Quote Originally Posted by LDAHL View Post
Well, there are many out there interested in regulating our choices in ways both profound and trivial. They feel they have a superior understanding of our "best interests", and would like to do us the favor of imposing it on us.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”

― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)
I'm just curious, do you feel that "moral busybodies" cut across party lines, or do think that's the purview of only one party? I'm only asking because I certainly see it on both sides. If the two major parties in this country were Libertarians and Anarchists, I think we'd be safe from political moral undertones, but otherwise, I'll take the moral busybodiness of being my brother's keeper over the moral busybodiness of telling women what to do with their bodies, and telling people whom they should be permitted to marry.

ETA: I do really love C.S.Lewis and his writings; I actually agree with the quote in principle.