Tag: Nanny State Knows Best

The Stasi in School Lunchrooms

Parents who send their children to public schools have two options when it comes to food; have the kid eat the school provided lunches or pack lunches for the kid. Well it appears as through the latter option is going away as the Stasi are inspecting lunches and confiscating those that aren’t approved by the state:

The West Hoke Elementary School student was in her More at Four classroom when a U.S. Department of Agriculture agent who was inspecting lunch boxes decided that her packed lunch — which consisted of a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, apple juice and potato chips — “did not meet USDA guidelines,” the Journal reports.

The decision was made under consideration of a regulation put in place by the the Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services, which requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs to meet USDA guidelines.

In other words the state makes the requirements. If you don’t agree with those requirements that’s just too fucking bad. Do you believe your child needs turkey and cheese instead of the pink goo used to make chicken nuggest? Too bad, the state has deemed that you believe wrong and will steal your child’s lunch just like it steals your money.

This is no longer the land of the free, it is a police state where every action is controlled by the state at the point of a gun.

EDIT: 2012-02-16 13:20: The link posted by Nicole calls several aspects of this story into question. Namely the situation has become a bit of a he said, she said situatation:

Additionally, citing the above-linked statement, a local TV news outlet which had jumped on the bandwagon claims that “the agency says it gave the little girl milk to offset a missing dairy item.” However, this claim does not appear to be in the cited statement.

The TV station’s update further quotes the school district’s superintendent as saying that the child was simply instructed (it is unclear by whom, and it is unclear whether the child was first asked whether she wanted milk) to go through the lunch line to get some milk, and that the superintendent thinks “that the child became confused about what she had to do. I think the child, instead of going over and picking up the milk, I think the child, for whatever reason, thought she had to go through the line and get a school meal which, that’s not our policy.”

In other words one of two possibilities exist; either an overzealous employee, given legitimacy by the state, ordered the girl to get a school provided lunch or the child was simply order to get milk but became confused. It does sound as though the lunch was not confiscated, which is a relief to know. What becomes far more interesting though is the following:

Notably, as the second-linked story above suggests, the mother’s main gripe here does not even appear to be with this “state agent,” but instead with the school’s teachers, who continue to give the girl milk and vegetables despite letters from the mother asking them not to.

What is not made clear is why the mother desired her child not to be provided milk and vegetables. This is of importance because it is very possible that the child has allergies that must be avoided or the family has religious reasons (for example if they’re strict Orthodox Jews they may require food to be kosher). Regardless the mother’s wishes were ignore. The following claim is then made:

The mother apparently objects to this option being provided to her daughter, not because of any health concerns or the like, but because she incorrectly believes that she will be charged additional money for her child being provided this option.

Of course this statement is in question because we do not know if there is a health concern regarding the child or not, that is never made clear. It seems to me that the mother had some kind of reason for wishing her child not be provided certain foodstuffs and that reasoning is important to know. The author is also unaware of how the state only expands its powers:

Since this is also an opt-in program, there is no chance of this becoming some sort of generally applicable concern even to the extent there is some sort of nanny state concern here. If the mother has some sort of ethical problem with her child being provided with the option of drinking milk or eating vegetables at school, then she is surely free to send her child to an unsubsidized day care program.

Emphasis mine. The state often uses opt-in programs to field test new powers and authorities before making them mandatory elsewhere. Saying there is no chance of this situation becoming generally applicable shows a gross lack of understanding in how governmental powers expand. I also find the second claim interesting because it’s a play on the statist’s usual rebuttal of, “If you don’t like it leave.” Apparently the state should provided these subsidized services, make everybody pay for them at the point of a gun, but if you partake in one of these programs that you’re forced to pay for you should have no say in how it’s run. That sounds like a typical statist to me.

At most, the only actual concern here, hinted at by the second-linked article, is the expense to the taxpayer of providing the extra food free of charge. Then again, since we are definitionally dealing with children whose parents will often lack the resources to provide a consistently balanced lunch, and since the whole point of the program is to provide those children with a pre-K experience that their parents’ income would otherwise prevent, this would not seem to be a tremendously important concern.

Again, emphasis mine. So we’re definitely dealing with a maybe here.

