Nanny State

Both of these are scary.

First, John Edwards wants to make checkups, including mental checkups, mandatory.

[Found by way of Instapundit, more at Ann Althouse's blog.

AP article by Amy Lorentzen.

TIPTON, Iowa - Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said on Sunday that his universal health care proposal would require that Americans go to the doctor for preventive care.

"It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care," he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. "If you are going to be in the system, you can't choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK."

And over in England

And then there's this, also found by way of Instapundit.

Telegraph.co.uk article by David Harrison:

A pregnant woman has been told that her baby will be taken from her at birth because she is deemed capable of "emotional abuse", even though psychiatrists treating her say there is no evidence to suggest that she will harm her child in any way.

Social services' recommendation that the baby should be taken from Fran Lyon, a 22-year-old charity worker who has five A-levels and a degree in neuroscience, was based in part on a letter from a paediatrician she has never met.

This is government overreaching into people's personal business, but it is all done with the best of intentions and for our own good, whether we want them to or not.