| richardhutnik said: On another note, I hear people complain about a "Nanny state". I do believe that, if people acted like adults, they would be less likely to have one. But the moment society starts to get filled with self-absorbed individuals with no sense of manners, empathy, and lack of self-restraint, society will end up becoming more of a Nanny state. |
I would argue that it is the other way around ...
As the nanny state grows there is a minimization/elimination of the consequences of people's actions/decisions which encourages these negative behaviours. Poverty was in a steady decline before the war on poverty began, but after they started to "fight poverty" using the nanny state poverty stabilized at (roughly) its current level; while poverty continues to decline across most demographics, the explosion in the number of single mothers living off of the state has offset all other gains. The reason for this is simple, before the war on poverty men would be held accountable (by their community) for the children they had and women would know that there were significant risks associated with sleeping with deadbeats, and the negative consequences limited behaviour that would lead to being a single mother; with the intervention of the state the community pressure on fathers has been reduced (over time) because the state will take care of their children, and the risks of sleeping with a deadbeat have been reduced, resulting in a boom of babies born to single mothers.