I’m going to toss this story into the he said, she said pile. Evidence exists that both sides of the story are exaggerated and contain misunderstandings and conjecture. It is my belief that the truth lies somewhere between the extremes although we’re unlikely to ever find out what the truth is.

The Federal Government Continues Its Attack on Independent Farms

Back in August I wrote a post about the federal governments attempt to require a commercial drivers license to operate farm equipment. That ruling was eventually tossed out but the federal government is continuing its attack on independent farms through other means. The latest move is being performed by the Department of Labor in the form of a new regulation that would prohibit teenagers under the age of 16 from working on a farm unless their parents are full or part owners:

Last September, the Labor Department had proposed requiring that children under the age of 16, who work on a parent’s farm could only work on that farm if it is “wholly owned” by the parent. But after protests from farm groups and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Labor Department officials announced on Feb. 2 that they would repropose the rule and continue to allow children to work on a farm in which the parent is a part owner, a partner in a partnership, or an officer of a corporation that has a “substantial” ownership interest in the farm.

The decision represented a partial victory for farm and rural groups who have said the rule would make it impossible for rural youth to be trained in farming, doesn’t reflect modern ownership patterns, would make it impossible for grandchildren, nieces and nephews of farm owners to learn about farming and runs counter to Vilsack’s campaign to encourage young people to stay on the farm and in rural America.

I grew up in a rural community where many of my friends were hired farmhands. Their parents weren’t the owners or even partial owners of the farms and many of my friends weren’t 16 years-old yet. Age was considered an irrelevant criteria since both the kid and the parent agreed that the kid should be allowed to work.

While many people are bitching about the dangers work farm work let me say that the rate of injury isn’t nearly as high as the naysayers make it sound. Farming, like any job involving manual labor, does involve risks but those risks are usually avoidable so long as you use proper safety equipment. When I worked at my father’s autoshop I always engaged the locks on the hoist so that a failure would lead only to the vehicle falling a short distance until it hit the lock. A falling automobile is dangerous but the use of proper safety equipment mitigated that risk.

But let’s not kid ourselves, this new attempt at labor regulation has nothing to do with safety. Children are a much needed workforce for many independent farmers who can’t afford to pay wages demanded by older, more experienced farm hands (not to mention most adults move on, they seldom end up being farm hands for their entire lives). The only two options are hiring inexperienced individuals or illegal immigrants. Since the state frowns so heavily on the latter that leaves the former. Now that the state is frowning on the former as well independent farmers are being left with no option.

Large farms on the other hand can afford to hire more expensive labor since their profits are much higher. These farms can also afford lobbyists who can ask the government to make rules that hamper their small competitors. Like the state’s previous attempt to hamper small farming operations this new move is being done solely to rid the large lobbyist holding farmers of their much hated competition.

The arguments being used by the proponents of this new regulation are downright idiotic:

In the midst of the politics, the issues of child labor and safety seemed to get lost even though they are real.

Leppink, testified that 130 children, 15 years of age and younger, have died while working, and that 73 percent of these children were employed in agriculture.

So in the last 15 years 130 children have died while working but only 73 of those deaths were in the agriculture industry. That means only 4.9 children have died each year (if we spread the deaths out evenly) in the agriculture industry. While the death of any person is tragic there are for more dangerous things kids can do. 6,896 children died in 2007 in automobile accidents, that’s 1379.2 times greater than the average number killed in agriculture industry accidents (obviously my numbers are a bit loose, of course the order of magnitude is so great it doesn’t really matter). Perhaps our focus should be elsewhere when it comes to making the lives of children safer. How about the recreational sports most children enjoy:

Chris Chinn, a hog farmer from Missouri, testified that school sports activities are much more dangerous than working on the farm. Chinn said her daughters have been taken to the emergency room for school-related injuries but never for any farm injury. She also said grandparents should be allowed to supervise their grandchildren on the farm because they are even stricter than parents in what they will allow children to do.

Of course this ruling will probably make it through because it exists to “protect the children.”

