Republican Nanny-Statism

Many nanny-state efforts come from the left, and tend to be supported by Democrats. But unfortunately the GOP is also complicit in efforts to restrict personal freedom and undermine the notion of individual responsibility. A prime example was a law restricting online gambling, passed by a Republican-controlled Congress in 2006, and set to go in effect on June 1. Congressman Barney Frank (D) is sponsoring a bill to block the law by legalizing online gaming. Here's the response from Republican Spencer Bachus of Alabama.

he would do everything in his power to stop the legalization of Internet gambling, specifically singling out online poker. 

"Internet poker is the crack cocaine of gambling," Bachus told ABCNews.com. "Young people are particularly vulnerable – we don't want to put a casino in every dorm room in the country. Compulsive gambling, by many accounts, is a very serious, growing problem."

We have to ban it for the children! -- actually college-age adults in this case. Bachus sounds like a typical nanny-state Democrat. He thinks we need big government to protect people from themselves. No one can possibly take responsibility for whether or not they want to do some online gambling. We need people like Congressman Bachus to ban it for our own good.

It's very difficult to present the GOP as the party of smaller government, personal responsibility, and individual freedom -- even though it usually is in contrast to Democrats -- when we have Republican idiots like Bachus and his cohorts acting just like typical big government Democrats.