3 Possible Explanations For Leftist Behavior

Your chances of being seriously injured in an automobile accident today are much less than 1%. 
If you have a baby in the car with you, and the child is not in a protective "infant seat", the child's chance of serious injury or death is still much less than 1%.  It's not even 1/100th of 1%. 

But if you want to see our friends on the political left start tearing out their hair, ripping their clothes, calling the police, and having fainting spells, just throw a two-year-old in your car without strapping the kid into an infant seat, and make a quick run to the grocery store and back.  There is a very small chance that you could do some small injury to the child, and this makes nanny-staters have anxiety attacks. 

Now, consider this: 

If a government doesn't have any restraints on its ability to print paper money - i.e. "fiat currency" - the chances of inflation ruining its economy are 100%.  It will have a ruinous effect on every child in the nation.  They will all live diminished lives as a result of older generations refusing to pay as they go.  It will happen every....single....time.  ALL paper money has eventually become valueless (except to collectors and hobbyists) and it has always been the younger generations who are stuck cleaning up the mess. 

Here's another fun fact.....  Each year in the United States, approximately 30,000 persons with BB and pellet gun-related injuries are treated in hospital emergency departments.  Most (95%) injuries are BB or pellet gunshot wounds; 5% are other types of injuries (e.g., lacerations sustained inadvertently while cleaning or shooting a gun, or contusions resulting from being struck with the butt of a gun). Most (81%) persons treated for BB and pellet gun wounds are children and teenagers. 

That's why most of our friends on the political left don't allow their kids to go near a BB or pellet gun.  (Side note - When I was a kid, my friends and I often had minor BB and pellet gun-related injuries.  None of these battle scars were accidental, because we were shooting at each other.  Fun as hell, and the current generation of fragile, dainty, precious little snowflakes will never know that joy.) 

30,000 minor injuries per year from BB guns, and 95% of the victims are children and teenagers?  That's a lot. 

Contrast that unspeakable horror with this one.  The minority teen employment rate is now approaching 50%.  With 8 million minority teenagers in the U.S., this means 4 million are unemployed. 

Our minimum wage laws make it illegal to employ them.

(The thought process of the Statists is that the kids are better off unemployed and jobless at a minimum wage of $7.25, than employed and productive at the wage of $3, $4, or $6 per hour that their skills are worth.) 

Our friend on the left do not give a shit.  You really can't imagine the size of the shit which they do not give.  Go figure. 

Our friends on the political left want to do whatever is necessary to protect us from the big, bad world.  They'll delay the approval and release of life-saving medicines, even though the delays probably cost us 100,000 lives per year.  They even boast about how many lives the new drug will "save" each year.  Do the math, and you'll quickly learn how many lives were lost by preventing the manufacturer from selling it 5 years earlier.

So why the disconnect? 

My theory is that Statists just enjoy messing with agreements that are none of their business.  I don't like the idea that there are people whose skills are only worth $3.00 per hour.  I hate it.  But I also know that work of any type, for any salary, teaches people about punctuality, dependability, and other good work habits.  Almost all $3.00 labor is eventually worth $7.25 to someone, somewhere.  So you'll never catch me lobbying for an alternative universe where low-skilled labor is worth as much as skilled labor.  I don't have that mindset.  As long as the parties in the job agreement does what they says they're gonna do, it's none of my business, or yours. 

Here's another possibility for the contradiction.  Statists generally aren't held responsible for unintended consequences of their policies.  Rather than voting for the candidate who promises to reduce eliminate Social Security payments to millionaires, they support the guy who is going to print money to make the payments.  The kids don't see an immediate harm to themselves, and plus, kids can't vote.  That might explain some of the bizarre policies, and the same explanation easily applies to stimulus packages, economic development boondoggles, and healthcare debacles. 

Those theories - love of meddling and freedom from consequences - aren't enough to explain all of it. 

There's always the possibility, of course, that they're just freakin' stupid. 

