Is human existence in the shadow of a nanny state conductive to "Aristotelian happiness"?

Are you implying that we are heading toward a nanny state? Is that what’s behind this question?

I don’t know where there’s an easy utopia or an existence in the shadow of a nanny state to base such a conclusion on. Life is struggle and will always be thus, even in the most socialist nation on earth. There will always be plenty of challenges requiring agency and responsibility.

I’m really beginning to think Ayn Rand has done more to damage the minds of the world’s people than anyone else.

We’re not a nanny state.
We have the freedom to do more than most.
Perspective, people…

Damn! I just had this conversation with my daughter when she came home from school yesterday. In U.S. culture, people seem to be under the misguided impression that happiness should drop out of the sky. Or that the people you see as happy were somehow touched by God or that “fate” smiled down upon them. As for the rest of us, we are doomed to suffer our entire lives. What a crock of bullshit.

I believe you are right, @Storms, in that part of it is due to our Declaration of Independence. Poeple focus on the word “happiness” as though it means happiness comes automatically to us because we were born on the right patch of dirt. The document also includes the phrase ”.....promote the general welfare….”. All that means is that fairness and justice are ideals focused on in order to pave the way toward happiness, not actually provide it.

You have to work for happiness exactly like everything else good that you get. I told my daughter that, as long as she focused on all the little negative things that occur on any given day, it would eat away at her happiness like a cancer. She is 11, and is just now getting to the point that she can fully understand that it is she who controls her degree of happiness. She is not helpless in the matter, nor is she dependent upon outside resources.

Neither, to my knowledge, makes or implies a statement to the effect that creating a utopia is easy. Nor does either demand that happiness can not be achieved without such a construct but rather their creation is meant to aid in the pursuit of happiness.

A nanny state (or any state) can only provide for the first stage of Aristotelian happiness at most as at some point each must choose of their own free will, with logic and reason, those things which are best.

Are your questions really questions, or are they just not very subtle statements of your objectivist beliefs?

@Snarp
I’m really beginning to think Ayn Rand has done more to damage the minds of the world’s people than anyone else. Only those who have taken it seriously.

AND

I think the D of I says Pursuit of Happiness, right?

What am I missing here? I believe in the idea of strife and adversity that help one grow as a person. I believe that happiness achieved is happiness experienced. I don’t think that one can be happy with what is handed to one.
Is it just me?

@Trillian Of course it’s just you. We’ve known you’re insane for some time now.

Uhh….scratch that first comment :) Seriously, that is what I said to Allison. Read what I wrote, Trilly. It’s the same thing.

The pursuit of happiness is not the same thing as happiness. The pursuing is still up to each individual.

@phillis This is what I get for skimming. Thanks. (Cukoo springs out of door in forehead, bobs back and forth, snaps back in.)….What?

@Trillian Bahahahah!! Silliness :)

We have the right to pursue happiness and a nanny state will not aid in that pursuit. Too many rules and safety precautions are just as bad and not enough of them.

What some people want it the right to do really stupid things like ride a motorcycle without a helmet and be, somehow, protected if things (when things) go wrong.

It is like Arizona giving anyone the right to carry a concealed weapon then being surprised when gun violence goes up.

@Ron_C, in other words, people want to be able to do whatever they please and then be spared the consequences of their own actions. Along with this irrational idea goes the notion that if anything goes wrong in your life, somebody owes you money for it.

Some people who take this view also have the gall to talk about the irresponsibility of others.

@Jeruba I am not sure where you are going on this. Are you arguing for or against increased safety regulation?

Here is an example of my personal position. I don’t wear a helmet when I ride my bike. I haven’t worn one in my almost 60 years of riding and never will, to me, they are just stupid. If I fall (and I have many times) and hit my head, I don’t intend to sue anyone one. There just has to be some point where you take responsibility for yourself. It would be like skate-boarders suing the building owners because they couldn’t be safely skated down or the heroin addict suing their supplier.

You decide your own course and pay your own consequences. I am tired of a country run by lawyers. and do my part to fight the system.

@Ron_C If you fall and hit your head hard enough you won’t be suing anyone, but your family might.

@Snarp I doubt that anyone would sue. We were shopping at a Kmart several years ago and I am someone that needs to handle things before I buy. Well, I reached onto a shelf to pick up a particularly interesting toy and caught my hand on a metal edge of one of the shelf holders. I got sliced pretty bad and left a trail of blood spots as we searched for a first aid station. The manager soon showed up and helped bandage my hand and clean up the mess. I could tell he was worried about a suit so I didn’t bring it up when he asked if there was anything he could do for me. I just told him to fix the shelf before some kid got hurt.

We got a 20% discount for our trouble. That was the end of it. I suspect the wrong person would have made a big deal out of it but that isn’t in my nature. Now if he would have refused responsibility or tried to get me to sign a release, there would have been trouble but there was none, I figured that I am just accident prone and it was a lesson to look before I reached.

@Ron_C Well I’ll tell you this, if you are riding your bike without a helmet and hit by a car whose driver is at fault, and you suffer a traumatic brain injury that kills you or turns you into a vegetable and your loved ones don’t sue, then they’re either saints or idiots.

@Snarp Of course we would seek compensation for something like that. I am saying that If I hit a pot hole and fall off my bike, I won’t turn around and sue the city. If however they removed a manhole cover and didn’t put up a barricade, and I fell in, there would be hell to pay.

Stupidity must be stopped. Of course ignorance is curable, stupidity is permanent. The best we can do is to keep stupid people away from dangerous situations.

You say we’re not a nanny state? If we aren’t, we’re getting there pretty fast.

The only people that I see complaining about “the nanny state” are those intent on circumventing some law or regulation. Usually it has something to do with protecting their personal right to pollute something or they want to build a factory farm in city limits.

I don’t see anything wrong with proper safety regulations for public transportation or automobiles. There are are enough safeguards in government to prevent them from going too far.

I’m not trying to circumvent any law or regulation although I am trying to protect my personal rights. I don’t want speech codes violating my First Amendment right to free speech, I don’t want people telling me that I can’t give my child a Happy Meal once in a while, I don’t want the government telling me at what degree to set my thermostat, etc., etc.

And Roc C is right when he says that “We have the right to pursue happiness and a nanny state will not aid in that pursuit.”