Category Archives: Nanny-state

Nanny State

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I was listening to radio news this morning while in the shower. A local hospital, Children’s Mercy, has just declared themselves a “no hitting” zone. According to their PR flack, they equate spanking with child abuse. “If it leaves a mark, it’s abuse,” the flack said.

They seem to overlook that a proper spanking is not a beating. The flat of a hand against the posterior isn’t a beating. But, it’s their hospital and they can make the rules. What I do object to is their alternative to bad behavior by children. Instead of the parent correcting that behavior, the flack said, “distract the child. Give them some bubbles or a coloring book.”

Excuse me, that is not redirecting bad behavior, it is rewarding bad behavior. These rules prevent parents from doing what parents should be doing—correcting and preventing bad behavior while enforcing good behavior. Children’s Mercy won’t allow parent to do that. The hospital has preempted the parent’s authority. They will sic Social Services on the parent they deem ‘abusive.’

Hospitals, to just about everyone not an employee, aren’t nice places. Yes, on occasion we need to go there for multiple purposes, but no one really likes going there. Multiply that by a factor of 10 for children. To them it’s a scary place where people do strange things to you and many of those things HURT!

It’s not surprising that kids, and parents, too, often misbehave. The kids are scared, so are the parents, if they would admit it, and no one is on their best behavior. What the parents learn is that they cannot correct their children. What the children learn is that if they misbehave, they will get attention and be rewarded with something, not-scary, to do. What the hospital wants is peace and quiet and they believe they know best how to achieve that goal.

Like I said, it’s their hospital, they can make the rules. In this case, I think their alternatives are misdirected, treating the symptom, not the cause. Rewarding bad behavior creates long term issues in the family. Children’s Mercy does not concern themselves with that. It’s not within the walls of their hospital.

What Children’s Mercy is doing is exercising Nanny-state rules. A general rule that is applied universally. It is not always the best…even when it fits that rare occurance.

I’m not approving bad parental behavior nor child beating. But too often, that is the accusation when all that is being done is a swat of the hand against a child’s butt. Not allowing that is Nanny-state rules.

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Want to know a person’s character? Watch what they do.

Barack Obama’s aunt died earlier this month in a welfare nursing home of cancer. She came to this country to help Michelle with her new-born children. Instead of attending her funeral, Obama played golf.

That is the character of Barack Obama, a thoroughly despicable person.

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It hasn’t gotten much fanfare in the MSM, but liberals are in the process of removing another portion of the Constitution—the Electoral College.

EDITORIAL: Blue states try raiding Electoral College

National Popular Vote Interstate Compact tries end run around the Constitution

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES, Wednesday, April 23, 2014

http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2012/08/28/b-electoral-state-graphic-gg_s640x440.jpg?a936be5cfbbdfc75b5ae6848f4fc9beedbae6527The fondest dream of the modern Democrat is to neutralize the votes of the yokels in Peoria and put important decisions in the hands of sophisticates in places like San Francisco and Manhattan. The modern Democrats took a step closer to realizing their ambition last week when New York joined nine other liberal states with laws to undermine the Electoral College.

Blue states have been rushing to sign up for the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. So far, the list includes — in addition to New York — California, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia. All have agreed to allocate electoral votes according to the popular vote.

By persuading states with a combined 270 electoral votes to approve the compact, the winner of the national popular vote would be guaranteed enough electoral votes to win the presidency. If, for example, Hillary Clinton runs for president and wins a majority of votes in New York, but her opponent — let’s say Ted Cruz, just for fun — wins the popular vote nationwide, New York would award its electoral votes to Mr. Cruz, anyway, because he would have won the national popular vote.

Getting to 270 might not be far-fetched, considering that there’s more than half enough already allotted. Some red state legislators are suckered already by the scheme’s phony populist facade. In the Republican-dominated Oklahoma state Senate, 16 Republicans joined with all 12 Democrats to pass the bill by a 28-18 margin. What on earth were they thinking?

