The Political Spectrum

If you thought the smoking bans accross various US cities were severe, Britain is starting to make us look like a Nation of smoking fiends. Soon the rule in the great UK will be that you can only smoke in your own rooms, with the lights out, underneath the covers of your bedsheets (hat tip to Dennis Leary).

The Daily Telegraph has rightly mocked this lastest excursion of the nanny state of Tony Blair. Blair's Labour Party is under the distinct impression that grownups cannot function without some meausre of government aid. As they write:

What irks Mr Blair most of all is the public's infuriating tendency to do what the public wants. He seems to believe that it is the job of government to stop that. Hence the draconian ban he proposes on smoking in public places - as impertinent and patronising an assault on freedom as any proposed by a British government since the Second World War.

The Telegraph also has this hilarious piece by Oliver Pritchett which traces the rise of the Nanny State of Sensibilia, an island in the Pacific founded by British nannies who "formed a community which was to become the world's first nursocracy. The economy is based on the manufacture and export of extremely stiff hairbrushes."

In all seriousness, Blair's governing philosophy is not all that far removed from that of our beloved President. Bush once said something to the effect that when a person is hurting, it is government's responsibility to help them and pick them up. Oh really? I scraped my knee the other night playing baseball, and I fully expect a careworker from HHS to come and take care of my booboo.

I jest of course, but sadly there are more than a few people who hold such an attitude. They fully expect the government to shield them from the perils of the real world, and leaders such as Bush and Blair are all to ready to oblige. Their underlying dread seems to be that there might be someone, somewhere who is unhappy or insecure, and they must do everything in their power to protect that person.

Well excuse me oh exalted ones but we grownups can take care of ourselves, thank you very much. Human beings have this uncanny ability to figure out for themselves how to survive. Unfortunately the government presses to neuter this sense of self-survival, to the point where we have a society that howls in protest when even a suggestion is made to remove one of the safety nets.

Government exists to protect us. It is a necessary entity which is supposed to work to keep us all alive. It does not exist to sit in my living room to ensure that I refrain from smoking, or drinking beer, or eat fried chicken. Believe me, I am no libertarian - government can provide a certain minimal safety net, and it does have some regulatory responsibilities. But we are not a perfect race, and heaven is not to appear in this earthly realm. If a person eats himself to death, too bad; more eat for the other meat eaters. If a person wastes their paycheck on crack, horses, or overly expensive items that they really can't afford, then that is their personal decision, and the rest of society should not be made to pick up their tab.

At least President Bush seems to have some understanding of personal responsibility. I do have hope that his desire to create an ownership society will slowly melt away the excesses of our nanny state. Unfortunately for our British cousins, it appears Tony Blair is just getting warmed up.

Secular messianism. Get used to it, Great Britain. Hopefully the United States can avoid this tendency shared by both neoconservatives and progressives.