Nanny Statism

Más sobre un tema que me preocupa mucho, el estado niñera. Como dice el autor de este artículo en Cato, este tipo de autoritarismo se suele asociar más con la izquierda. Pero la derecha, o los conservadores, de EEUU aparentemente son iguales o peores en los últimos años.

Esto es central:

"...when given maximum personal freedom and abundance of options -- even options others seem to believe are "bad" for us -- most of us do just fine. We don't need all-knowing politicians and lifestyle cops guiding our hand."

Creo que hace falta cortar de raíz con este tema de una vez por todas, antes de que se nos escape de las manos:

Nanny Statism is commonly thought to be the province of the left. And with good reason. The public health movement that has taken on obesity and alcohol and given us seat belt laws and smoking bans has always carried with it whiffs of socialism. But the right is no better. If leftists don't trust Americans to make our own decisions about what we eat, what we drink, or whether or not to smoke tobacco, conservatives don't trust us to make up our own minds about what transpires in our bedrooms, what music we listen to, what television we watch, what we consume from the Internet, and whether or not we should smoke marijuana.

I've discussed before why I think the left's constant cries of looming healthcare catastrophes caused by our bad habits are misguided: We're healthier than we've ever been. Though our bellies may sag a bit over our beltlines, life expectancy is at an all-time high in America, and our two biggest killers -- heart disease and cancer -- are in swift decline.

But what about those Nanny Statists on the right? Is the "coarsening" of American culture really having all of the ill social effects conservatives say it is? The data overwhelmingly suggests not. Nearly every social indicator is trending in a direction we ought to find comforting.