Has anyone else noticed....

Has anyone else noticed that the individuals wanting to save the earth from Global Warming/Cooling/Weather/Etc. for the sake of "the children" are almost always the same people who want to avoid paying as they go for political and economic boondoggles, leaving behind crushing debts to be paid by "the children"?

It makes me nuts. 

That's all. 

Have a great Friday !! 

Liberty Book Discussion Group - "It Takes A Village" by Hillary Clinton

Tonight the Liberty Book Discussion Group will study Hillary Clinton's inspirational classic "It Takes A Village".

Join us as we discuss why it's best that Washington's charismatic social-climbers join with you in raising your children, planning their diets, providing their healthcare, evaluating their fitness, dominating their educations, and teaching your little offspring to work for them and only them.

While this is a departure from our usual "free minds and free markets" approach, it's time that we opened our minds to the concepts that have made Europe the creative and economic hotbed that we see today.

So come and learn more about self-enrichment through "public service". 7:00 p.m. tonight. Feel free to bring your own children to this event. We will arbitrarily appoint someone from the group to provide childcare.

And please join us next month as we discuss Ms. Clinton's investment masterpiece "How I Turned One Grand Into A Hundred Grand By Betting On Cattle Futures", co-authored by her supporters who just happened to lose $100,000.00 at the same time.

We'll be meeting 7:00 p.m. April 1st, at the Border's Books & Cafe at 1996 Vince Foster Lane, Whitewater Arkansas.

Help The Aggie stand up for YOUR rights as a Texas pet owner ! ! !

This came from The Aggie.

A message from Dave and Tracy Barker



Dear Fellow Texans,
Last week Tracy and I met with a member of the staff of Senator Hutchison. He was very interested to hear about Senate Bill S373, the so-called anti-python bill (actually, pythons, anacondas and boas). We gave him a lot of printed information and he listened to what we had to say for over an hour. I feel that he will well represent our interests to the Senator. However, he gave us this good advice. Politics is a numbers game.

You bet it is. I spend a couple of hours at last night's Tarrant County Libertarian Meetup, listening to a guy explain how the numbers work.
Some doofus in the Senate has figured out that there are more people who are afraid of snakes than there are people who like them. This doofus sees an opportunity to get somethinig passed with his name on it. He or she probably claims that it's FOR THE CHILDREN ©

Our representatives only know what we tell them, and right now we Texans have not told the local offices of Senator Hutchison anything. We were told that we are the first and only people to talk with any of our Senator’s local offices on the matter of S373. If that is so, it seems likely that not many have contacted Senator Cornyn’s office, either. It may be that a lot of you have called the Washington DC office, that’s good. Hopefully all of you are contributing to the USARK letter-writing campaign.

Based on letters we have seen from Senator Cornyn’s office, he has taken a position to oppose S373. Senator Hutchison has not yet taken a position on S373. It is particularly important to call her offices and let her know that we Texans, her constituents, do not favor S373. So we all need to pick up the phone and make a quick call to the closest local office of each of our Senators. Please tell the staff who answers the phone that you oppose S373 and you want the Senator to oppose this ill-advised, Democrat-sponsored bill.

Isn't it funny how, after only one year of Democrat control, the phrase "Democrat-sponsored bill" is now an effective scare tactic?

If you have a business, if you breed snakes, If you are a vendor or a participant at reptile shows, if you have made an investment in snakes, you need to stress that this bill will hurt Texans and hurt the Texas economy.

The Aggie and I have been going to reptile shows ever since she got out of diapers. At one point we had 27 lizards in the house. One was a Basilisk named Norbert. If you've ever watched Animal Planet (The Aggie went through a stage where she turned all the TV's to Animal Planet and threw away all the remotes) you might remember seeing a long lizard running upright on top of a pond. That's how Basilisks got their nickname - The Jesus Lizard - since they can walk on water.

