The American Spectator

The Public Policy

(Page 2 of 2)

p>For those who doubt it, try this logic from a supporter of the bill: "This does give the police and all of us as parents and grandparents tools to tell our underage minors that they cannot drink because they would be subject to a fine, we would be subject to a fine, and it would be more of a police issue than it has been in the past." Got it? You no longer have to explain to your children why the abuse of alcohol is wrong, just use the state’s nifty "tool" to threaten them into submission. p>I can’t even begin to think what Christmas Eve at my house would have been like had my father worried about the state interfering with our family’s many toasts, including those in honor of our teenaged cousins who were home on leave from Vietnam. Or the happy memories of a great-uncle playfully spiking my soda with a dash of wine at Sunday dinner.

More to the point, especially vivid and instructive were those recollections of the punishment I received for running afoul of the rules for responsible drinking laid down by my parents. Also vivid is the feeling that I had disappointed them, because I realized that judicious discipline is a sure sign of love. Is the nanny state capable of love for anything but its own aggrandizement?

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