18 Examples Of The Nanny State Gone WildMichael Snyder, Contributor If you look back throughout history, the societies that have really thrived have had a very high degree of liberty and freedom. When the bureaucrats get the upper hand, it can suck the life out of any economy. These control freaks truly believe that they know better than the rest of us and they are systematically moving toward taking total control of our lives. Our rights are being stripped away a little bit more with each passing day, and we are being told that we need a permit or a license for almost everything. Many younger Americans have been living this kind of straight jacket existence for so long that they dont even remember what real liberty and freedom are. We are steamrolling down the road toward totalitarianism, and most Americans dont even realize what is happening. Sadly, there are many Americans that actually agree that the state should regulate nearly every detail of our lives. There are many Americans that actually believe that life is better when there are millions of rules that we all have to follow. There are many Americans that actually believe that too much liberty and freedom is a bad thing. If we are not careful the control freaks are going to destroy this nation. They always tell us that the rules that they are imposing upon us are for our own good, but every time they lay another burden on our backs they just suck a little bit more life out of us all. #1 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced that he wants to ban the sale of all large sodas and sugary drinks in order to fight obesity. Personally I dont have any sodas in my refrigerator, but I certainly do not want the government telling me that I am banned from drinking large sodas. Every American should have the freedom to decide if they want to drink soda or not. #2 In North Carolina, authorities are threatening to send a blogger to prison for blogging about his battle against diabetes. Steve Cooksey has learned that the definition, at least in the eyes of the state board, is expansive. When he was hospitalized with diabetes in February 2009, he decided to avoid the fate of his grandmother, who eventually died of the disease. He embraced the low-carb, high-protein Paleo diet, also known as the caveman or hunter-gatherer diet. The diet, he said, made him drug- and insulin-free within 30 days. By May of that year, he had lost 45 pounds and decided to start a blog about his success. But this past January the state dietetics and nutrition board decided Cookseys blog Diabetes-Warrior.net violated state law. The nutritional advice Cooksey provides on the site amounts to practicing nutrition, the boards director says, and in North Carolina thats something you need a license to do. #3 In San Francisco, if you do not recycle your trash correctly you can be fined up to $500. #4 The following are just some of the cities that have started using RFID tracking chips to monitor the recycling habits of their citizens. *Charlotte, North Carolina *Alexandria, Virginia *Boise, Idaho *Dayton, Ohio *Flint, Michigan #5 In Minnetonka, Minnesota you can be fined up to $2,000 for having a muddy vehicle. #6 In Hazelwood, Missouri it is against the law for little girls to sell girl scout cookies in front of their own homes. #7 San Francisco has implemented a ban on Happy Meal toys. #8 Over the past couple of years there have been quite a few instances all over the country where lemonade stands run by children have been shut down by police because the children had not acquired the proper permits. #9 State legislatures all over the country have been passing legislation making it more difficult for parents to opt out of having their children vaccinated. #10 In many U.S. states is it now illegal to collect any rain that falls on to your own property. #11 In San Juan Capistrano, California it is against the law to hold a home Bible study without a conditional use permit. #12 In New York City, it is against the law to smoke at public parks and beaches. #13 In California,food confiscation teams visit the homes of people that have been discovered to have purchased raw milk. The following is from a recent NaturalNews article. In a bombshell revelation of the depth of the food police state that now exists in LA County, California, NaturalNews has learned that the LA County health department has unleashed door-to-door raw milk confiscation teams to threaten and intimidate raw dairy customers into surrendering raw milk products they legally purchased and own. According to Mark McAfee (see quotes below), both LA County and San Diego county have attempted to acquire customer names and addresses from Organic Pastures (www.OrganicPastures.com) for the sole purpose of sending food confiscation teams to customers homes to remove the raw milk from customers refrigerators. Using both phone calls and home visits, these teams intimidate customers and try to force them to give up their milk. #14 In Hilton Head, South Carolina it is illegal to have trash in your car. #15 In major cities all over the United States feeding the homeless has been banned due to health reasons. #16 In Louisiana, one church was ordered to stop passing out water because it did not have the proper permit. #17 At public schools all over the United States, the lunches that little children bring from home are now inspected to make sure that they meet USDA guidelines. The following is one recent report of this phenomenon from North Carolina. A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because the school told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious. The girls turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the person who was inspecting all lunch boxes in the More at Four classroom that day. The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs including in-home day care centers to meet USDA guidelines. That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home. #18 Today, a vast array of government agencies is constantly monitoring what all of us say and do on the Internet. They claim that this helps makes us all more safe and secure. In order to maintain proper control over our lives, the nanny state is obsessed with watching us and monitoring us. This point was beautifully made in a recent article by Chuck Baldwin. America is no longer one nation under God. Today, America is one nation under surveillance. Cameras monitoring our every movement, satellites taking pictures of our homes, listening devices being used to record our conversations, hi-tech computers capturing virtually every piece of correspondence, banking institutions forwarding our private financial records to Big Brother, and now armed drones flying over the neighborhoods of the American citizenry all reveal that America is anything but the land of the free. Is this really how we want to live? Do we want our children and our grandchildren to live their lives in a nation that is increasingly coming to resemble totalitarian regimes like North Korea? Yes, every society needs laws. Our founders intended to create a society where liberty and freedom would be maximized, and all of that liberty and freedom helped create an environment that gave birth to the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen. But now the control freaks are choking the life out of our society. Please take a stand against them while you still can. This article first appeared here at the Economic Collapse Blog. Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here. linkwithin_text=Related Articles: 