5 posts tagged “nanny state”

Recently reading an Alternet article, Super Prude Prosecutors Charge Teens With Pornography and Worse For Sexy Text Messages by JoAnn Wypijewski, I learned that 3 teen boys and 3 teen girls from Greensburg Salem High School in Pennsylvania were charged with child pornography.

The articles stated that, "the girls, ages 14 and 15, are charged with taking pictures of themselves, nude or seminude; the boys, 15, 16 and 17, with receiving them."

In other words, no pedophile adults were involved in any way in this "crime", nor were the teens forced or duped into creating and sending these photos.  They were just teens being teens, exploring their sexuality as adolescents have done for generations.

The images were found when the students' cell phones had been confiscated by school officials, currently a common practice for unauthorized use of cell phones on school grounds during school hours.

What was not standard practice was the fact that these students' phones were not merely locked in a drawer, untouched, until they were returned to the students or their parents.   School officials snooped into the private files of the phones in question where they discovered the private images, not meant for public consumption.  The students involved were not suspected of any crimes, but merely for breaking the school rule about cell phone use by students.

The article also stated:

No one knows how many kids are poised for long sentences, life sentences (a possibility under federal law), plea deals that cast them in the pariah-land of sex offenders. Prosecutors have gone after teens in at least Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.

My response to this article follows below:

Conservatives Looking for Government to Solve Their Problems

Conservatives are always hooting and hollering about the evils of "big government" and constantly extol the virtues of handling matters as much as possible in the private sector.

By criminalizing all types of adolescent sexual exploration and activity in the manner outlined in this article; behavior that has traditionally been handled solely by the parents of the teens involved, conservatives are looking to the government to play a role that should rightly remain that of a parent.

Hypocrisy, much?

The potential to stamp out normal teenage sexuality with such draconian laws is very low, even if a large percentage of our society considered this a worthy goal. (I don't).

However, the potential for ruining the future adult lives of normal teenagers is very high, and extremely inadvisable.

Let's leave a parent's role to parents and not expect the government to parent our children in regards to sexual expression among consenting parties.

Let us not return to 17th century Puritan sexual ethics. It's a bad fit for the 21st century.

Four years ago, Rebecca Witt and Gary Johnson became the parents of a little girl.  The cost of the baby's birth were covered by Medicaid. 

Since that time, the hospital has demanded that Johnson repay the $3,800 cost of the birth.  At first the hospital demanded he pay it back at 500 dollars a month.  Johnson, who makes 8 dollars an hour could not pay such a high bill and the monthly payment was eventually reduced to 50 a month, which is still a strain on a family budget.

But last week, the hospital notified Johnson that the monthly payment was going back up to $500, even though his income has not increased.

Enter the State of Michigan.  Five years ago, state lawmakers amended the state's paternity act to waive birthing costs for a father -- if he married the child's mother.   So, if Johnson marries Witt, the hospital will cease trying to collect the bill.

Excuse me?  The hospital originally sought to reimburse the taxpayers for the cost of this birth.  How on Earth does a marriage license change the fact that the birth was paid for by Medicaid?  Does a marriage license suddenly make $3,800 magically re-appear in Medicaid coffers?

Witt and Johnson, though unmarried, have lived together all this time and Johnson supports the family.  Whether or not the couple is legally married does not change their living arrangement nor their income in any way.

For once, this issue isn't about money.  If it was, the state would seek payment regardless of marital status.   Rather, it's all about the government imposing a particular religiously-based version of morality by meddling into the private relationships of citizens.

Indeed, Genesee County Friend of the Court Jack Battles sees it as incentive to maintain the "sanctity of marriage".

Sanctity of marriage?  "Sanctity" is a religious notion and the presence or lack of "sanctity" in marriage isn't the function of the state.  Rather, civil marriage is a legal classification which deals with the practical benefits that come with marriage.  Whatever spiritual element that exists is an entirely private matter between those involved and whatever religious or ethical beliefs they hold.

