In one episode of the hillarious BBC series Yes, Minister, the minister Jim Hacker notes that his Department of Administrative Affairs is unpopular.

His private secretary suggests they adopt a pro-regulatory slogan, “Administration Saves the Nation!” or “Red Tape Holds the Nation Together!”

In yet another example of life imitating that series, the Environmental Protection Agency has launched a video competition called “Rulemaking Matters!

Here is CEI’s entry to the contest:

It's a time of contradictions, paradoxes and oxymorons. Up is down. Right is left. In is out. Good is bad. And apparently patriotism is un-American. That's right, once again the world California politic is Bizarro World.

On Cinco de Mayo, five students at a California public school were reprimanded and ordered to remove American-flag inspired apparel…in America.

During a lunch break, four students claim that the vice principal asked two students to remove their stars-and-stripes bandannas and for the other two to turn their American flag T-shirts inside out.

The administration said the T-shirts were “incendiary.”

On any other day at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, Daniel Galli and his four friends would not even be noticed for wearing T-shirts with the American flag. But Cinco de Mayo is not any typical day especially on a campus with a large Mexican American student population.

Galli says he and his friends were sitting at a table during brunch break when the vice principal asked two of the boys to remove American flag bandannas that they wearing on their heads and for the others to turn their American flag T-shirts inside out. When they refused, the boys were ordered to go to the principal’s office.

“They said we could wear it on any other day,” Daniel Galli said, “but today is sensitive to Mexican-Americans because it’s supposed to be their holiday so we were not allowed to wear it today.”

The boys said the administrators called their T-shirts “incendiary” that would lead to fights on campus.

Exit Note: According to The DailyCaller, in the aftermath of the incident, film critic Roger Ebert tweeted:

“Kids who wear American Flag t-shirts on 5 May should have to share a lunchroom table with those who wear a hammer and sickle on 4 July”

The last few days have seen an extraordinary outburst of criticism of Arizona’s new immigration law. In the nation’s elite media outlets, many commentators are portraying the law as an act of police-state repression.

Of course many, if not all, of the specific criticisms can be refuted simply by reading the law itself. Additionally, this article from last weeks Washington Times dispels many of the more prominent inaccuracies that have been floated by the media.

Moreover, Arizona's new law has breathed new life into the discussion of illegal immigration and the protection of our nation's borders.

The latest USA Today/Gallup poll conducted May 1-2 shows that 9 out of 10 Americans say it is moderately to extremely important to them for the federal government to take steps this year to secure the border against illegal immigration.

Similarly, 61 percent of Americans say they are very concerned that illegal immigrants are putting an unfair burden on U.S. schools, hospitals, and government services.

Gallup asked respondents whether it was extremely important, very important, moderately important, or not that important to them that the U.S. government take steps this year to control the border to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into the country. Only 10 percent said it was not that important. Eighty-nine percent said it was moderately to extremely important, with 42 percent saying it was extremely important, 26 percent saying it was very important, and 21 percent saying it was moderately important.

5.7.10 UPDATE: A new FoxNews Poll shows most American voters think Arizona was right to pass its own immigration law, and think the Obama administration should wait and see how the new law works rather than try to stop it.

The poll also shows that by a 60-17 percent margin, voters think the Mexican government is the one that deserves to be targeted by protests for creating the conditions that make so many of its citizens want to leave, instead of protesting the U.S. government for having tough immigration laws.

California is drowning in red ink and facing chronic budget troubles. The state deficit stands at approximately $20 billion—again. All of which makes the latest report from Sacramento's News10 all the more disturbing. Prepare to be enraged:

California spends $52,363 per prisoner and only $7,440 per student, per year.

You read that right. The state spends $8.6 billion on state prisons. That works out to an average $52,363 per year to house an inmate in prison. Meanwhile, the state will spend only $7,440 per student this school year, according to Proposition 98 state funding.

The report is yet another shining example of backwards priorities in the Bizarro World that is California politic.

The prison system, reflecting severe overcrowding, generous labor contracts and federal court pressure to reform inmate health care, has been the fastest growing segment of the state’s deficit-ridden budget by far.

