The American Spectator

Reader Mail

The Leave Us Alone Condition

9.27.07 @ 12:01AM

SMILEY FASCISM
Re: Shawn Macomber's Nannies Come Home to Roost:

Actually, when fascism comes to America, its adherents will announce the arrival with neither bogus public-interest studies nor mindless child-protection bromides. Rather, proponents will signal fascism's advent by parading around in red armbands emblazoned with a large, yellow smiley face -- the perfect symbol for today's breed of food Nazis, teetotaling do-gooders, priggish moralists and all the rest.

Macomber's Q&A with Harsanyi was one of the best pieces the AmSpec has run since...well, since 24 hours earlier. I genuinely appreciated this article. It gave voice to stuff I've been feeling for years about the professional busybodies among us.

However, the ultimate irony remains that it is the Sixties countercultural revolutionaries who are most responsible for foisting upon us the nanny state. They promised radical new freedom and instead delivered a society far more uptight and hypocritical than that of the parents they so perversely reviled.
-- Rich Smith
Yucca Valley, California

Busy day. Two quick thoughts:

1. I wonder from whom the Nannyists bought their fervid belief in "the intense and nefarious power of marketing dollars."

2. It is unlikely that Sinclair Lewis, as he pondered the arrival of fascism, envisioned that "the cross" would be submerged in urine.
-- Reid Bogie
Waterbury, Connecticut

It used to be said that patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel. Now the scoundrels among us can be identified by their use of the phrases, "It's for the children" and/or "It's for your own good."

I also think that the intentions of the hand-wringing nanny types are, at best, less than benign. When I'm hectored by some nosy-parker about losing weight or eating the "wrong" type of food, I ask them: were I to follow your unsolicited advice, would that make you like or respect me more? Those who've had the honesty to answer have admitted that, no, it wouldn't. Those who don't answer my question directly usually reply that I have a "duty to the community" to keep myself healthy and hold insurance costs down or that I'm "enriching corporate fat-cats" by consuming fast-food items.
-- Bill Erdmann
University Park, Maryland

Bucky Covington, yes, from American Idol, a young gentleman, under age 30, gets it, though he was not born in the time of which he so proudly sings, "We were born to mothers who smoked and drank/Our cribs were covered in lead based paint/No child proof lids no seat belts in cars/Rode bikes with no helmets and still here we are, still here we are." Covington clearly understands that life involves risks, and judging from the popularity of his tune, so do many Americans. Another Southern Man, and an even better writer, wrote, "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Notice the Jefferson did not findassurance to these rights to be self-evident; he understood, better than most, that to obtain what was inalienably his, he would have to fight. Despite overwhelming odds, he and the other Founding Fathers risked all to stand up to tyranny; they asked for and received no guarantee of success.

Today's Americans, still feeding on the teat of federal largess started under FDR, are averse to risk. As long as the public demands, often blind to natural entailments and categorical imperatives, that someone (i.e., anyone but me) provides a safety net, the politicians, Republican as well as Democratic, will comply. Reelection is the politicians' primary goal; granting boons to their constituents is in their self-interest. Until the public understands that the redistribution of economic goods, passing of overreaching and overprotective legislation, and transferring responsibility to others, is not in their best interests, the Nanny State will remain.

Nannies know well that children can be brought off with bread and circuses. Many a Caesar understood that perfectly well too. History shows us where that leaves a civilization. Maybe now is the time to risk a Libertarian revolution. While we have more to loose than our chain, our freedom is well worth the risks.
-- Ira M. Kessel
Rochester, New York

A horror even worse than state-mandated seatbelt-wearing: the child's car seat. First you get one for your infant, then you get a bigger one for your 6-month old, then one for your next infant, then one for your toddler, and finally a booster for five-year-old. After about ten years, you put them all out by the curb and desperately hope some scavenger will take away all that molded plastic.

My own kids never got to enjoy that great freedom of an earlier generation: the freedom to roam around, completely unencumbered, in the cavernous backseats of old-style family-sized cars.
-- Dave Light
Maynard, Massachusetts

JOKE'S ON US
Re: Jay D. Homnick's Funny Bone of Contention:

Letter to the Editor

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Education, Trade, Hillary Clinton, Islam, Environment, Constitution, Law, Founding Fathers, Military, Iran, United Nations, Africa, Socialism, Fascism, Oil