by Jonathan Young

Created on: November 29, 2007

I don't know who first coined the term "nanny state," but I've noticed that opposing this aspect of government has since become a rallying cry for American conservatives nationwide. I assume the idea has its roots in the cult of personality surrounding Reagan, and the assertions he made about welfare serving as an economic disincentive, a perverse liberal conspiracy intended to reward slovenly, immoral people at the expense of hardworking Christian taxpayers.

As the pace of globalization began to increase in the 80s and 90s, the nanny-state concept extended to include the protectionist movement in the manufacturing sector, to tariffs and subsidies, to unions and workers' rights. Conservatives began to see protectionist trade measures in the same light as welfare.

"No one is entitled to anything beyond the minimum rights guaranteed by the Constitution," conservatives said. "No is entitled to a job, to healthcare, to housing, to a living wage, to anything beyond Constitutional rights."

And then along came George W. Bush, and even those basic Constitutional rights began to disappear. Suddenly police and intelligence officials no longer needed a warrant for searches and seizures. Suddenly habeas corpus began to look like a tenuous promise that could appear or disappear at the whim of the executive office. After 9-11, terrorism became the conservative issue of the day, and because Al Qaeda claimed every country for Allah, everyone became a suspect.

"Guilty until proven innocent," became a fact of life for Americans. And in the digital age, it had become impossible to avoid the dragnet. Anyone who used a telephone or the Internet became a suspect in an investigation of potential terrorist connections or sentiment. People too closely associated with common Arabic names on terrorist watch lists began to disappear, kidnapped by CIA rendition programs, taken to black ops prisons in Syria and other foreign countries, tortured, forced to confess to crimes they never committed. (Anyone still doubting this reality is free to look up Maher Arar's story: it isn't exactly a state secret anymore.)

But hardliners in the Republican party remained unmoved. The daddy state had arrived. According to conservatives, the daddy state was trustworthy, and could therefore wield an excessive and unconstitutional amount of power with our blessing. Whatever threats the United States faced, daddy would take care of them, and we didn't need to know about his methods. Daddy could operate in complete secrecy, because we trusted him.

It's a striking dichotomy. The nanny wants to give us nutritious food and education, and protect us from consequences we don't necessarily foresee. Daddy's a scholar at the school of hard knocks, and will happily let us learn from experience. We are allowed to do whatever stupid things we please, even cripple our own economy, so long as we remember that under daddy's roof (anywhere in the world), we can either follow the rules or face the consequences.

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