ICYMI, Top 10 Nanny State Fails of Last Year

The Huffington Post ran my list of the 10 most egregious nanny state failures of the year. Here are a few of them:

1. Mom jailed for letting 9-year-old play at park unsupervised.
South Carolina single mom Debra Harrell allowed her daughter, 9, to play at a popular park for three days this summer. This was after the girl's laptop was stolen and she didn't want to just sit at mom's job—McDonald's—all day. A "Good Samaritan" saw the girl unsupervised and called 911. The mom was jailed overnight. The girl spent 17 days in care of the state.

2. Government bulldozes beloved special needs playground. 
A Seattle playground designed for kids with special needs was destroyed because it presented "extreme dangers"… even though over the course of its 10 year history, no child was seriously injured on it.

3. Rhode Island proposes law: "Your sixth grader can't get off the school bus without a chaperone waiting. 
Law H-7578 would require kids up to age 12 to have an adult waiting at the bus stop to walk them home each afternoon. If no adult was present, the child would be bused back to school. (Proposal withdrawn after widespread jaw-dropping.)

To read the rest of the list, go here.

And more nanny statism at my Reason archive here.