less flippantly, this sort of tyranny is only possible because earlier governments have succeeded in devaluing economic and property rights. The New Deal era sold a scared public on the idea that economic liberty stood in the way of economic security. After some bullying, the Supreme Court then provided its rubber stamp. And so we’ve handed government control over the economy and anything that might rationally or irrationally be said to impact it in exchange for handouts and the illusion of fiscal security.

Economic and property rights, as this case demonstrates, are truly at the heart of all liberty. What manner of liberty can we be said to have if a citizen cannot grow sustenance from his or her own land? Other than life, I can think of no more basic liberty in all of human history than that of providing sustenance for oneself.

Friday

1

June 2012

4

COMMENTS

Overgovernment: Big Soda Edition

Written by , Posted in Big Government, The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is at it again. A frequent cause of overgovernment, the King of the Nanny Staters now wants to ban sugary sodas over 18 oz from restaurants and movie theaters:

If Mayor Bloomberg gets his way, and it looks like he will, large sodas and other sugary drinks will be a thing of the past, at least at restaurants, movie theaters, cafes, and stadiums across the five boroughs.

Under the mayor’s proposed plan, drinks at these locations would not be over 16 ounces. If businesses break the rule, they’ll be hit with a $200 fine.

Thomas Farley, the city’s health commissioner, said the measure is a new way to fight obesity. He estimates that over 60 percent of New Yorkers are overweight.

…

The backlash from businesses was swift and strong. McDonald’s said the ban is misguided. The New York City Beverage Association said the Department of Health has an unhealthy obsession with attacking soft drinks. Robert Bookman, an attorney for NYC Restaurants, predicted that a legal challenge is on its way.

“It is clearly outside the scope of the Department of Health’s legal authority to pass something like this,” Bookman said. “And I have no doubt that it will be found in violation of the commerce clause of the United States Constitution.”

He’s talking about you, Nanny Bloomberg

There are several issues one can take with this, with the obvious being the unconstitutional assault on individual liberty. But other issues include 1) the wrongful attempt to turn a personal and indivudual health issues into a “public health epidemic,” 2) the practical stupidity of limiting the size of containers as a way to reduce consumption when people can simply use two containers, and 3) the inconsistency of banning one sugary item, but ignoring and even celebrating the availability of countless other unhealthy foods (not that we should be giving His Nanniness any ideas on what to ban next).

George Scoville also makes a good point about the inherent gutlessness behind Bloomberg’s nannyism:

If Politicians Really Cared about Obesity…

…they would just outlaw being fat. …The quick and easy solution to the obesity epidemic would be to threaten people with imprisonment for being fat… BMI too high? Five years for you! Maybe we can throw people into the hole and put them on a bread and water diet until they slim down!

…Bloomberg doesn’t have the guts to be this kind of tyrant, so along with his campaigns against salt, trans-fats, and smoking, he’s taking incremental steps . . . to preserve his own job. People, after all, tend to notice a little less when the policy change isn’t so sweeping. Otherwise, Bloomberg would find himself unemployed and out of politics.

In the face of almost universal ridicule, Bloomberg doubled-down on totalitarianism and offered this gem:

“We’re not taking away anybody’s right to do things, we’re simply forcing you to understand that you have to make the conscious decision to go from one cup to another cup.”

Tyranny emphasized.

Thursday

24

May 2012

0

COMMENTS

Overgovernment: Anonymous Commenting Edition

Written by , Posted in Big Government

Is anonymous internet posting a good thing?  There’s plenty of room to debate the question, weighing the potentially negative impact it has had on civility in political debate and society in general, versus the benefits of encouraging more speech and protecting people from retaliation for expressing their views. But just because something might be said to be harmful, doesn’t mean government ought to have a role in doing anything about it. This is one of those cases, though a number of New York Republicans seem to disagree:

Nearly half of the Republicans serving in the New York State Assembly have proposed legislation that would ban anonymous online comments.

If enacted, the legislation would require websites — including social networks and online newspapers — to remove all anonymous comments that are brought to the attention of administrators.

An anonymous comment could remain if the author “agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name, and home address are accurate.”

This awful idea is an affront to the very notion of free speech, and Wired humorously but devastatingly notes that this legislation would have banned the pseudonymous Federalist Papers from being distributed online.

The arguments given by the bills supporters are the legislative equivalent of burning down a house to kill termites. Consider this:

Republican state Assemblyman Jim Conte praised the legislation, writing that it would eliminate “mean-spirited and baseless political attacks that add nothing to the real debate.”

The legislation would “demand that those who spread rumor, conjecture or outright lies online be willing to come forward and defend the comments they post,” Republican Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney added. “We, as a society, have never expected anything less when potentially harmful words are put into print.”

But there are already satisfactory remedies to all of these supposed problems. The answer to bad speech is good speech. Mean-spirited and baseless attacks can be countered with fact-based rebuttals. Harmful lies, meanwhile, are covered under slander and libel laws, and even anonymous users can today be compelled to be revealed if they cross legal lines. There is, in other words, no rational basis for the legislation even if we ignore the issue of its unconstitutional and liberty-restricting nature.

