Big Brother or Big Mother?

For those of you familiar with New York City politics you might have heard Mayor Bloomberg called Nanny Bloomberg or some other variation on the nitpicking nanny theme. Lately New Yorkers have seen a big rise in citations for small infractions like smoking in indoor public places, sitting on milk crates on the sidewalk, not curbing animals, etc. And the city’s columnists have been up in arms about the whole thing. Most people understand the Mayor’s motivation to be revenue-based; supposedly he can cover part of the city’s huge deficit by enforcing petty laws. Who knows.

I mention Nanny Bloomberg because today while I was reading Time magazine I ran across an interesting article titled The Nanny in Chief. The piece argues that President Bush has developed an affliction similar to Bloomberg’s. Although his motivations are very different, the president sees the government as a tool to ‘improve’ the moral lives and the character of Americans. Programs like mandatory drug testing in high schools, the ‘healthy marriages’ initiative, and a general moralist thrust in political rhetoric are his way of telling Americans how he thinks they should be living their lives.

I’ve always argued that this president has overstepped his bounds as a leader by promoting certain social programs that go beyond not only the scope of the Federal Government and the Presidency but also beyond the school of the government in general. Where are the real Republican ideals of limited government, personal privacy, state’s rights? They’re history because the president and congressional leaders aren’t Republicans at all, they’re moralist conservatives and politicians (in the bad way).

P.S. This isn’t to say that most Democrats are any better at avoiding moralizing. I don’t think they are. Politics right now are dictating the behavior of our representatives, and for the worse not the better. In their zeal to secure their “bases” politicians pander (President Bush’s State of the Union appeal for a narrow definition of marriage is a prime example) to special interests because they think they can’t get elected without their money and their votes. And they’re probably right.