By Sean Sullivan Lagniappe columnist

We are so very lucky to live in a world populated by governments that are concerned with our well-being. Nanny states and the voters that put them in power worldwide are cheapening the ideal of liberty one regulation at a time.

A “Nanny state” is defined as “a state characterized by its excessive desire to protect or control certain aspects of society.” You’re familiar with the Nanny state, it’s the one that requires helmets for motorcyclist, life jackets for boaters and uses punitive taxes to tell you what to drink, smoke, eat and watch. It makes the transition from childhood to adulthood easier for so many people who are bothered by making their own decisions.

As nannies go, ours in the United States has generally been pretty cool until the last few years. She is not overly protective like the government nannies in socialist leaning democracies, let alone communist or totalitarian regimes. She’s there, but lets us do some things on our own.

Our U.S. nanny is in her early 30s – not a total prude but with many years of Sunday school to pull from when she needed it. She drives a four-door car, but it’s red. Our nanny is inconsistent; she will let us learn some things for ourselves, but then completely block our involvement for no other reason than some subjective moral whim.

While our caretaker isn’t a sexpot she may at least engage in heavy petting with her new boyfriend after she puts us to bed. In comparison, Great Britain’s nanny is an 80-year-old fundamentalist-burkah-wearing spinster that smells of mothballs. With all that said, it should be of no surprise that Nanny Britannia has decided to take the protectionism to the edgy and dangerous world of cartoons, expressly Tom and Jerry, to rid any sight of cigarette smoking.

In an attempt to sanitize or at least de-smoke this iconic cartoon, the U.K. media regulatory nanny…err…I mean agency OfCom has decreed that scenes in the cartoon that glamorize smoking be removed. They will either edit out entire scenes or use computer graphics technology to turn the cigarettes and cigars into flutes and hoagie sandwiches.

Oh thank God, I’m sure that will cause a massive decline in the number of new smokers. Smart thinking there OfCom. If the children don’t see the smokes in the Tom and Jerry cartoon, they won’t know such a thing exists. I don’t know how English parents would do it with out you OfCom. English parents might try techniques that I can attest to as being popular in some United States and more specifically Alabama families, like the “if you smoke lung cancer won’t kill you, I will” method. My parents may put on a conference at Knebworth if not at least release a DVD on how to employ parental discipline to protect against cartoon cigarettes.

I think that is the key that many Nanny state advocates don’t get, just because it’s in the cartoon doesn’t mean that children are going to run out and engage in the activity. On those same Tom and Jerry cartoons they would regularly smack each other in the face with hammers, set each other on fire or swing axes at each other’s heads. In my childhood I had more access to hammers, axes and matches than cigarettes and luckily for me and my playmates, I never reenacted any of those Tom and Jerry antics.

So what makes regulators so sure I was going to fall all over my 10-year-old self for a package of Lucky Strikes? I think pressure from non-cartoon peers is what encourages detrimental activities like smoking not some wacky, no-luck cat who occasionally lights one up.

Why is it then that Tom and Jerry have to cut the smoking and not the violence? Why do censors see smoking as the biggest danger to protect us and not violence? To preface, I don’t believe in censoring any of Tom and Jerry, but I do believe parents should pay attention and choose what their children take in whether it is television or any other stimulus. As stimuli go, the violence camp seems to have blood above its door every time the censors come looking for some societal ill from which to protect us.

Violence is deemed acceptable in every show from the now non-smoking Tom and Jerry to the latest network drama. While I’m not a proponent of censoring television violence, I sure worry more about being shot or robbed than having people come into my house, undress and make out. If I’m forced to be the nation’s nanny I’d rather they see butts and boobies than people inflict bodily harm on one another with no consequence.

I do hope that the over protectionism of the U.K.’s stinky old nanny is a wake-up call to the voters of this country to make sure our nanny stays small and young and keeps driving her red car, making out with her boyfriend and leaving us alone.

Sean Sullivan is Lagniappe lagniappe columnist. Contact him at ssullivan@lagniappemobile.com.

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