North Star Writers Group

Is there anything too small for government to stick its meddling nose into? In just the last few days, these are some of the things one legislature or another has proposed: Banning incandescent light bulbs (California), banning parental spanking (California again), banning trans-fats (New York), mandatory human papilloma virus vaccinations (Texas) and mandatory obesity reports (Arkansas). That's just a smattering of items I came across in the news without even meaning to look for them.

Do I even need to bother to ask where on Earth government gets the constitutional authority to do any of this? The answer, of course, is they don't have any authority at all - not that it ever stops them. I guess that so long as we're willing to take it, they'll gladly keep dishing it out. And then one day we'll wake up and wonder where our freedom went - if we ever cared enough to notice it being taken away, piece by piece, in the first place.

And while they'll pay lip service to these various ideas to distract us, it's not like the busybody politicians behind them really care about the supposed benefits thereof. If they did, perhaps they'd stop to consider how ridiculously unenforceable they are short of stationing police in our homes and businesses around the clock. The real purpose here is to turn each and every one of us into a criminal of some kind, one way or the other. Then, when we commit the real crime of questioning and challenging their authority, they'll have some flimsy grounds to run us in on and get us out of the way.

You may think this absurd and far too sinister, that the politicians who'd pass such laws are well-meaning but merely straying a little – or maybe a lot. But think about it: Is someone capable of interfering to this extent really going to stop of their own volition? Is someone egotistical enough to think they can run every last aspect of your household and your life better than you, from your appliances (light bulbs) to your diet (trans-fats) to your children's diets (obesity reports at school) to parenting (spanking), to your nine-to-12-year-old daughter's "sex life" (vaccinating for a sexually transmitted disease), ever going to stop trying to do so short of being told in no uncertain terms to butt the hell out? It defies common sense to think they will.

But for all the vitriol I aim at the tyrannical interference of government, the true guilty party is not them. Heck, it's the very nature of power to corrupt those who hold it. The shocker would be politicians not trying stuff like this. They'll keep at it so long as man lives on this Earth. The scorn should be aimed at all of us who fail to be alarmed at the blatant curtailing of liberty this represents, and more than that, are asleep at the switch simply because we do not want to take the responsibility that comes with the blessing of having the freedom to decide for oneself how one's life shall be lived. So for the sake of immaturity and sloth, we let government stomp all over property rights, free markets and familial privacy.

The very first time a know-it-all politician dared to try something like this, he or she should have been shown the door and even made into something of an object lesson for any others contemplating the same. Instead, they're like obnoxious, boorish houseguests who won't leave no matter how unsubtle the hints get. And even once you do, at long last, get them to depart, the house is a wreck. That they're finally gone doesn't mean that their damage hasn't still been done – and guess who gets to clean it all up.

The answer is the same in either scenario: Show courage and responsibility enough to get out and keep out those who would ruin that which you hold dear. Ronald Reagan was right. The nine most frightening – if not fraudulent – words in the English language are: "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

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This is Column # DKK47. Request permission to publish here.