This is a great column at Times Online about the tendency of nannies to overreact to any unfortunate incident. It’s about Britain, but a very similar piece could be written using examples from the United States:
Leave a comment…We now think it’s normal behaviour to take off our clothes at an airport. But it isn’t. Nor is it normal to stand outside in the rain to have a cigarette or to do 30mph on a dual carriageway when it’s the middle of the night and everyone else is in bed. It’s stupid.
And last week the stupidity made yet another lunge into the fabric of society with the news that government ministers were considering new laws that would force everyone to take a test before they were allowed to keep a dog.
No, really. Because one dog once ate one child, some hopeless little twerp from the department of dogs had to think of something sincere to say on the steps of the coroner’s court. Inevitably, they will have argued that the current law is “not fit for purpose”, whatever that means, and that “steps must be taken to ensure this never happens again”.
The steps being considered mean that every dog owner in the land will have to fit their pet with a microchip so that its whereabouts can be determined from dog-spotting spy-in-the-sky drones, and that before being allowed to take delivery of a puppy, people will have to sit an exam similar to the driving theory test. The cost could reach £60, and on top of this you will need compulsory third-party insurance in case your spaniel eats the milkman.
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First, the law:
In Louisiana, you don’t need a license to peddle pets, paintings or cars — but sell no flowers.
A 7-decades-old state law requires florists to pass a test and get a license to arrange and sell flowers, making Louisiana the only state in the USA with such a requirement. Supporters of the law say it ensures florists know what they’re doing and deliver quality products.
You know what really ensures that florists know what they doing? Customers. Asking government to enforce competence is like asking an alcoholic to enforce sobriety.
The Institute for Justice is challenging the requirement:
A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court here last week is challenging the law’s constitutionality, claiming it infringes on a resident’s right to earn a living. The suit, filed by the Institute of Justice, a libertarian non-profit law firm based in Washington, D.C., lists as plaintiffs four local florists who have either failed the test or refuse to take it.
…Attorneys hope the lawsuit reaches the Supreme Court, said Tim Keller, lead counsel in the case.
…Keller is with the Institute for Justice, which has taken the case pro bono. The licensing law “is blooming nonsense,” the institute says on its website.
“This case is about more than just licensing florists,” he said. “It can set a precedent that restores economic liberty to its rightful place as a fundamental American right.”
That would be something to see. It’s been a long time since economic liberty has mattered in the U.S.
Licensing laws are contrary to everything America stands for. The idea that someone first needs government permission before offering a voluntary service is as contemptible as it is tyrannical.
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Another nutty idea out of Philly, this time from the head Nutter himself:
Mayor Nutter, balking at cutting “core services” and running out of ways to raise money, is expected to balance next year’s budget with a steep tax on sugary drinks and a $300 annual residential trash fee, sources familiar with the plan said yesterday.
City Councilman W. Wilson Goode Jr. said he anticipated a 2-cent-per-ounce tax on sweet drinks as part of Nutter’s 2010-2011 budget, to be presented tomorrow. That’s $2.88 on a 12-pack of soda cans.
Hey, you guys over in Philly can run your government however you like, but if they tried that stuff where I’m at there’d be hell to pay. I don’t play around with the price of my Dr.Pepper.
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If International Organizations were forced to offer truth in advertising, the World Health Organization would require a change of names to the World Nanny Organization. Check out what they’ve been up to:
Governments must do more to protect workers in bars, restaurants and the entertainment sector from harmful smoke, and curb tobacco advertising and sponsorship, the World Health Organisation said on Friday.
…”Most alarming of all, tobacco use is actually increasing in many developing countries. If Big Tobacco is in retreat in some parts of the world, it is on the march in others,” Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, told a meeting to review implementation of a landmark tobacco treaty five years after it came into force.
“As we all know, the tobacco industry is ruthless, devious, rich and powerful,” she said.
The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, under review at the WHO, is the world’s first and only public health treaty and has been ratified by 168 countries including China.
It obliges governments to protect their populations from exposure to tobacco smoke and reduce demand through price and tax measures, regulating packaging and labeling of tobacco products and curbing tobacco advertising and sponsorship.
They go on to complain that there aren’t enough “national smoke-free laws,” and that “only 21 countries have tobacco tax rates greater than 75 percent of the retail price.”
More restrictions! More draconian taxes! WNO has spoken.
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Miami is in crisis! But fear not, the government is here to save the day:
Miami residents may have to think twice before giving up their leftovers to the homeless.
The Miami City Commission is set to consider a proposal next month that would prohibit unauthorized people and groups from feeding the homeless downtown, an ordinance proponents say will cut down on litter and ensure the safety of the food the homeless do eat.
The Miami Downtown Development Authority recently approved the measure, sending it up to the commission.
Though the change could draw objections, David Karsh, spokesman for Development Authority Chairman Marc Sarnoff, said the rule isn’t a blanket ban. He said that anybody would be able to feed the homeless, but they would have to go through formal training first — amateurs couldn’t just give up part of their lunch to help someone they meet on the street.
“The ordinance is not by any means meant to discourage people from feeding homeless people,” he told FoxNews.com, adding that homeless advocacy groups support the measure. “Anybody can do it.”
“Formal training” to give food to someone who is hungry?
This is a classic example of how nanny governments crowd out private charity.
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Health care can be expensive. There are lots of reasons why this is. Some of them we don’t want to change, such as the fact that modern health care is capable of miracles. Miracles aren’t cheap. Other causes we don’t want to change, such as the fact that third-party payers eliminate normal market pressure to keep prices down.