The first time Reverend Brett Younger saw Norbert, and learned of his water-walking abilities, he went on an extended riff about the now-extinct Simon Peter Lizard, which would try to run on the water, lose faith, and then sink.

You either think that's really funny, or you don't. I liked it.

Even if you just like these animals, and you feel that Americans should have the right to possess animals, then you oppose S373 and you need to let your Senators know.

Even if you don't give a rip one way or the other about people keeping animals, you should be aware that Congress knows as much about keeping reptiles as they know about Taiwanese socket set manufacturing practices. Nothing. Nothing at all.

Some people want money, some want fame. Government wants power and control.

The point that Tracy and I feel is most important is that S373 is an inappropriate national law for what is a local problem in a small area of South Florida. Any monies generated by S373 will go only to Florida, Texas will not benefit in any way and Texans who choose to keep and breed snakes will be damaged.

And besides that, it's none of Nancy Pelosi's damn business. Let's worry about getting the snakes out of Congress.

And please realize that as soon as S373 is voted on in the Senate, then we all face another bill, S669. This law will ban almost all herps from American homes. If passed, even in a modified form, you can bet that most exotic snakes and ALL VENOMOUS SNAKES will be banned. Even if you personally don’t keep pythons, anacondas or boas, realize that if we all don’t beat S373 now, we will probably not beat S669. Please call and tell your Senators what you think is bad about S373 and ask them to oppose it. The phone numbers for those offices are listed below. A call takes only a few minutes.

One more thing, please send letters to the USARK campaign, and that means two letters from you, and also letters that you print out that are signed by your mom, your dad, your co-workers, your friends, members of your PTA, your nature center—anybody and everybody you can think of. Go to http://cts.vresp.com/c/?TexasReptiles/cdaf3a35fe/9375505a95/168911799d for instructions and sample letters. We have to get them in the mail this week. We need a lot of letters! Don’t fail.

Thanks

Dave and Tracy

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison

LOCAL OFFICES
Austin, Texas
512-916-5834

Dallas, Texas
214-361-3500

Houston, Texas
713-653-3456

San Antonio, Texas
210-340-2885

Abilene, Texas
325-676-2839

Harlingen, Texas
956-425-2253

Senator John Cornyn

LOCAL OFFICES

Dallas, Texas
972-239-1310

San Antonio, Texas
210-224-7485

Tyler, Texas
903-593-0902

Austin, Texas
512-469-6034

Lubbock, Texas
806-472-7533

Harlingen, Texas
956-423-0162

Houston, Texas
713-572-3337

Here's a Dave Barker video:

John Stossel on Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, and Fish Pedicures

What would happen if the most productive members of society went on strike?

Did you set your Tivo to record Stossel last night? No? Even though it was the segment devoted to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged?
You didn't watch it, even though Atlas Shrugged is 50 years old, a thousand pages long, but recently hit #15 on Amazon.com's fiction bestseller list?
You didn't watch John Stossel and a host of guests critique the Washington D.C. Community Theatre production of the novel? The one adapted for the stage by Barney Frank and Tiny Timmy Geithner?

(Heavy sigh that can be heard by regulators in the basement of Bernanke's Federal Reserve building way over in Dallas....)
At great personal sacrifice, I watched Stossel instead of watching Alabama's Crimson Tide defeat the Texas Longhorns.

Here goes: Stossel's first guest was a banker named John Allison. Allison is a Rand fan, to say the least, and is chairman of BT&T, a North Carolina bank that he grew from nothing into something enormous, largely by avoiding financial gimmicks. Here's what the New York Times has to say about Mr. Allison:

