Sweden is a great country, but the social democratic politics can sometimes be too much to bear. The latest example of their "brilliant" ideas is when Morgan Johansson, minister of public health and social services, suggested on television that government has a right to forcefully seize your children if they are too obese. "I want to go home to my mommy!", "I'm sorry Erik, but you can't see her until you stop eating candy."
This really demonstrates that government is seen as the solution to all problems, while ordinary citizens are regarded as mindless sheep. Some children are obese? Obviously their parents cannot be trusted to take care of them. Besides, respected scholars such as Morgan Spurlock and Michael Moore have clearly demonstrated that nobody should eat fast food or be overweight.
What is the solution? As always we can "solve" the problem by giving more power to politicians. A machinery of government bureaucrats should be better suited to take care of children rather than their loving parents.
This might sound absurd, but Swedish social democrats have for many years distrusted parents to raise their own children, as the family is regarded as an ineffective and conservative institution. Until the 1970s, politicians even decided who was fit to bear children and who wasn't. Some 60 000 Swedish citizens were forcefully (and secretly) sterilized for having such disastrous handicaps as dyslexia.
A cornerstone of social democrat ideology is the belief that political decision can create a better society at every level, including regulating how families function. This idea is called "social engineering" and can be traced back to the 1930s, when Sweden as the first country in the world created a race biological institute.
Social engineering is once again on the rise, as people’s diets are made into a political concern and radical feminists demand that boys and girls be raised in exactly the same manner. In the US, the left is trying to put the same issues on the political agenda. In fact the "intellectuals" that give support to radical feminists and advocates of government regulation of our health are mostly found in American universities.
Defenders of individual liberty in the US should be aware of the dangers of social engineering. As the European welfare states are in deep crisis, the left must find new arguments for increasing government influence. When they fail in the economical debate, they will try to regulate our private lives.
July 30, 2005
