It looks obvious

Earlier this month I quoted the story about Bangor’s local council to prohibits smoking in vehicles when children are present. I used this story to open a discussion about the limits on the governments involvement in protecting children. The question of protecting children rights, since they are defenses and cannot make their own choices, and the limits on government’s intrusion to areas it shouldn’t be involve in. I raised the theoretical questions:

Well, this is not a theoretical question anymore:

The slippery slope, although obviously not direct but as a general trend, is clear. We allow the government to protect our children health by making it a crime to smoke in the car with our children in it and next thing the government checking if we attended our children parent-teacher conference. It is even logical that if the government can make sure that we are not damaging our children health it should ensure we are involve in their education.

But this is not enough! what about after school activity? why shouldn’t the government make sure that we send our children to proper extra curriculum activities. Furthermore, what if our choice of school isn’t good enough, or the pediatrician that we choose isn’t good enough? And maybe the language we are using at home isn’t appropriate? or our choice of cloths?

Is it government’s realm to check all of this things? or maybe we should except the fact that parents make choices for their children, some of this choices are probably not the best choices, and the government role should strictly limit to protect children from physical abuse?

Technorati Tags: The Nanny State - Big Government - Human Rights - Children Rights - Libertarianism

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