Obama has another idea, however. Control insurance prices!
President Obama will propose on Monday giving the federal government new power to block excessive rate increases by health insurance companies, as he rolls out comprehensive legislation to revamp the nation’s health care system, White House officials said Sunday.
Two reasons this is dumb:
1) Price controls don’t work. It’s like trying to legislate away gravity. Michael Tanner explains some of the consequences:
Insurers unable to charge more for an increasingly expensive product can be expected to trim costs in one of two ways:
- They can drop their most expensive customers — in this case, the sickest, who consume the most health care. Many companies are already doing this, a major source of dissatisfaction with the health-care system. In fact, the president wants to prohibit companies from doing this.
- They can cut back on their reimbursement rates to hospitals and physicians. But neither doctors nor hospitals, any more than insurance companies, are willing to operate at a loss. If payments fall below their costs, they’ll simply stop taking patients. One only has to look at government programs like Medicare and Medicaid to see how this works.
2) Insurance prices go up because health care prices go up. Not only is Obama attempting to apply the wrong remedy, but he’s targeting the wrong problem. It’s stupidity squared.
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The New York Times reports on the loss of stigma associated with food stamp programs. The paper sees this as a positive development. Certainly the political left sees it that way. But social stigmas serve an important function by discouraging particular behaviors. In this case, they help discourage people from being a drain on others.
Social safety nets always involve balancing compassionate relief with the risk of encouraging people not to work or earn for themselves. The stigma from receiving food stamps served to discourage (some) people from being free loaders any longer than they absolutely needed to.
America has long stigmatized free loading because we value the work ethic. If that social dynamic is changing, and the loss of any stigma associated with food stamps may suggest that it is, then it does not bode well for America’s economic future.
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Not for the first time, a union is targeting volunteering. At Big Government, Liberty Chick reports:
Warren Eschenbach, an 86-year-old a retired Wausau Water Works employee volunteers his time as a crossing guard at the Riverview Elementary School in Wausau, Wisconsin. After the Wausau School District built an area just outside an intersection at the school’s location for parents to pickup their kids from the school, the intersection became busier than usual for a short time every day. So, Eschenbach did a noble thing. He went over to the school and spoke with parents, kids and administrators, and he volunteered to patrol the area at pickup time to make sure kids got to their parents’ cars and that others crossed the streets safely. After all, he worked for five years as a crossing guard at the Franklin Elementary School up until three years ago. He lives two doors down and it’s for a half hour every day. Who could take issue with that?
Well, apparently union bosses can.
John Spiegelhoff, a local union rep for American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 1287 (AFSCME) wants to know if the 86-year-old retiree has undergone a background check. And if he has liability insurance. AFSCME insists that Eschenbach is “undermining the union” and has demanded that the city get rid of him and replace him with a paid union worker at $12.65 an hour. The city has been cutting back crossing guard hours from 15 hours a week to 10 a week. Of course, the elderly volunteer isn’t a volunteer with the city, he volunteers with the school. Since the pickup location is newly restructured, there hadn’t ever been the need to have a crossing guard there. There was no prior job this gentleman has taken away from the union. Really, the guy just lives right there and thought he’d help out.
Unions are about ensuring jobs, regardless of whether they are actually productive or can be fulfilled by another means. They will also use the tools of the nanny state (background checks! liability insurance!) to ensure that no good deed goes unpunished.
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The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids is throwing out press releases left and right (like this one for North Dakota) highlighting all the money state government’s could soak up if they slapped a $1 tax on cigarettes. If states did this, they inform us that all kind of wondrous benefits would follow, such as fewer kids taking up smoking and more adult smokers dropping the habit. Oh, and we’d save millions in health care costs! Reuters took up the call and trumpeted that the tax “could reap billions” for states.
So what is the problem? It’s two-fold, as I see it. One, raising revenues is not going to make a difference in budget outlooks if lawmakers do not also adopt a fundamentally different approach to governing. Business as usual would just mean spending any additional funds to buy new votes. There is simply no reason to believe the money would be spent only for the purposes for which government was actually instituted. In fact, government has enough money for those purposes already.
Second, nanny taxes like these (which are just excise taxes targeting particularly unpopular or risky activities) limit individual freedom and start us down a slippery slope of deciding what activities people are allowed to partake in. Some people do things, like smoke, which involve some harm to themselves. But it also clearly provides a benefit, or they wouldn’t do it, and the only person capable of weighing the cost and the benefits of an individual activity is the actual individual. After all, the pleasure we take from any particular activity is subjective to ourselves and cannot be universally measured. I take no pleasure in smoking, but others do. That is their right, and they should not be targeted for punishment under the guise of balancing budgets.
If it’s smokers today, who might it be tomorrow? Motorcycle riders? Hunters? Fast food eaters? …Blog readers?
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The only thing worse than nanny attacks on freedom is when the restriction is completely ineffectual:
A national crackdown on distracted driving takes an unexpected turn today. A new study shows that the number of traffic crashes did not drop in three states and the District of Columbia after they banned drivers from using handheld cellphones.
They go on to express surprise at the results. But ought we really be surprised? The ban is difficult to enforce, which means people are likely to ignore it. Moreover, there are infinite ways to be distracted by driving. Someone who isn’t holding a phone to their ear could be using blue-tooth instead, or changing radio stations, or playing with their GPS, etc. etc.
At the end of the day we have to ask ourselves, if their own safety isn’t motivation enough to pay attention to the road, are laws really going to make any difference?
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I am a libertarian-conservative blogger living in the DC area. I have a Master's degree in Political Science, but please don't hold that against me.
