America Is Becoming a Nanny State

[johnny1212]

by Wayne Root

I recently read a newspaper column by John Stossel (one of the only heroes in the American media). His commentary was right on the money. He wrote about the ever-expanding nanny tate" that American government has become.


His example centered on a new Chicago law that bans restaurants from serving foie gras (duck liver pate).


How absurd! How anti-American.

Has anyone ever heard of freedom of choice? Not only is this absurd law a violation of my freedoms as a consumer and restaurant patron — it also encourages Americans to lose respect for the law. Consumers who have never even thought of eating fois gras, will now order it just to be hip, to exercise their freedom, or to thumb their nose at our idiotic nanny-state government.

Once again, political leaders (usually liberal do-gooders trying to stuff their beliefs down my throat) have cow-towed to powerful special interest groups to gain votes and support. In this case it is ultra- liberal Illinois politicians doing the bidding of the animal-rights fanatics (PETA and other extremist liberal groups).

But this hypocritical pandering to limit our freedoms — conducted only to win elections — is committed by both sides on the political aisle. The foie gras ban is minor compared to the pandering going on right now by Republican senators and congressmen on the issue of online gaming.


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This intolerant, hypocritical and pathetic piece of nanny-state legislation is a disgrace to the limited government roots of the GOP and my all-time political hero Ronald Reagan. I became a Republican because I wanted government bureaucrats out of my hair and out of my life.

Respect for Individualism
Now some out-of-touch, intolerant nanny-state politicians that have little or no understanding of the Internet, and have never made a bet in their lives (that is of course their choice — and I respect that) have decided that the way for the GOP to win this election is to pander to extremist religious zealots that can't stand to see any of us enjoy life (if it doesn't fit their definition of "right" or moral).



Never lose sight of the fact that before these morality dictators decided to set their sights on gambling, their religious zealot forefathers wanted to ban dancing and drinking. Their fathers and grandfathers were the architects of the single biggest political blunder in U.S. history — Prohibition.
Their blunder caused a dramatic increase in vice, a dramatic increase in political corruption, and the birth of organized crime. Yes, the very religious zealots trying to save America by banning alcohol, actually brought us Al Capone, Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano, Bugsy Siegal and the Gambino crime family. So much for naïve do-gooders.

These moral dictators out to save you and me by banning the "sin" of gambling are out of touch with reality. Americans LOVE to gamble. The U.S. Congress Gambling Impact study reported a few years back that Americans spend over $380 billion dollars on sports gambling alone — making it bigger than the U.S. auto industry! More money is spent annually by Americans on gambling than movies, music, books, videos, and DVDs combined.


Note to GOP politicians: Americans have voted resoundingly with their pocketbooks — they want the freedom to gamble. It's a fact that an overwhelming majority of Americans are comfortable with gambling — our ancestors gambled with their very lives by escaping to a new land called America. Anyone who buys a home is making the biggest bet of their financial lives on the direction of housing prices and interest rates.



Anyone that buys stocks on Wall Street is a huge gambler — risking losing their life savings or retirement money on the direction of stocks (see the collapse of Internet stocks in 2000; or the implosion of Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, and many others in recent years). And in this nation of entrepreneurs, anyone that puts their life savings on the line to open a small business is the biggest gambler of all.



Yet online gambling provides the strongest evidence yet — despite the fact that America is one of only a handful of countries in the world that considers online gambling to be illegal, Americans spend 60 percent or more of the global gambling dollars online. We're the biggest gamblers in the world!



Long Line of Gamblers
We are a nation of gamblers. Always have been, always will be.



It was Pilgrim gamblers that left Europe to found America (in the name of freedom). Lotteries helped fund the original colonies of the United States of America — even George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were known to wager on those lotteries!

It was daring gamblers like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin that risked their lives and fortunes to start the American Revolution against the most powerful army in the world (in the name of freedom).


It was frontier riverboat gamblers that tamed the Wild West. It was entrepreneurial gamblers that created the Internet (and were rewarded for their big risks with billions of dollars during the Internet boom).

It was a gutsy gambler from Texas by the name of George W. Bush that took a wild political gamble by attacking Iraq — without waiting for permission from the rest of the world.

We are rebels. We are rule breakers. We are dice-rollers. We are cowboys forever roaming and conquering the wild frontier — craps games, and poker included.

America is a nation of bold dreamers and risk-takers who don't understand the word "impossible."

