MORE FROM HUFFPOST
MORE FROM HUFFPOST
nanny state
Never underestimate a kid.
Today, the "nanny-state" is omnipresent. Its latest pernicious intrusion pertains to pain relief medication. Doctors are being told to restrict their prescriptions of opioids, the drugs (such as Percocet and Vicodin) used to reduce extreme pain. Why? Because the government is concerned about patients who overuse the drugs, leading to addiction and sometimes death.
There's a pretty high likelihood that, at some point in their lives, my daughters will be sexually active. When that day comes, I couldn't live with myself if I had done anything to increase the risk that they'll die from it. That may not be the way some parents think of their actions, but that is the reality.
WHAT'S HAPPENING
WHAT'S HAPPENING
Apparently, caring about kids' health is another position that just won't fly in an election year.
The payday loan is not, as GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson recently wrote, a "short-term loan secured by their next paycheck with an interest rate around 15 percent." Payday loans, which few borrowers pay off the following week, actually end up with interest rates above 300 percent.
No cupcake-related "rules or guidelines" were in fact "abolished" by the Texas Department of Agriculture, which oversees our state's child nutrition programs, but Miller likely cares little about the specifics.
Restaurants and bars in Lubbock, Texas have become the most recent target of anti-smoking zealots pushing their prohibitionist agenda. These activists fail to appreciate how respecting the freedom of property owners to determine their own policy, coupled with market forces, already achieves efficient regulation.
Having allowed the government to expand and exceed our reach, we find ourselves on the losing end of a tug-of-war over control of our country and our lives.
