All Your Children Belong to Us

Photo Credit: Seema Krishnakumar / Creative Commons Is any freedom more important, more sacred than the right to raise a family without government intrusion?

It’s a good question to ask this Independence Day weekend, as Americans reflect on the birth of a nation dedicated to the preservation of individual liberties: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

But as government grows bigger and more powerful, as politicians, bureaucrats and busybodies increasingly think they know best, American families constantly must fight interference in their most personal decisions and judgments.

Of all the threats to our freedoms — warrantless snooping, government secrecy, expanded police powers — none worries me more than the relentless march of the Nanny State, which not only assumes that all parents are unfit to raise children, but that parents themselves must be treated like children.

It’s not a stretch to say that this movement considers all children the property of the state. As proof, look at what’s happening in Scotland.