Nanny State'll Getcha

Here's a story that creeped me out--how far surveillance by local bureaucrats has gone in Merrie Olde England.

Totalitarianism creeps in under the guise of benevolence. Beware your local gummint, the local enviro police, the school board, the zoners. It's not the hobnailed boots that'll getcha, it's the helping professions. They'll brainwash you in your childhood, therap you into conformity in your adulthood, and euthanize you when you're old.

YARN: Yet Again, Ralph Nader

Ralph Nader has always stuck in my craw. He has always seemed to be the quintessential Nanny Stater, who would impose his quirky asceticism on us all.

Now he's running for President yet again. Spare me the Harold Stassen of the left.

Entrusting Health Care To . . . Idiots?

Mitt "Headroom" Romney boasts of his healthcare plan in Massachusetts.

There's a swarm of flies in Mitt's ointment--doctors aren't signing up to treat patients under the plan. Here's why:

In Massachusetts, the state-subsidized plans, collectively called Commonwealth Care, are provided by private insurance companies. Patients can choose from among six options. Residents who make between one and three times the poverty level ($48,000 for a family of three) are now eligible for coverage under the plan. Doctors are reimbursed by insurance providers -- at below-market rates comparable with Medicaid reimbursements.

Imagine that. We could have government-sponsored steak at $ 1.59 per pound, or gasoline at $ 1.00 a gallon, but Exxon and Safeway won't play.

Would you trust your child's health to a doctor who was stupid enough to sign up for such a plan?

Mitt's supposed to have been a successful businessman. He must be lucky, because he sure don't know economics.

HT: Dr. Bob.

Pox-Raddled Whores

The pernicious new Puritanism (is) slowly squeezing the life and soul out of Britain. Ye gods, as my grandmother used to say, almost all the middle classes have left is their glass of wine in the evening. That bottle of organic Pech-Latt (£6.49 from Ocado, very reasonable and actually extremely drinkable) is the equivalent of the 19th-century factory worker’s shot of gin. Because let’s face it, this Government is doing its best to make our lives about as miserable as any pox-raddled Hogarthian whore’s. Utter the word “middle class” in Whitehall and watch their greedy little pimps’ eyes light up with pound signs. Behold the British middle-classes – a docile, law-abiding army of tax slaves. Hurrah, let’s blow it all on some more social workers in Newcastle.

--The Times, via Stuttaford

I love good English invective.

Dope-Sniffing Camels and the Nanny State

A Dennis Krantz copy once got a suspect to flee (and thus create probable cause for a search) by claiming his Thanksgiving turkey was a "dope sniffing turkey."

My post on the antics of our moralizing constables here.

Nanny Bloomberg

New York City is moving towards telling restaurants what kind of fat to use in their cooking. I kid ye not:

The New York City Board of Health voted yesterday to adopt the nation’s first major municipal ban on the use of all but tiny amounts of artificial trans fats in restaurant cooking, a move that would radically transform the way food is prepared in thousands of restaurants, from McDonald’s to fashionable bistros to Chinese take-outs.

Some experts said the measure, which is widely opposed by the restaurant industry, would be a model for other cities. Chicago is considering a similar prohibition that would affect restaurants with more than $20 million in annual sales.

“New York City has set a national standard,” said Harold Goldstein, executive director of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, who predicted that other communities would follow suit.

Does that mean a bunch of vegetarians in high places could ban red meat?

If they're worried about public health, why not ban sex outside of marriage, to prevent STDs and children growing up in one-parent households? Oh, that's right--sexual freedom is sacred to liberals, but other kinds are optional.

Mayor Bloomberg is a power-crazed freak. If it weren't for Michael Richards, I'd suggest a public hanging.

UPDATE: The learned Judge Posner applies "Chicago school" economic analysis, comes out tentatively in favor of the ban. Yours truly responds with mockery, intended to be respectful, even though I don't practice before Federal courts in the Windy City:

There is medical evidence that we would have less heart disease if we followed the the Ornish diet.

Should the Nanny State therefore ban bacon, cheese, and ice cream? If your analysis is correct, there would be no reason why not.

And why not follow Mao's example and compel the whole nation to exercise at specified times? Or Woody Allen's, and compel everyone to change their underwear daily, and to make sure they do so, to wear it on the outside of their clothes?

Oh, and ban alcohol? (Whoops, been there, done that.)

There is a moral and cultural value, however, in people not surrendering their autonomy and responsibility to a bureaucracy.