It would seem instead that to hold couples hostage by causing them to marry under duress in order to save money does more to make a mockery of whatever "sanctity" that may exist in any particular marriage than living together in a common-law relationship could.  

Rebecca Witt doesn't believe her marital status should be any of the state's business.

"I don't think anybody should tell me when to get married," she said.

"It is despicable that the state would wave medical bills like a shotgun in the face of a low-income (family)," said Nicky Grist, executive director of the Brooklyn, NY-based Alternatives to Marriage.

I agree.  The handling of bills such as these should be based on ability to pay, not on marital status.  Let them pay it back with a monthly payment geared toward their income level, even if it takes years to pay it off.

Thoughts?

While reading an article on Alternet, 9 Ways to Halt the Right Wing Culture Wars and Bring Sanity to Sexual Policy by David Rosen, I came upon a reactionary comment to the article that focused on prostitution, which wasn't even the main point of the article.  This caused me to respond more to the comment than the article itself.  Below follows the original comment, plus my response.

The original comment:

Do we really want to make pornography and prostitution more acceptable? 

In a world where everyone had a fair share of resources, prostitution would not exist--it is the result of inequality and poverty. I'd much rather see a guaranteed minimum income, not decriminalization.

Sex (especially with someone you know and like) is great. But buying and selling it is sad.

My response:

Selling's Legal. Screwing is Legal. Why Isn't Selling Screwing Legal? -- George Carlin 

Why do you think it's the government's place to legislate "proper" reasons for having sex? I'm guessing that you think the only "proper" reason to have sex is to express love for one's partner and that throwing laws at people having sex for other reasons is an effective way to handle it.

This is not only staggeringly naive, but it's an improper use of government power, plus a waste of their time and resources.

People have sex for all sorts of reasons -- to procreate, to express love, because they're horny, to relieve stress, and so on. And there's nothing wrong with any of those reasons.

There's also nothing inherently wrong with seeking sex from a paid sex worker, which is done for a variety of reasons as well: those who are unable to find a free partner because of unattractiveness, disability or whatever, those out of town away from their regular partners, those who are horny but don't want to or don't have the time to invest in a more serious relationship and don't care for the bar scene, those who want to try certain sex acts but their regular partner isn't interested, and so on.

Needless to say, sex workers should also have the right to use their bodies however they wish, even for profit.

The only interest the government has in the sex acts of private citizens is to ensure that any sex act that occurs is between fully CONSENTING ADULTS. As long at those conditions are met: consenting and adult, then the government needs to butt out. No consenting adult should have to have a "proper" reason to have sex.

I chose to address one of the two main reasons why people oppose legal prostitution.  The most common reason is that opponents believe that all prostitutes are exploited and are forced to be prostitutes.  While this is undoubtedly true in many case, it's obviously not true in all cases.  Plus they ignore the fact that it's the abuse itself that is the problem, not the selling of sex per se, and that there are already laws a-plenty to address the root causes without prostitution itself having to be illegal to prosecute. 

When the existence of high-class call girls and escort services are pointed out them, where it's obvious the choice of occupation was freely made and no exploitation is occurring, most opponents will shift to the second reason for their opposition, which is the reason I address here, that I believe is the core, though often unconscious, reason for their opposition.

That is, many opponents believe that there are strictly defined "proper" reasons for engaging in sex and those having sex for what they deem "improper" reasons, should be legally prohibited from doing so, even if those involved are fully consenting adults.

Your thoughts?

When I think I've heard everything when it comes to certain politicians wanting to turn this country into a Nanny state, I hear something new to prove me wrong.

Lawmakers in the Florida Senate have proposed a measure that would ban fake bull testicles that dangle from the trailer hitches of some trucks and cars.

Republican Sen. Cary Bake called the adornments offensive and proposed the ban. Motorists would be fined $60 for displaying the novelty items, which are known by brand names like "Truck Nutz".

