The Nanny State and the Purpose of Law
By Duane Lester • Apr 7th, 2008“There ought to be a law against that!”
From no smoking laws in public places to seat belt laws in private vehicles, there seems to be a law for everything. It reminds me of Ralphie’s brother in “A Christmas Story.” I walk out of my front door, and I find myself wrapped up and knocked over by a multitude of laws, with no recourse but to writhe on the ground screaming, “I can’t get up. I CAN’T GET UP!”
On SheboyganPress.com, there is a question about a typical nanny state law, one that would make it mandatory to wear a helmet if you are riding motorcycle. It reads: “Should Wisconsin require motorcycle riders and passengers to wear a helmet?”
Jim Wolf of Sheboygan, answers it best when he writes:
No. And the state should not require me to wear a seat belt, and the state should not require owners of bars and restaurants to ban smoking, and the state should pretty much just stay out of my life.
Well said, Jim. All of those things are put in place because the state feels that it needs to protect the individual from a bad choice.
A couple of others chime in with the same sentiment:
- No. This should be an individual choice. If someone chooses to ride without a helmet, that should be his or her choice, even though the risk of serious injury or death is increased by the lack of wearing a helmet. We have enough of government entering our lives and making decisions for us.
Jack Wirtz, Sheboygan
- Government is not my mommy or daddy. It is my decision whether or not to wear a helmet. What next? Force me to wear seat belts, or forbid me to smoke in the tavern? Government busybodies should stop trying to restrict our freedoms on the basis that we are like children and need to be told what is good for us.
Frank Lubotsky, Sheboygan
These three were the minority on the page however. While there were other comments supporting the law, Steve Carter of Lawton, Okla., nailed the attitude of the nanny-stater best:
We have drunken driving laws because people are stupid enough to get behind the wheel after drinking. We have seat belt laws, because some people aren’t smart enough to figure that staying with a vehicle is safer than being ejected out. Therefore, I think if people aren’t smart enough to figure out on their own that a helmet hitting the asphalt is better than a head, then we, society, need to step in and protect them.
Conservative or liberal, that is the mindset of the nanny-stater. They know what is best for you and have no problem eliminating your choice in the matter.
How arrogant can a person be?
The Steve Carters don’t realize that drunk driving laws are not there to protect stupid people from hurting themselves by driving drunk, but to protect the other drivers on the road from the stupid drunks. It is the drunk that would infringe on the right to life of others by killing them in an accident.
The nanny stater doesn’t understand the difference. They have to protect everyone, even from themselves.
This isn’t just about helmet or seatbelt laws. This is about the freedom to make a bad decision. There isn’t a lack of information about motorcycle crashes or the importance of wearing a helmet. People know that helmets are important, but they should have a choice as to whether to wear one or not, regardless of what the Steve Carters of the world think about it.
But the Steve Carters of the world have a louder voice and they find a way to make themselves heard. The number of nanny-state laws on the books is proof of that. It isn’t that there are more nanny-staters than freedom lovers. I don’t think that. I think the people who are disgusted by these laws are a silent majority, until those laws affect them in one way or another. But then it is too late, and the law is generally accepted by the unaffected majority.
The Purpose of Law
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| Where is your helmet, citizen? |
When I read this list of opinions from Sheboygan, I thought to myself, “That’s not what laws are supposed to be for. Laws are supposed to be about protecting a person’s rights from being infringed upon.” Then I had another thought, which was, “What the heck do you know about the law? You aren’t a lawyer.” So I decided to research the purpose of a law.
First, we need to define a law. From Black’s Law Dictionary:
Law- That which is laid down, ordained, or established. A rule or method according to which phenomenon or actions co-exist or follow each other. Law, in its generic sense, is a body of rules of action or conduct prescribed by controlling authority, and having binding legal force. United States Fidelity and Guaranty Co. v. Guenther, 281 U.S. 34, 50 S.Ct. 165, 74 L.Ed. 683. That which must be obeyed and followed by citizens subject to sanctions or legal consequences is a law. Law is a solemn expression of the will of the supreme power of the State. Calif.Civil Code, §22.
The “law” of a state is to be found in its statutory and constitutional enactments, as interpreted by its courts, and, in absence of statute law, in rulings of its courts. Dauer’s Estate v. Zabel, 9 Mich.App. 176, 156 N.W.2d 34, 37.
Basically, a law is the government telling you how it is going to be. As Frederick Bastiat said in his book, The Law:
The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces.
Law is force. The natural right of lawful defense he writes about is the “natural right—from God—to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two.”
Law is the government acting as a collection of individual forces acting as a common force, telling you, “This is how it is going to be, whether you like it or not. Follow the law, or pay the consequences.” If you don’t like helmet laws and refuse to follow them, a person with a gun is going to make you. If you don’t like seatbelt laws, a person with a gun is going to ticket you. If you choose to allow people to smoke in your bar in New York, a person with a gun is going to close your business.
But the definition doesn’t tell us the purpose, in general, of a law. Why are laws to be made? Bastiat writes:
…this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.
It seems that once again, the brilliant mind contained in this giant braincase is correct in his assumption. As I wrote above, laws are about protecting your rights from being infringed, not protecting yourself from making a bad decision.
But what about the poor bartender that has to work in a smoke filled bar? We are just protecting his right to work in a safe environment.
Please tell me who is forcing that poor bartender to work in that environment, and we can attack the actual crime of forced labor.
But what about the person who isn’t wearing a helmet? They could get in a wreck and split their skull open on the pavement.
Yep, they could. And it is their choice to take that risk.
But what about the cost of health care that will be thrust upon the taxpayers because of that decision?
The taxpayers took on that responsibility when they created a welfare state that provided health care for people.
Do you see how one law, written for our own good, can lead to others written for our own good that, instead of protecting our rights, infringe on our rights? Again, going back to the comment from Steve Cater, he shows how one law leads to another. We already have seat belt laws, so why not have helmet laws? We already have laws against trans-fat, so why not outlaw fried food? We already have laws against pot, so why not alcohol?
With each law written to protect us from ourselves, we also surrender our own minds, as our intellect becomes a “useless prop”:
…when the law, by means of its necessary agent, force, imposes upon men a regulation of labor, a method or a subject of education, a religious faith or creed—then the law is no longer negative; it acts positively upon people. It substitutes the will of the legislator for their own wills; the initiative of the legislator for their own initiatives. When this happens, the people no longer need to discuss, to compare, to plan ahead; the law does all this for them. Intelligence becomes a useless prop for the people; they cease to be men; they lose their personality, their liberty, their property.
When we allow the law to tell us how we are to behave, we have allowed our freedoms to be eroded. Whether it is some food Nazis telling Burger King what they can or can’t serve, eliminating our need to be diligent consumers of only the most nutritious fast food, or the best intentions of Steve Carter in telling us we have to wear a helmet because we are too stupid to take care of ourselves, each law written to protect the individual from himself does nothing but create a nation of drones, instead of a nation of free men.
Americans don’t need the government telling them how to live their lives, yet there is one glove added here, and another jacket added there, until we find ourselves flat on our backs, unable to get to our feet because of the overwhelming weight of good intentions.
