The Nanny State

The war on drugs is another of the government’s bogus wars that we are all too familiar with. It, more than anything else, is responsible for the rise of a police state in America. It has also resulted in a prison state. The United States, with less than 5 percent of the world’s population, has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners. The United States has one of the highest per-capita prison populations in the world. One in 32 American adults is in prison, on probation, or on parole. Yet more than half of all U.S. prisoners are incarcerated for low-level drug offenses.

The nanny state is at its prime when it comes to monitoring consensual behavior that some people find objectionable, e.g., gambling, pornography, and prostitution. Since I live in Pensacola, Florida, I will give some examples from incidents that happened here within the last year.

Our reliance on the government is evident in all walks of life. We have transferred our responsibilities and freedoms from ourselves to the state. Laurence M. Vance provides some examples.