Judge Orders Business Shutdown Because of Patron Actions

If anybody believes government doesn’t have too much power they are either insane or not paying attention. When a judge is able to force the closure of a business because of the actions of some patrons there is a major problem:

A judge approved a motion to temporarily shut down MugShots bar in Toledo on Tuesday. The move comes after six people were shot outside the bar early Monday morning. But believe it or not one of the victims is speaking out. “For them to want to close down, not just Mugshots, but any bar for other peoples actions, I don’t think that’s fair,” Lakeisha Carter said.

Carter was waiting in line outside Mugshots Bar when the shooting took place. She was shot twice, once in each leg. Police tell 13abc 20-year-old Rhaymoun Villolovos and his brother, 22-year-old Richard were kicked out of the bar after a fight. That’s when they allegedly grabbed their guns and started shooting. As a result, the city got a temporary restraining order that closed the bar.

“Mugshots is being looked at like the place to fight … but it’s happening everywhere,” Carter explained.

The problem here wasn’t the bar or the alcohol, it was the people who shot one another. Closing the bar because some patrons decided it was a jolly good idea to start blasting one another is a perfect example of punishing the wrong person (or people in this case since the bar employees won’t be receiving pay for the duration of the shutdown). Of course the judge is merely protecting the people form themselves with this order so everybody will be entirely fine with it.

I’m sure the anti-gunners are going to swoop in on this and claim it is an example of why allowing people to carry firearms into bars is a bad idea. What they won’t stop to determine is whether or not any of the initiators of violence even had carry permits.

Because They Have Nothing Better to Do

Is the name of your wireless access point something racist, bigoted, or otherwise offensive? If so you could find yourself subject of an investigation because the police apparently have nothing else to do:

A bigot named their WiFi signal “F— All Jews and N—-” — and now cops are investigating.

The hateful signal I.D. popped up on the iPhone of a 28-year-old mom inside a Teaneck, N.J. recreation center, where her 3-year-old daughter was attending dance class.

The offending signal was coming from a router connected in the Richard Rodda Community Center in the the township, located 10 miles outside New York City.

[…]

The woman, who is African-American, rushed to the office, and informed employees and other parents of the hateful WiFi connection.

Police were called, and when they responded they located the router in the rec center, township Police Chief Robert Wilson said.

You know what would have been a far saner solution? Had an employee of the Community Center simply located the access point and either unplugged it or renamed the network. It’s really a simple thing to do and doesn’t require calling the police in to investigate.

I Wish Statists Would Just Cut Straight to the Point

All I ask for is a little intellectual honesty from my philosophical opponents. I wish anti-gunners would just come out and say they want to ban all firearms and be done with the pussy footing around. While I’m making a list I also wish the other statists would just come out and say they want people who do the “wrong” thing murdered.

I came across this wonderful piece of statist propaganda :

Kathy Baylis, a professor of agricultural and consumer economics, studied the ban on junk-food advertising imposed in the Canadian province of Quebec from 1984 to 1992 and its effect on fast-food purchases.

By comparing English-speaking households, who were less likely to be affected by the ban, to French-speaking households, Baylis and co-author Tirtha Dhar, of the University of British Columbia, found evidence that the ban reduced fast-food expenditures by 13 percent per week in French-speaking households, leading to between 11 million and 22 million fewer fast-food meals eaten per year, or 2.2 billion to 4.4 billion fewer calories consumed by children.

Combine this statist propaganda with some actual statists and you have a recipe for advocating violence. We go from comments like this:

And that is why anyone who bases policies and ideologies around the premise that people are rational and independent is full of shit.

People can be, but most of the time they are not, because it is hard and takes conscious effort.

There are two views one should really have when it comes to government. The first view is the assumption that the above commenter is right and people are irrational being. In such a case the last thing you want to do is hand irrational being power over other irrational being because you’ll just double your irrationality. The section view is that people are, in general, rational and good beings. In such a case there is no need for government to rule over the already generally good and rational beings.

Seriously though I wish the above commenter would flat out state what he really things, people should be told what is the right course of action and be killed if they decide to take a different course. After all wouldn’t the world be a better place if we just killed everybody we disagree with? Think about it for a minute, you’d have a world of like-minded individuals being obedient to the state. Why if we just round up all the people who are wrong and shoot them we’ll have a perfect world!