....(Allison) also has a résumé befitting a Rand prophet. He started at BB&T, once known as the Branch Banking and Trust Company, in 1971 and became chief executive in 1989, when the bank had $4.7 billion in assets.
By the time he retired as C.E.O. in December, he had overseen 60 bank and savings-institution acquisitions and turned BB&T into the 11th-largest bank in the nation, with $152 billion in assets, according to the bank.
A 60-year-old who speaks in a rapid-fire Southern accent, Mr. Allison says the current financial crisis is primarily the government’s fault. He criticizes the Fed as trying to manipulate normal business cycles and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as facilitating mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them.
The government’s remedies have made matters only worse, he says: “Almost everything that has been done since this crisis started is going to reduce our long-term standard of living.”
Mr. Allison says the government forced BB&T and some other healthy banks to accept TARP money to obscure that they were simply trying to save several large banks like Citigroup.
“Everyone thinks we got some kind of subsidy,” he says, noting that his company paid the money back in June, with interest. “It’s going to cost us about $250 million for money we didn’t want.”

Allison spent some time trying to distinguish between enlightened self-interest and Ayn's preferred "shock value" term, selfishness. He mentioned that one of the ways this manifests itself in his company is their refusal to loan money in eminent domain projects, and "pick a payment" loans (AKA negative amortization gimmicks. Hit the NYT link above for details.) According to Allison, eminent domain is a threat to property rights, and therefore a threat to our economic system. Negative amortization loans are almost guaranteed to fail.
Neither of these is a win/win situation for the bank/client relationship. Allison says it's in his bank's self-interest to avoid either of these situations for a mere short-term profit.
The topic briefly switched over to government-run schools, and the lack of competition in that system. Here's one of my favorite Allison lines:

"We (at the bank) don't really like being innovative. We're forced to be innovative by the market. But if you have a government-run monolith, it is not going to be innovative, it is not going to be creative."

The next guest was C. Bradley Thompson of Clemson University, who drew some parallels between one of Rand's more bizarre scenes and the incident last fall when Hank Paulson called six bankers into his office and demanded that they take TARP money. Then Thompson and Stossel spent a few minutes playing the Stunt Casting game. Who is Dagney Taggart today? Who is Wesley Mouch? Who is John Galt?

Next up was Yaron Brook, president of The Ayn Rand Institute, who had a great time ridiculing the idea of the United States Of America having a Compensation Czar and a Regulatory Czar. Brook and Thompson discussed the perverse case of General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, who spends about $20,000,000.00 on lobbying for regulations that will restrict competition within G.E.'s core businesses. Immelt has also seen the light and is a big-time proponent of Cap And Trade.
What's in all this for Immelt and G.E.? They gets millions in federal loan guarantees and grants. It's a beautiful system, and everyone is sure there's no Quid Pro Quo involved.

The questions from the audience began with Rand's personal life, which was, as they say, complicated. (Most of what I know about her personal life comes from watching The Passion Of Ayn Rand on DVD a few months ago. Here's a video from the film set to music by Justin Timberlake. Swear to God. I love the internet.)


I'm not a follower of Objectivism, the name Rand gave her philosophy. But let's indulge in an Et Tu argument for a moment.....
Karl Marx developed what his followers say is the most fair, equitable, and humane economic system ever imagined. But he shamefully neglected his own family, and got the housecleaner pregnant.
Look at the public teachings of Jesus, as compared to the constant rebukes he always gave his closest disciples in private.
Most of us have some serious gaps between our spoken principles vs. how we spend our day. Barack Obama, Lord and Savior of us all, for instance. Compare his soaring rhetoric to how he has thrown Greg Craig, Yosi Sergant, Anita Dunn and Van Jones under the bus.

One audience member brought up the question that Libertarians always have to answer: Don't we need some government? John Allison answered first. Government is important. There has to be a system in place to protect individual rights - i.e., a defense system, and a law enforcement system. I don't think anyone mentioned roads, which usually rounds out the minimalist government trifecta.

This question was followed by a first on the Stossel program. A woman got up and ranted about the negative impact of taxes and regulations on small businesses and entrepreneurs (Doh !). She didn't really ask a question. She didn't challenge anything previously said by the panelists. I hope Stossel avoids this type of interchange in the future, because every question from the audience on previous programs was from someone who disagreed with the guest. There's something to be said for limiting the conversation to hostile questions, not Oprah-style softballs.