The Electoral College is as relevant today as it was in 1789. The Founders realized the danger of subjecting fundamental rights to the whim of the majority, so they devised a system that protects smaller rural states (like Oklahoma). Each state is apportioned a number of electors based on population, as expressed in the number of its members in Congress, and the political parties nominate electors who are expected, but not required, to cast their votes for that party’s presidential candidate.

In the modern era, this system ensures political candidates can’t ignore smaller states in their quest for the magic 270 electoral votes. The alternative now promoted would encourage presidential candidates to focus exclusively on the big cities in the big states: California, Texas, New York, Massachusetts, Florida and Illinois. No candidate would ever waste his time in New Hampshire, or in Kansas or Montana (or Oklahoma). Residents of the flyover states could read about it in the newspapers.

The popular-vote movement was revived in 2000 after Al Gore won 500,000 more votes for president than George W. Bush, but Mr. Bush put together 271 electoral votes, just enough to win. A group of sore losers formed the National Popular Vote, funded by several wealthy and liberal businessmen, to shutter the Electoral College. They were joined by left-wing groups such as Common Cause, which seeks to eliminate procedural safeguards to citizens’ rights, such as the Senate filibuster.

It’s foolish to change the rules of the game to gain a short-term partisan advantage. California has gone blue in the past six presidential elections, but before that it produced Ronald Reagan, and was reliably red until 1988. Even New York went for the Gipper in 1980 and 1984. Political winds are fickle, and can change the landscape quickly.

It’s more important to uphold the Founders’ vision, of restraining the impulse toward pure democracy. Upon leaving Independence Hall in Philadelphia in 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked by a woman what form of government had the Founders bequeathed, “a republic or a monarchy?” The wise old Ben Franklin replied, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”

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Here is a poll tidbit that should strike fear in the hearts of the GOP establishment across the country…and certainly in Washington.

53% Think Neither Political Party Represents the American People

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Voters continue to believe Democrats have more of a plan for the future than Republicans do, but most again say neither party represents the public. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 53% of Likely U.S. Voters think it is fair to say that neither party in Congress is the party of the American people. That’s up six points from 47% last October and matches the previous high found in June 2012 during the last national election cycle. Just 28% disagree, while 19% are not sure.

What this poll implies, but doesn’t say so explicitly, is that the national parties are losing their identity. In the public’s eyes, they don’t see much difference between the two. That trend is bad news for dems and ‘pubs alike and good news for those who want to create a new, third-party more in-line with the views of the people.

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CARE: Children’s Act for Responsible Employment

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The libs are attacking the family farm once again.  CARE, or the Children’s Act for Responsible Employment, HR 2234, sponsored by democrat Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34), is an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. That 1938 law limited child labor to those fourteen years of ago or older. Agriculture, however, was exempted.

This exemption allowed the children of farmers to work on the farms, to learn the skills needed to operate the farms, and to learn how to be farmers and later inherit and continue farming successfully.  The libs are outraged.

The libs claim that the exemption allows children to work long hours, in hazardous conditions among toxic chemicals.  All that is true. Farming is not clean, farm animals product large amounts of non-sanitary wastes, fertilizers, like ammonia nitrate, are toxic, and operating farm equipment can be dangerous.

Yes, farming is dangerous and always has been.  When I was growing up I was plowing a field and hit a pipeline. The presence of that pipeline was not known. There were no records of it but there is was.  When I hit that pipeline I was thrown off the tractor.  If the tractor’s engine hadn’t died on impact, it would have run over me.  There was nothing that could have prevented the mis-hap.  A neighbor down the road from us was killed when his tractor, on a hillside, rolled over on top of him.  Another neighbor was thrown off his tractor and was severely injured.  Farming is not safe.

What makes farming safer is teaching children how to farm safely at an early age until it becomes second nature.  The CARE bill, ignores all of these factors. They want to impose an age limit of 16 to prohibit farm children working on the family farm…with one exception.

That exception negates all their liberal arguments.  The exception is that children can work farms owned by their immediate families, i.e., their fathers and mothers.  It prohibits the children from working any other farms. No working for their grandparents, no working on farms owned by aunts and uncles, nor farms owned by cousins or neighbors.