Sunday

13

May 2012

1

COMMENTS

Overgovernment: Distracted Walking Edition

Written by , Posted in Big Government, The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort, The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

The old joke says that blondes can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, but the government of Fort Lee, N.J. might soon be taking it seriously if their new law is anything to go by. After all, they take a rather dim view of the capabilities of their citizens:

Avid texters beware: Fort Lee, N.J. police said they will begin issuing $85 jaywalking tickets to pedestrians who are caught texting while walking.

“It’s a big distraction. Pedestrians aren’t watching where they are going and they are not aware,” said Thomas Ripoli, chief of the Fort Lee Police Department.

Ripoli said the borough, which is home to approximately 35,000 residents, has suffered three fatal pedestrian-involved accidents this year. He hopes his crackdown on people who display dangerous behavior while walking will make his town safer…

They even pulled out the big guns, grabbing some hotshot college aca-deem-ics to “study” the problem.

Two professors at Stony Brook University in New York conducted a study on walking and texting. They found texters are 60 percent more likely to veer off line than non-texters.

I’m glad they settled the important question of whether people who don’t look where they are going are more likely not to walk straight. It was keeping me up all night.

Three pedestrians got themselves killed this year. Tragic, no doubt, but not cause for legislative action. First of all, how many pedestrians normally get killed? Were those three even on their phones? Alas, there was no real journalist around to ask the question.

This sort of social micro-management is unbecoming a free society, and probably has more to do with police budget shortfalls than an earnest effort to protect people. And even if it were born of good intentions, protecting people from themselves is no business of government. It is a waste of police resources to be nagging citizens into self-awareness.

Monday

7

May 2012

0

COMMENTS

Overgovernment: Cookie Police Edition

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements, The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

The nannies in Massachusetts are on a sugar-hating kick, picking on that most popular of targets in recent years – so-called junk food:

Bake sales, the calorie-laden standby cash-strapped classrooms, PTAs and booster clubs rely on, will be outlawed from public schools as of Aug. 1 as part of new no-nonsense nutrition standards, forcing fundraisers back to the blackboard to cook up alternative ways to raise money for kids.

At a minimum, the nosh clampdown targets so-called “competitive” foods — those sold or served during the school day in hallways, cafeterias, stores and vending machines outside the regular lunch program, including bake sales, holiday parties and treats dished out to reward academic achievement. But state officials are pushing schools to expand the ban 24/7 to include evening, weekend and community events such as banquets, door-to-door candy sales and football games.

The heavy-handed, paternalistic rules are bad enough, but what really irks me is this mentality:

State Sen. Susan Fargo (D-Lincoln), chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Public Health, said the problem of overweight children has reached “crisis” proportions.

“If we didn’t have so many kids that were obese, we could have let things go,” Fargo said.

“But,” she added, “this is a major public health problem and these kids deserve a chance at a good, long healthy life.”

No, obesity is not a “public health problem,” it is an individual health problem. Public health problems exist when one persons sickness can make me sick or unhealthy. But one person being fat has no impact whatsoever on whether or not I am fat.

There is a related problem where I am expected to bear the cost of another’s health choices, but that doesn’t make it a public health issue, that just makes inherently unfair regulations requiring some to subsidize the healthcare of others, even when the cause of the need for care is based on choice.

What State Sen. Susan Fargo (D-Lincoln), chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Public Health, is doing is using one set of boneheaded policies put in place by people like State Sen. Susan Fargo (D-Lincoln), chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Public Health, in order to justify a further collectivized society, and more power in the hands of people like State Sen. Susan Fargo (D-Lincoln), chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Public Health. Funny how that works.

Tuesday

10

April 2012

1

COMMENTS

Overgovernment: No Bags For You Edition

Written by , Posted in General/Misc.

Sometimes I think nannies just put things on a giant roulette wheel and spin to find the next thing to ban. For the enviro-nuts in Los Angeles, the new(ish) evil is disposable bags.

You know that horrible feeling when you get to the grocery store ready to use reusable bags and realize you forgot them at home? Well, pretty soon forgetting them won’t be an option for customers at 7,500 supermarkets throughout California.

According to the LA Times, the  Los Angeles City Council’s Energy and Environment Committee approved a ban on plastic and paper bags at grocery stores last Wednesday, saying it would make consumers more likely to use reusable bags. It has not yet been voted by the City Council as a whole.

My own little bastion of tyranny, otherwise known as Montgomery County, Maryland, recently decided to slap a pointless and obnoxious $.05 tax on bags. So I have to actually tell the cashier at Subway that yes, I want a freaking bag; I’m not going to just carry around a bagless sandwich like a hobo.

What has the world come to?

Tuesday

20

March 2012

3

COMMENTS

Overgovernment: It’s Better To Be Hungry Than To Be Salty Edition

Written by , Posted in Big Government, The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

Nanny Bloomberg strikes again:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s food police have struck again!

Outlawed are food donations to homeless shelters because the city can’t assess their salt, fat and fiber content, reports CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer.

Glenn Richter arrived at a West Side synagogue on Monday to collect surplus bagels — fresh nutritious bagels — to donate to the poor. However, under a new edict from Bloomberg’s food police he can no longer donate the food to city homeless shelters.

Big government is a jealous government. You shall have no other providers before big government. You shall depend entirely upon big government for your sustenance, for you know not what you do.

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About Me

profileI serve as Vice President of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a non-profit think tank dedicated to preserving tax competition and free markets. This site features my personal views, which are not reflective of CF&P.

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