The conversation almost, but not quite, got into something that I've never heard discussed on television. You know how Obama/Pelosi/Reid talk about Big Business as if it sprang forth from a gaping hole in the lid of hell? But small business is worthy of tax breaks, regulatory slack, plus flowers and back massages on major holidays?
There is no difference. Businesses don't pay taxes, people do. The money paid via business taxes is money taken from the employees of a business. Giving a tax break to the #3 and #4 guys at a small business, while witholding the tax break from the janitor at a mega-business, doesn't make much sense. But it makes us feel good.

Next up was the editor of Reason magazine, Nick Gillespie, in his trademark black leather jacket. (I'm friends with Nick on Facebook - he only has 1,527 other friends, so I'm understandably proud.) He and Stossel were shown getting something called a Fish Pedicure. You stick your feet in a water tank, and little guppies eat the dead skin off your tootsies. Very popular in Asia. (These fish were provided by Mr. John Ho, a Virginia entrepreneur who has almost been regulated out of existence by Nanny State Munchkins.)

I don't think the Libertarian Party has an official position statement on fish pedicures, so I'd like to propose one. "If I want to pay someone to allow his fish to nibble away my callouses and bunions, it's none of the government's business."

The very existence of a growing fish pedicure industry is enough to drive the cosmetology regulators totally apeshit. Stossel brought in a New York state legislator Jeffrey Klein (shown via satellite, because he was in San Juan, Puerto Rico, for a conference). Mr. Klein says that fish pedicures are "dirty, dangerous, and mean to the fish", and he wants to outlaw the practice. Under intense cross-examination, Klein admitted that no one has ever been harmed by a fish pedicure. Klein tried to say that there had been a lot of complaints. Stossel claimed that he'd looked for evidence of complaints and couldn't find any.

And then, it happened. After decades of TV studio audiences mindlessly applauding every regulatory bureaucrat, politician, troll, and hobbit who wants to regulate the _____ industry, Stossel said "Aren't you just a busybody, taking away other people's freedom?"

The audience started applauding. They cheered. They made the same noises that idiots used to make when Bill Clinton said he was going to do something FOR THE CHILDREN® . A living, breathing group of people, on television, actually got the point. They weren't huddled in a dark corner of a bar for a libertarian meetup. They weren't in Ayn Rand Objectivist chatrooms. They were on my television, with a viewing audience that probably numbered in the high 5 digits, and they almost hooted Jeffrey Klein off the screen.

Gillespie: "We're at a point in history where people are wealthier, relatively speaking, and more educated and more in charge of their lives across more different dimensions, and now we're having government come in, and people like New York state legislators, who cannot balance their budgets, who are billions of dollars in debt, who are telling us 'leave the little fish alone'. This is wrong. It's not their business. And it shouldn't be their business to regulate other businesses. Especially now."

It was a great conversation between Gillespie and Stossel, made slightly ridiculous by the cameraman occasionally pulling back and showing that they both had their feet in a fish tank with minnows nibbling their toenails.

There were more questions for Gillespie about motorcycle helmets. cell phone use while driving, and a few other topics. FoxBusiness will probably run this feature 3 or 4 more times before next week. You still have time to catch it. Here's the closing monologue. If the Lou Dobbs clip doesn't make you want to smash your fist through your computer screen, you need to cut back your valium dosage.


John Stossel. Ayn Rand. Capitalism. Atlas Shrugged. Nick Gillespie. A government regulator getting hammered. It was some great television. Better than watching the U.T. Longhorns get hammered, anyway.

No one should have a drivers license without a high school diploma ??

I've been in Mississippi for my Aunt and Uncle's 50th wedding anniversary. I found this in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger.

