http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040202-582330,00.htmlThere's barely a speech by President Bush that doesn't cite the glories of human freedom. It's God's gift to mankind, he believes. And in some ways this President has clearly expanded it: the people of Afghanistan and Iraq enjoy liberties unimaginable only a few years ago. But there's a strange exception to this Bush doctrine. It ends when you reach America's shores. Within the U.S., the Bush Administration has shown an unusually hostile attitude toward the exercise of personal freedom. When your individual choices conflict with what the Bush people think is good for you, they have been only too happy to intervene. The government, Bush clearly believes, has a right to be involved in many personal decisions you make — punishing some, encouraging others, nudging and prodding the public to live the good life as the President understands it. The nanny state, much loved by Democrats, is thriving under Republicans.
...In his speech, the President unveiled millions of dollars to randomly test high school kids for drug use. He is doubling the federal money currently spent to admonish teens to practice sexual abstinence. He is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on antidrug propaganda and sending federal agents to bust pot clubs for those using medical marijuana to ease the pain of crippling diseases. Republican Senators are even trying to withhold federal funding from states that allow medical-marijuana ads on public transport. These are not unrelated measures. The President is proud of his Big Government moralism. As he put it in his first State of the Union message, "Values are important, so we have tripled funding for character education to teach our children not only reading and writing, but right from wrong." Sounds inoffensive enough. But who exactly determines what is right and what is wrong? Churches? Synagogues? Parents? Teachers? Nah. The Federal Government.
...States' rights? Only if the states do what the President believes in. How else to explain the vast expansion of federal power that the Partial Birth Abortion Act entailed, limiting the rights of states to regulate abortion as they see fit? On medical marijuana, the Bush doctrine has led to federal agents' overruling state laws that tolerate the use of pot for medicinal purposes. Gay marriage? The Bush Administration is close to backing a federal constitutional amendment that would overrule any state that decided to give marriages — or even civil unions and domestic partnerships — to gays. States' rights are all well and good — as long as the states don't do things that some Republicans disapprove of.
Want to lose weight using ephedra? You can't. Bush's FDA has banned the over-the-counter supplement. Steroids? You heard the Nanny in Chief. And if you're a scientist researching a touchy subject, be prepared to feel the breath of Big Government down the back of your white coat. Early on in his Administration, the President — not scientists or patients — decided exactly how far federally funded research into stem cells could go. Cloning technologies? Forget about it....
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