The Nanny state strikes...

I have not had a lot of time to write lately, but I could not resist this article in the Arizona Republic. The Maricopa County health inspector is cracking down on grannies and their bake sales. While I am sure that the health inspector is well within its rights to regulate bake sales, I am not sure it is the best use of resources. There is a difference between blindly enforcing the law and prudence. My feeling is that if you are regulating an area as a public official you should strive to protect the public as best possible while causing the least disruption.

I am sure Andy Thomas would love to give everyone the death penalty, but it does not make it prudent. There are sometimes and I know this is a slippery slope, when things should just be left alone. This is a solution in search of a problem...

Helmet Laws, I say no...

There was this editorial in the Arizona Republic about the supposed need of a helmet law for motorcycles in Arizona. Let me say just say as a preface to this that I ride motorcycles and I always wear protective gear, including a helmet. I have also been hit by a car while riding. Having said that, I don't think the state should step in and force people to wear helmets. Do people get hurt while riding? Yes. Is it dumb when people ride without helmets? Without question.

Here is the problem I see, freedom to live a certain way is not always going to be cost neutral. Freedom, for lack of a better way to put it, is not free. I think there is a very slippery slope around the idea that if behavior costs society money, it should be prohibited. What will be next? There are many perfectly enjoyable activities that are not good for us. Furthermore, if forced to wear helmets many riders will choose a brain bucket that is essentially the same as wearing nothing.

The dividing line for me is if you are not endangering the health or life of another person then I am not sure society should intervene. I should have the right to decide my own level of risk.

The Nanny State Fears Stick Figures

This article in the Arizona Republic goes over the persecution of a 14 year old boy for a series of drawings. I have to say that this kind of stuff drives me nuts. It strikes me as antithetical to what we are supposed to stand for. It also just defies common sense.

Let me get this straight for everyone. If you bring Tylenol to school you are not a drug user in the illegal sense of the word. You are not dangerous because you draw a gun, utter the word gun or because you utter an empty threat against the football team because they bully you.

It is a time honored tradition for nerdy kids to hate athletes. Some deal with this by dreaming of the object of their scorn as fat, balding and working a convenient store while they are graduating from Harvard. Some dream about shooting them... How many of us saw the movie Heathers while were in high school and did not smile at least a little bit when Christian Slater pulled out the gun filled with blanks and shot at two football players? How many of us hurt anyone?

Thoughts do not make you a criminal, actions do. When a student starts purchasing guns, ammunition and explosives, that is when they are a criminal, but not before. No one condones violence, but we should not protect kids from violence by placing them in a de facto police state where certain thoughts are verboten, if not illegal.

UPDATE: There was also this article.
How does the school have the authority to suspend kids who did something illegal when they were not at school? Arrest them, they did something illegal, but the school should not have authority beyond that. The police should notify the school, maybe, but nothing beyond that. It is like my friend who was fired from his job doing procurement because he got a DUI one Saturday night. Wasn't the jail time (in tent city) and the several thousand dollars in fines, not to mention his near inability to get car insurance enough punishment? You also have to take the guy's livelihood? BTW -- Another guy in his department was convicted of assaulting his ex-wife and was not fired, no company policy on beating your wife.

Nanny State Run Amok...

This topic just makes me angry, so much so, that I find it hard to write about it. The Arizona Republic has this article about sexual harassment in elementary and middle schools. Of course our friend Andrew Thomas weighs in with his nutty puritanical two cents.

Have we really become a society that will not allow children to be children? Can we no longer react to the behavior of children in prudent manner that reflects the child's development? Why can't we accept that boys will be rambunctious at times without diagnosing them with ADHD? Are we so afraid of sexuality that we feel we must consider criminal sexual abuse charges for middle school boys "patting girls bottoms".

Kids test boundaries. They must be taught proper behavior, but this is not the way. I find this particular topic very discouraging for the future of our society. Children raised under these sorts of rules will make for very unusual citizens...

This is a tough one!

There is this article in the Republic today about loop 101 speeding cameras. Like a lot of people, I find this solution dubious, even if it is effective. In general, our society seems to be moving towards diminished freedom to ensure safety. This is another example... Part of me believes that the effectiveness of the cameras justify their existence. I don't like people flying by me on the highway at 100mph+ speeds. I would like to see tighter enforcement of reckless driving. These cameras in vacuum would be fine, but they don't exist alone. There are part of larger movement to restrict freedom for a variety of both good and bad reasons.

There are smoking bans (which I like), bans on spanking in CA, speeding cameras, red-light cameras, federal warrantless wiretapping and on and on. The problem at the moment is that technology is moving faster than our laws and societal ethics. Our society needs to have a serious conversation about what freedoms are important enough to keep and which freedoms we are willing to water down or give up. The problem is that being free means sometimes excepting risk.

Think about motorcycle helmet laws. They make really good public policy sense, but I am against them because I think they intrude on personal freedom. I always wear a helmet when I ride, but I think others should have the option. Where is the line drawn when it comes to safety and freedom? If don't start thinking about this, we will end up with a haphazardly built system that will not properly protect freedom or provide for proper safety.