Living with Children
John Rosemond
Copyright 2009, John K. Rosemond

My oldest grandson, not yet 15, is already taking drivers education. In fact, he’s already been behind the wheel with his instructor, on an interstate highway no less. I’m resigned to his obtaining his license in a little more than a year. I’m not happy about it. I’m resigned. Mind you, he’s more trustworthy and responsible (in my objective opinion) than nine-point-nine out of ten of his peers. He’s a good if not great kid, and as my readers know, my standards are high. Still, I’m shaking my head in incredulous resignation.

Sir,
With a few truly disfunctional exceptions, everyone's grandchildren are more trustworthy and responsible than nine-point-nine out of ten peers. They are also better looking. Ask any grandparent.

Disclaimer: When my kids turned 16, each received a car from their hugely naïve parents. Would that I had some things to do over again.
Two weeks ago, a San Diego journalist called asking for some quotes for a story he’s doing on teenage drivers. The story was prompted by the recent automobile deaths of two San Diego teens in separate accidents. My beloved grandson’s life flashed in front of me.

I told said journalist that giving a drivers license to a teenage child (and if anyone has failed to notice, they are still children) under age 18 was like giving the kid a revolver with ten thousand chambers, only one of which is loaded with a bullet, and telling him to point it at his head and pull the trigger. Would any responsible parent do such a thing? Then, pray tell, why do otherwise responsible parents allow teenage children to obtain drivers licenses and provide them with cars?

Well, why do we let anyone drive? Why let anyone fly in an airplane? Why let anyone get out of bed in the morning, considering all the risks? Granted, teenagers are 10% of the population, but account for 12% of the automobile craches. The chart in that last link shows ages 16-20 accounting for 5,658 automobile deaths in 2006. That's a five year age span. But ages 21-24 accounted for 4,701 automobile deaths in just a four year age span. Do a little math to equalize the age brackets, either on the high end of the older age group, and the 21-24 (now the 21-25) age group has a higher fatality toll than the teenagers !
In other words, it's not quite honest to compare 5 years worth of teenage fatalities with only 4 years' of their elders. The elders are more dangerous.

When would I allow driving privileges? he asked. When two conditions were satisfied­—the 18th birthday and a high school diploma. Would that reduce the drop-out rate or what?

One thing you learn if you study statistics and economics for very long, even at the high school level: Half the high school kids are below average. I repeat, half the high school kids are below average. Just like half the florists, plumbers, morticians, doctors, fast food restaurants, Beatles albums and philosophy professors are below the "average" for florists, plumbers, morticians, etc.
A lot of those kids can't do high school work, just like a lot of their older brethren can't do college work. But many of them are great drivers. Many of them will become professional drivers. How in the heck do you justify tying high school proficiency to a drivers license?

The 16-year-old driving privilege was established when cars were less powerful, roads were less crowded, and 16-year-olds were considerably more mature than they are today. Furthermore, these laws were passed to allow teens to participate more fully in the operation of family farms. They were not passed with the intention that teens would drive for discretionary, largely recreational purposes.

That paragraph deserves a rant of its own. The government granting "privileges" to the serfs, based on lofty, noble "intentions", and whether or not the driving is discretionary, recreational, necessary, vital, or used to further the glorious ambitions of the state..... Naw. Let's don't get sidetracked.

Do teens need driving privileges, much less cars? Obviously not. In Europe, where teens seem to live satisfactory lives (by all measures, they are much happier on average than US teens), the driving age is 18. Even then, few young adults drive cars. They walk, ride bicycles, use public transportation, or putt around on scooters.
Someone clamors for my attention: “But John! Lots of small towns and rural areas don’t have public transportation!” But the same is true in Europe. And, to repeat, European teens are lots happier than they are on this side of the pond.

This reminds me of the first road trip we made to Oklahoma with our friend and employee Igor, who came from the former Yugoslavia. We were driving north on the I-35 wilderness between Fort Worth and Oklahoma City, seeing nothing but pasture for miles around. Igor finally broke the silence by saying "In my country, we put our towns closer together."