Now some straight-laced, out-of-touch, moral-majority fanatics want to police cyber-space. They want to limit my freedoms and choices. They want to rule my life — even though my choice to make a bet online does not affect their lives in any way.

Well I happen to like gambling. And I believe in freedom. Freedom is precisely why we fought the American Revolution. Freedom was why we fought the Civil War, two World Wars, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf War, the war in Iraq, and the war on terrorism.



I am one of America's most passionate and high profile Republican activists. I will always be a Republican.



The problem is that I fear my party is leaving me. I'm sorry to say that the Republican Party of limited government is gone (at least for the moment). In its place is a party willing to trample the rights and freedoms of individual Americans (just as Liberal Democrats have always tried to trample the rights of businessmen and entrepreneurs).


The party of limited government wants to install the nanny state.

Many Americans get in their cars while intoxicated and maim or kill others — yet alcohol is legal. Heck, alcohol companies seem to buy half the ads on American television. But in the history of this world, no one has ever been injured or killed by my decision to make a bet online.

Nevada Leads the Way
Here in my home state of Nevada, gamblers have been playing horses, sports, craps, blackjack and poker for decades. And Nevada is the No. 1 fastest-growing state in America for 19 consecutive years. Las Vegas has been the No. 1 fastest growing city for 19 consecutive years.


Moreover, Nevada leads the nation every year in a multitude of categories from job growth to housing starts to small business creation.

More proof that Americans love gambling and limited government (gambling revenues in Nevada allow our state to feature the ultimate Republican style of government: zero state income-taxes, zero business tax, zero inheritance tax). Nor has any harm come to England, where online gaming is legalized, regulated and taxed, thereby producing millions in new taxes.


Yet these self-deputized nanny-state police want to tell untold millions of American male sports fans whether we have the right (or the freedom) to bet on a game or not. Most Americans disagree strongly — a USA Today survey reported recently that more than one out of two American adults made a bet on sports in the past year.


But what's the difference between a bet made at a Vegas casino . . . or online? Who has decided that tribal casinos growing and expanding faster than weeds across America are "good" while online gambling is "bad?"

Who has decided that online horse race gambling is "good," but online poker is not?

Who has decided that online Lotteries are "good," but online sports betting is not? Who determines what is legal and what is not? The answer is corrupt politicians and lobbyists pandering to special interests. Perhaps people like Jack Abramoff? Remember Jack?


He was the morally corrupt lobbyist that pretended to be fighting the spread of tribal casinos- while he was actually taking tens of millions of dollars in fees from another tribal casino to cripple the competition. That's "morality" in D.C.


That's how decisions that affect my freedoms (and yours) are made every day in Washington. Politicians that represent states with tribal casinos, horse-race tracks with slot machines, and state lotteries just happen to think online gaming is a sin (perhaps because it cuts into the profits of the gaming companies that pay huge contributions to those same Senators).

Here's the upshot: Prohibition failed miserably the first time around. You cannot tell free men what to do with their own lives and money. Or how to entertain themselves.

The government will fail miserably in its attempt to ban online gaming too.
For those right-wing extremists who do not get it — this commentary is not an attack on the GOP. I'm a loyal Republican trying to save the GOP (from ourselves). Millions of Americans vote Republican because they do not like or trust government.


They want smaller government, reduced bureaucracy, lower spending and lower taxes. They stand for freedom — individual rights, states rights, and personal responsibility.

These are traditional GOP values. Barry Goldwater was the father of the conservative movement — he was a libertarian Republican who despised big government. He believed that individuals should be free to make their own decisions. Goldwater would never have supported the expansion of
government (or the GOP) into the nanny state. Ronald Reagan was a disciple of Barry Goldwater and the father of modern conservatism. He too despised big government and dedicated his life to expanding freedom for all Americans.

Goldwater and Reagan were the architects of the current GOP political dominance. If not for them, today's Republican Party would not control Congress, Senate, Presidency, a majority of Governorships and state legislatures. Yet despite all that success (or perhaps because of it), the GOP has strayed far from its roots.


It is time to return to our core values.

Online gaming is just a small issue — but it represents a gigantic struggle for the soul of the Republican Party. I intend to lead the fight in the name of my heroes Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.

Wayne Allyn Root is a Jewish Republican activist, a future Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Nevada, creator of

MillionaireRepublican.com, and author of Amazon's No. 1 best-selling book "Millionaire Republican."