If the danger and working conditions is so severe, why the exemption.  The danger and conditions are what they are and are no less for the farms of the immediate family that it is for others.

One reason for this bill, if you look at some of the so-called farm labor forums, is an indirect attempt to unionize the family farm.  If children do not learn the skills needed to farm, those skills must be hired. 

The great failing of this bill is that it’s been written by those who have no real knowledge of farming.  It is based on hearsay and anecdotes.  The proponents claim that 100 farm kids are killed every year.  That may be true. But how does those numbers compare with the number of deaths in auto accidents?  Far, far less I believe.

If the libs were truly outraged by the death rate why don’t they address the issue of auto deaths?  Perhaps because they would lose their supporters?  Why not one and not the other?  Politics.

The reality of this bill is that it is another attempt to impose the nanny state and expand governmental control over our lives.  I grew up on a farm. I know well the dangers involved in farming.  Technology and engineering has reduced some of the day-to-day risks of farming but not all.  Agriculture is too important to the survival of our nation to be left in the hands of idiots with an agenda.

CFL? NO!

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Remember when we could buy incandescent bulbs for our homes?  Did you know there is a federal mandate to force you to move to mercury-laden CFL light bulbs—those nasty things that would turn your home into a hazardous waste site if you broke one of them?  Well, it appears that the author of that mandate has…uh…sorta, “seen the light.”

Upton flips a switch on CFL bulbs

Feeling heat, lawmaker sees light on incandescents

By Stephen Dinan  – The Washington Times, 8:05 p.m., Monday, December 6, 2010
Rep. Fred Upton
Three years after he led the charge to require consumers to ditch their comfortable old incandescent lights in favor of those twisty CFL bulbs, Rep. Fred Upton now wants to be the man to help undo that law as the next chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
That about-face is not unique among lawmakers looking to atone for stances they’ve taken over the past decade as they seek to gain top posts in a decidedly more conservative Republican Congress, but his reversal underscores how intent the GOP is on proving it has broken with past practices.
“We have heard the grass roots loud and clear, and will have a hearing early next Congress,” said Mr. Upton, a Michigan Republican who is facing several others in his party in a bid to earn the gavel of the powerful committee. “The last thing we wanted to do was infringe upon personal liberties — and this has been a good lesson that Congress does not always know best.”
Indeed, the compact fluorescent lamp, or CFL, has become a symbol of government overreach for many consumers, who wonder what was wrong with the incandescent bulbs that have lighted their kitchens, family rooms and bedrooms for more than a century.
The government says incandescent bulbs have too short a life span and are inefficient, wasting most of their energy on heat rather than on light. CFLs, on the other hand, can last up to 10 times as long and use 75 percent less electricity.
Still, they were slow to catch on, prompting industry, environmentalists and lawmakers to team up and give consumers a push. Mr. Upton joined Rep. Jane Harman, California Democrat, to co-sponsor legislation to phase out incandescent bulbs beginning in 2012. Their bill was incorporated into the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, which passed with wide bipartisan majorities and was signed into law by Republican President George W. Bush.
But in the intervening years, CFLs have joined low-flow toilets in drawing the scorn of consumers, and some argue that the bulbs’ mercury content poses a safety and environmental hazard.
You can read the entire article here.

Many folks have been stockpiling the old-style bulbs just like home builders were scavenging older homes for the older toilets with the bigger flush capacity.
The biggest objection of CFLs is the danger if the bulb is broken or fails.  The CFLs are building a history for being a fire hazard.
  • CFLs should not be used in track, recessed or inverted fixtures and in addition can not be used with a dimmer switch. Inversion also affects life span of the bulb.
  • Bulb end-of-life hazards: When CFLs burn out they can create acrid plastic smoke and carcinogenic fumes. Those bulbs without an internal fuse will melt or smoke until power is turned off. 90% of these bulbs are currently manufactured in China where quality control is questionable. 

Interesting, isn’t it. There are also reports that the advertised long-life may not be true either.  This is just another example of the nanny-state mentality of dems and liberals that turns out to be false and more expensive than advertised.