I suggest that the primary reason the driving age is not going to be raised any time soon is because the current law is a huge convenience to parents. They are not only relieved of having to transport the young licensee, but they can also assign him to driving younger siblings to after-school activities and the like. So even though these young drivers cannot vote, state legislators are going to protect their driving privileges. Given that interstate commerce is involved, we can only hope that Congress will take up the issue.

The kid drivers don't just transport younger siblings. They transport.... our parents. Their parents' parents. Think of the implications and reasons for that assignment. I trust my teenage daughter on I-20, and will take a nap in the car when she's driving. If my mother is driving, I'm on full alert. I usually go ahead and take the wheel.

Given the facts, which lead to the inescapable conclusion that giving driving privileges to a teen, any teen, puts the youngster at far, far more risk than letting a 5-year-old play outside unsupervised (which most of the same parents would not allow), I must conclude that this is not, to be polite, the most prudent of moves.

I'd like to see the data on that statement. I don't think anyone keeps records on the danger of letting 5-year-olds play outside unsupervised (although I played outside, unsupervised, both at home and in town quite a bit.) The idea of the current generation of Precious Snowflakes doing anything unsupervised is supposed to terrify us into agreement, though.

I invite anyone out there to justify this to me in rational terms. You can send your comments to me through my website at http://www.rosemond.com/.

Let's look at the data..... From the previous link:

Of Male drivers killed between 15 and 20 years of age 38% were speeding and 24% had been drinking and driving.
About 30% of teens reported that within the previous 30 days, they had been a passenger in a car with a driver who had been drinking alcohol. One in 10 teens said that they personally had driven after drinking alcohol.
Teen drivers killed in auto crashes after drinking and driving, 74% did not wear a seat belt.

And then from the chart. In 2006, 578 drivers who were killed were under 5 years old. 516 were age 5-9. 1079 were age 9-15.

It's illegal to speed, and it's already illegal to drink and drive. We have laws that say you have to wear a seat belt in an automobile. We have laws that prevent 5 year-olds from driving.

But all of those things still happen. Giving the Nanny State another sacrifice on the altar will merely result in more kids giving rides in larger groups. If there are five kids in a car, I want my kid to be the driver, and I don't care if my child is 15 and the others are 19. It's kinda like that grandparent thing, noted above.

We don't need more laws on the books to prevent bad things from happening to kids. Especially when there are more bad things happening to a slightly older group that is already allowed to vote.

Family psychologist John Rosemond’s latest book, The Well-Behaved Child, is now in bookstores.

The Weekly Radley - Neighborliness has been found, and must be punished ! ! !

Our Weekly Radley, from the online collection of Radley Balko, involves a Michigan woman who is cruelly siphoning funds away from the babysitting industry.....

MIDDLEVILLE, Mich. (WZZM) - A West Michigan woman says the state is threatening her with fines and possibly jail time for babysitting her neighbors' children.Lisa Snyder of Middleville says her neighborhood school bus stop is right in front of her home. It arrives after her neighbors need to be at work, so she watches three of their children for 15-40 minutes until the bus comes.

The Department of Human Services received a complaint that Snyder was operating an illegal child care home. DHS contacted Snyder and told her to get licensed, stop watching her neighbors' kids, or face the consequences.

"It's ridiculous." says Snyder. "We are friends helping friends!" She added that she accepts no money for babysitting.Mindy Rose, who leaves her 5-year-old with Snyder, agrees. "She's a friend... I trust her."

State Representative Brian Calley is drafting legislation that would exempt people who agree to care for non-dependent children from daycare rules as long as they're not engaged in a business. "We have babysitting police running around this state violating people, threatening to put them in jail or fine them $1,000 for helping their neighbor (that) is truly outrageous" says Rep. Calley.

A DHS spokesperson would not comment on the specifics of the case but says they have no choice but to comply with state law, which is designed to

Get ready for it....here comes the kicker ! ! !

protect Michigan children ®

The Nanny State Demotivational Poster came from someplace in all of this.