That’s the ultimate end to a plan that revolves around stupid notions such as people needing to be managed by other people. Laws must be enforced with violence so passing laws that attempt to instill “proper” or “rational” must result in “improper” and “irrational” people being physically harmed until they either submit or die.

Let’s look at fast food for a minute. The general consensus of society is that fast food is bad for people. Therefore wouldn’t it make the most sense to round up everybody who eats fast food and put them in prison? That would solve the problem because the lack of customers would force fast food joints into bankruptcy. Obviously if consumers of fast food resist arrest we’ll have to kill them but really they’re only bring death upon themselves for if they simply submit to the man with the gun all will be fine (in 10 years when they finally get out of prison).

What I just typed sounds absurd to any rational being but that is ultimately what statist want. Statists really are the lowest of the low. When they advocate a new law what they’re really saying is, “I know what’s best for people.” Libertarianism doesn’t based its philosophy on the idea that people are rational being, it bases its ideas on the idea that initiated force and coercion are undesirable and therefore should be eliminated.

Somebody spending all of their money on lottery tickets isn’t being rational consider the chances of winning are somewhere near the chances of gravity reversing itself in the next fifteen minutes. Yet I do not wish people to force me into action by using violence so I must not force others into action using violence. While I don’t agree with the actions of somebody who spends all of their money on lottery tickets I have no right to force them into stopping.

Instead of claiming new laws need to be put into place to curb “irrational” behavior statists need to cut to the point and state that they believe they know what is best for society and also believe anybody who disagrees with them should be physically harmed or killed.

We Can’t Have Lawful Activity

Via Another Gun Blog I found another example of the state passing another law to make something that was legal illegal:

The state Senate this week is expected to vote on a bill barring school employees from having sex with students of any age.

[…]

The bill was sparked by concerns from prosecutors who said they were unable to charge teachers who had sex with students after the students turned 18, including one who waited until the day after the girl’s birthday before taking to her a hotel room.

You read correctly, because two consenting adults had sex a law is being rammed through to make the act illegal. Why the fuck not? There are just too many things one can do in life that aren’t yet illegal and we can’t have that. Sure an 18 year-old can vote, go to war, smoke cigarettes, act in porn, and buy a long gun but they can’t make such a mature decision as to who they will have sex with.

What really galls me about this law is the fact it’s being passed because two consenting adults had sex and some prosecutor thought they shouldn’t have. If people have their panties all in a bunch about a teach having sex with an 18 year-old student wouldn’t it have been easier to, I don’t know, fire the teacher? I know it’s an entirely crazy concept but I believe it should be looked into. Many companies have professional codes of conduct that employees are required to sign. You know what clause can be found in many of these codes of conduct? Prohibitions against having relationships with co-workers. In other words if you’re caught banging a fellow co-worker both of you can get fired.

Every time somebody says there ought to be a law there almost always shouldn’t.

Nanny State Moving to Ban All Portable Electronic Use by Automobile Drivers

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Secretary Ray LaHood has been demanding a blanket ban on all cellphone usage by drivers, going so far as to advocate cell phone jammers be built-in to every automobile. Now things are heating up as NHTSA is officially pushing for a ban on all portable electronic usage, with the exception of GPS, while driving:

According to the NHTSA’s latest numbers, 3,092 people died in 2010 as the result of distracted driving, including talking on a cell phone or texting. While that number is down from 2009, when NHTSA reported 5,484 “distraction-related” traffic deaths, the numbers aren’t comparable because of a change in how the agency categorizes accidents. And despite laws in many states banning handheld cellphone use and texting while driving, a driver survey by NHTSA found that nearly half of drivers are still making calls from their phones, and 10 percent are still reading text messages.

Last year I analyzed NHTSA’s numbers and found their claims of cell phone usage increasing the rate of accidents to be entirely false:

Like I said if cell phone usage has been causing automobile accidents it should be noted on the total number of accidents yearly. The data published by the NHTSA goes from 1988 to 2008 which is what we’ll concern ourselves with. So how much have automobile accidents increased? Here’s the funny thing, they haven’t. In fact the number of accidents has been on a slight downward trend since 1988.