Are you kidding me? Are these legislators bored and have nothing more important to devote their attention to? Are we paying them to outlaw tacky trucks? Don't they think that the police have enough...and indeed, too many...laws to enforce already?

Personally, I've never seen a set of "Truck Nutz", But one of the female police officers I worked with had a set of fake boobs attached to the grille on the front of her personal car and I thought that was pretty funny. I'm guessing if she'd lived in Florida, these busybodies would want to ban those, too.

And though the truck owners who have these things hanging from their trucks are no doubt micro-penised weenies trying to compensate, it's a free country and if that's how they want to express themselves, they should have the right to do so.

Is it any wonder that our government is going down the tubes?

Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists, and other Boneheaded Bureaucrats are Turning America into a Nation of Children
by David Harsanyi

"The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool...but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog"
--G.K. Chesterton

This quote, at the beginning of David Harsanyi's "Nanny State", succinctly sums up exactly what is wrong with the explosion of "nanny laws" in western society.

"Nanny state" actions are policies such as bans on smoking in public places, high taxes on junk food, bans on recreational drug use, gun control, a legal drinking age or legal smoking age that is higher than the age of majority, political correctness, censorship, certain types of regulations concerning consensual sex between adults, zero tolerance policies, and content regulation. Such actions result from the belief that the state or the local government has a duty to protect citizens from their own harmful behaviors, and that the state knows best what constitutes harmful behavior. The author defines the nanny state as, "a place where government takes a hyper-interest in micromanaging the welfare of its citizens, shielding us from our own injurious and irrational behavior."

Harsanyi believes that government acting as in loco parentis is dangerous because, "the more government feels comfortable subverting our right to live as we wish -- while not hurting others -- simply to create a more agreeable society, the state will feel increasingly comfortable sabotaging our rights on all fronts." In other words, "nanny laws" are a dangerous slippery slope.

He also believes that a nannyistic government goes against the intentions that the Founding Fathers had for our government. Harsanyi points out that it specifically subverts the notion of the "pursuit of happiness". He explains that the pursuit of happiness should be "tethered to the pillars of liberty and responsibility"; which gives us the right to be "wrong, dumb, and irresponsible".

Both conservatives and liberals are concerned about "nannyism", though they define what constitutes inappropriate government intrusion differently. Harsanyi, a libertarian, takes a balanced view in that he tars both conservatives and liberals equally with the "nanny" brush.

Harsanyi notes that there has been little protest against the proliferation in the last twenty years ago of such laws and policies and asks the question, "When exactly did you lost your right to be unhealthy, unsafe, immoral, and politically incorrect? What if I want to be fat, drunk, immoral, and intolerably foolish?"

The author states: "The Nanny State will argue that there is no excuse for government to protect a mentally stable citizen from making his or her own choices and that words and ideas like 'freedom' and 'responsibility' must again be injected into any conversation or debate about laws that affect personal behavior."

In the book, Harsanyi devotes chapters to different types of nanny policies: food/obesity policies aka "The Twinkie Fascists", anti-alcohol policies, anti-smoking policies, zero tolerance policies and other school-related nannyism, "family values" nannyism; i.e. those who attempt to legislate personal morality, anti-porn censorship and other anti-sex policies, policies that hamper those who wish to start small businesses, anti-gambling laws, among others. The last chapter deals with how society pays; what the negative fallout results from such paternalism.

I found myself in agreement with nearly all the author had to say, with the exception of his views of laws designed to protect the welfare of animals. I believe that laws are necessary to protect pets and other animals, as they cannot protect themselves from cruel and/or irresponsible humans. Otherwise, this book is a real breath of fresh air in our increasingly busybody, politically correct, and self-righteous society.

I recommend this book to anyone to cares about personal liberty and the rights of competent adults to live however they wish as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others to live differently.