A Nation of Meddlers

Rating:
Summary: the rot is deeper than you thought
Review: Why does everything in America face its greatest challenge from the moralizers and the moral crusades that tilt in all directions here? This book will not answer exactly that question, but it will open your eyes to the incredible extent to which Americans have lost all sense for when it is appropriate and when it is inappropriate to meddle into the affairs of others. We have weather meddlers announcing every little storm to us on the evening news and reminding us to button up when the cold snaps start. We have a meddlesome health and nutrition racket that is official information on the evening news every day and an emotional testament in the mail every week. There is almost nothing to eat if you are too weak willed to resist the food moralizing industry. We have education moralizers in greater number than we have teachers. We have so many meddlers in the education game that education has become all but impossible. Then there are the meddling attorneys who see every misfortunate experience as the violation of some kind of right to pleasant times, or at any rate as an opportunity to meddle with the laws by testing and straining at them and the sanity of juries together.

This book is welcome relief. The subject matter is of extreme importance. Plato and Aristotle are in agreement that a portion of the state must meddle into the affairs of its citizens. There is no doubt, as the authors point out, that there is virtuous meddling. But there is also a point at which meddling is a vice. There can be no doubt about that either.
In one chapter, the authors look at the ideologies of meddling. I found this valuable. They show that the so called right and left in politics is a terribly specious distinction in the understanding of cultural affairs. Meddling ideologies are shared by most sides in all affairs of state in America today. Even the libertarians are not above meddlesome intent. The work is well done. It deserves five stars for its subject matter and writing alone. But it is a book on the right topic at the right time. For that it deserves an extra award for timeliness and pertinence. The chapters outlining the types of meddlers and their means of self-promotion and self-justification are simply engrossing.