I see a safe future, ruled by (s)mothering government

Joe Soucheray ^ | 03/20/2010 | Joe Soucheray

[rhema]

Nora Slawik, a DFL representative from Maplewood, is championing a bill that would prohibit drivers from smoking when children are in the car. She probably has the lungs of infants in mind, but the version of the proposal that I read takes it up to age 18, which means that when you return from getting shot at by the Taliban and happen to hitch a ride downtown with Mom, you would be safe from her secondhand smoke.

In not necessarily unrelated news, we have learned that the city has closed the ball fields at the Jimmy Lee Recreational Center because of unsafe levels of lead found in the soil. These are not just any fields, but fields that have accommodated the likes of Dave Winfield, Paul Molitor, Joe Mauer, Jack Morris and probably every second person you see on the street, which begs the question of how we got this far.

We — those of us who remember where we were, for example, when JFK got shot — rode untethered in station wagons driven by a smoking father who dropped us off at a ball field laced with lead, arsenic, mercury, aromatic hydrocarbons, chromium and selenium. Officials figure that the ball fields at Jimmy Lee are on top of what was once a dump.

I wonder if we are getting a glimpse of the future that has been chasing us like a bad dream, the all-encompassing notion that government shall hold us at all times in her mothering embrace. Slawik's proposal, which hasn't gotten anywhere yet, might very well be a look at what is in store for us

Advertisement when the state at last captures health care. It is not at all unreasonable to expect that a government that wishes to provide health care would also set the rules for your health. If Slawik would prohibit smoking in the car, where would her kind stop? Well, her kind always think that they will stop, but they don't, and the next thing you know, there will be a special tax on Baby Ruth bars to disabuse parents from buying them.

We are at a great tipping point in the United States. We are either going to remain a nation of essentially free individuals responsible for our own well-being, economically and aerobically, or we are going to throw in the towel and surrender ourselves to the state, which we will then expect to feed us, house us, clothe us, transport us and protect us from all ills.

The first lady has found her passion: combating obesity.

And the president has certainly found his: health care.

Never mind that a kid playing second base at Jimmy Lee would have to eat about half the infield to get enough lead to turn him into perhaps a legislator.

Lead is an enemy and must be eradicated. I don't dispute that. And I don't mean that we should flirt with the disasters that lead can bring about.

It's just that we have become a nation of people who apparently love to be frightened. And if we are a nation of people who love to be frightened, then we can be frightened by everything and look for protection. If it takes a Nora Slawik to get you to not smoke in front of the baby in a closed car, then you are already lost to the slow surrender of turning your life over to others.

It is absolutely not far-fetched to imagine the state providing our diet, our exercise and our pleasures, maybe throwing the medicine ball around at large vacation camps to which we would be delivered by train.

Or maybe we can scrape off enough soil at Jimmy Lee playground to make it safe again, and we can gather there to do our communal jumping jacks and deep knee bends.

Baseball will be but a distant memory by then, deemed too dangerous.

[rhema]

Never mind that a kid playing second base at Jimmy Lee would have to eat about half the infield to get enough lead to turn him into perhaps a legislator.

[Man50D]

The outcome of any vote by Congress on health care is irrelevant since Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution does not specifically grant Congress the power to regulate health care! Therefore the so called legislation on its face is Unconstitutional! The people are not bound to comply with an Unconstitutional act of Congress! This is a power regulated to the states per the 10th Amendment!

It is the reason why Idaho and Virginia have passed legislation blocking federal health care from being illegally imposed on the citizens of those states by reasserting their 10th Amendment rights and 34 other states considering similar legislation! This is the point people need to hammer home with their Congress critters!

[rhema]

Column is in the St. Paul Pioneer Press.