In 1988 the total number of automobile accidents was 6,887,000, in 1990 it was 6,471,000, in 1995 it was 6,699,000, in 2000 it was 6,394,000, in 2005 it was 6,159,000, and finally in 2008 it was 5,811,000. It seems the only correlation that exists between the increase in cell phone subscribers and automobile accidents is a slight downward trend (which I’m absolutely not implying is causality).

Inevitably this is where somebody will point out the reason for the downward trend are laws banning cell phone usages while driving. The problem is that isn’t true. From what I’ve been able to find the first law banning cell phone usage while driving was enacted in New York in 2001. The downward trend in automobile accidents has been going on since the late ’80′s at the very least. If the downward trend was occurring before the first law banning cell phone usage while driving was enacted that indicate a third party reason. In fact a recent study confirms exactly what I’m saying.

It’s nice when I’ve written so many posts that I can simply reference previous posts to explain a point. The bottom line is automobile accidents have been on the decline since, at least, the 1980s while the first law banning cell phone usage in automobiles wasn’t passed until 2001 meaning a third factor must be playing into the dropping accident rate. Banning the use of all personal electronics by drivers is nothing but knee-jerk nanny state malarkey. Stupid people do stupid things and passing a law banning the use of portable electronics by drivers isn’t going to fix anything (but will give the state more money in the form of citations and tickets which is probably the real reason behind this push).

If this passes people like myself will no longer even be able to use portable MP3 players to play music in their vehicle. As with most government regulations this one is entirely reactionary to a non-existing problem and has numerous unintended consequences.

For Those Who Thought Zero Tolerance Was a Good Idea

Were you one of the people who thought zero tolerance in school was a good idea? If so you’re responsible for shit like this:

A 9-year-old boy North Carolina boy was suspended for calling a teacher “cute,” WSOCTV.com reports.

The boy’s mother, Chiquita Lockett, said the principal of Brookside Elementary in Gastonia called her after the incident to say the comment was a form of “sexual harassment.”

Apparently calling a girl cute is sexual harassment. Going back I wonder how many sexual harassments charges I should have against me under these new guidelines. Seriously the kid was nine fucking years old, I doubt he’s old enough to even know what sexual harassment is. Oh, and let’s not forget this gem:

The news of the North Carolina boy’s suspension comes as a Massachusetts elementary school is investigating a first-grader for sexual harassment after the boy struck another boy his age in the groin.

The mother of the accused 7-year-old tells the Boston Globe that her son was fending off another child, who had choked him in an altercation on the school bus on Nov. 22.

Sure why not? Hell we should just implement thoughtcrime while we’re at it. Can we make holding hands punishable under sexual harassment clauses while we’re at it? I mean there are still physical interactions out there where kids aren’t being nailed with sexual harassment charges and we can’t fucking have that.

Everybody who thought zero tolerance was a good idea please kindly hurl yourselves off of a cliff and save the rest of humanity from further stupidity.

So Much for the Dangers of Raw Milk

One of the lesser known battles in the pursuit of liberty involves the freedom to chose what you eat. The state has been cracking down hard on raw and organic food producers in the name of safety and one of their primary targets has been raw milk. We hear horror stories about the ill raw milk has inflicted upon the populace yet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently was forced to admit not one person has been killed by ingesting raw milk for 11 years:

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) refuses to acknowledge that, based on all available statistics, raw milk produced on clean, small-scale farms is actually far safer than pasteurized milk from factory farms. But the agency did admit earlier this year, after being pressed and warned of a potential Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request if it failed to comply, that not a single person has died from raw milk consumption in over a decade.

This may come as a shock to some who, because of all the propaganda about the alleged dangers of raw milk, are convinced otherwise, but it is true — one of the two deaths often cited by the CDC as evidence that raw milk is dangerous was actually linked to the consumption of raw queso fresco cheese, which is currently outlawed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). And the other is likely linked to an adulterated raw milk product as well, rather than to raw milk.

Here’s the thing, you are the sole owner of your body and thus are the only one who should have a say in what gets put into it. If you don’t want to drink raw milke that’s fine but using force to prevent other people from doing it is abhorrent. The nanny state was out of hand ages ago but it’s only getting worse with news regulations passed, what seems like, every day that attempt to further restrict and control our behavior.