Breakdown & Comparisson: California state taxpayers spend about $143 per inmate—every day. By way of comparison, Texas, which has the second largest inmate population after California, spends less than one-third of that amount—about $42.50 per inmate per day.

One reason Texas spends so much less than California on prisons is its extensive use of public-private partnerships. Since 1989, Texas' annual data shows its cost savings from private prisons have averaged 15 percent a year. During that time, there was not a single year in which government-run prisons matched or were below the private prison costs.

A new Reason Foundation-Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Foundation study finds that modest expansion of California's current use of public-private partnerships in corrections would save taxpayers nearly $2 billion over the next five years. Additionally, more aggressive use of private prisons and contracting out some operations of existing prison facilities would save another $400million to $1.2 billion each year.

As Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association President Jon Coupal notes:
Public-private partnerships won't solve all of the problems facing California's prison system... But expanded use of out-of-state private prisons would be a good start and provide the impetus for some of the broader changes needed. The savings from public-private prisons can take a real bite out of the state's budget problems. As the saying amongst Sacramento lawmakers goes, $1 billion here, $1 billion there, and pretty soon you are talking real money.

So here's a chart from the crew over at Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. There are plenty of positives to take away from the chart — family values, civil rights, civil liberties, states’ rights all test well — but there are also negatives, with socialism getting high marks among 44 percent of Democrats.

As Bret Jacobson points out over at Big Government, the incongruity is truly striking. That people can proclaim support for civil rights and civil liberties while holding a relatively low opinion for libertarianism is just plain odd. Things get even more disappointing when you realize that the people who answered this poll—a handy cross-section of the American population—have no idea what these words mean:

Perhaps surprisingly, opinions about the terms “socialism” and “capitalism” are not correlated with each other. Most of those who have a positive reaction to “socialism” also have a positive reaction to “capitalism”; in fact, views of “capitalism” are about the same among those who react positively to “socialism” as they are among those who react negatively (52% and 56%, respectively, view “capitalism” positively). Conversely, views of “socialism” are just as negative among those who have a positive reaction to “capitalism” (64% negative) as those who react negatively (61% negative).

Another disturbing feature from the Pew numbers, young people are more positive about “socialism” – and more negative about “capitalism” – than are older Americans:

Among those younger than 30, identical percentages react positively to “socialism” and “capitalism” (43% each), while about half react negatively to each. Among older age groups, majorities view “socialism” negatively and “capitalism” positively.

Seems like an appropriate time to once again post the classic video of the "patron saint of Capitalism” Milton Friedman in his 1979 interview with Phil Donahue:

"So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear: that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system."

Britain, once the ultimate crucible of freedom. A bastion of personal liberty, home of the ground-breaking Magna Carta, the place where the sturdy yeoman can sit under his thatched roof secure from the intrusions of the king...

Britain may have given the world freedom as we understand it, but you wouldn't know it from the last prime ministerial debate that took place last Thursday.

As Cato's @Liberty Blog pointed out, the candidates (Conservative David Cameron, Labour’s Gordon Brown and Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg) used the word “freedom” only 2 times.

They said the word “free” 5 times, but all in the context of the supposedly “free” goodies, which they promised to lavish on the electorate. Words “responsible” and “responsibility” fared somewhat better (4 times). But the winning words were “fair” and “fairness” that were mentioned 22 times — almost always in connection with taxing the rich.

“Fairness” in British politics seems to amount to little more than taxing the most productive members of society “until the pipes squeak.” Those words were uttered by Denis Healy who was the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 1970s. It was under his leadership that the UK ran out of money and had to borrow billions from the IMF.

We use Britain as an example, because our beloved "Shining City on a Hill" teeters on the precipice of going the way of Britain and Europe.

In the name of "fairness" the current administration, as well as states like California, are pursuing policies that will lead to soaring costs, higher taxes, and dramatically expanded power of over the lives of individuals. They want larger, not smaller government; broader, not lesser regulation. All in the name of "fairness" which comes only come through the manifestation of greater government.

Since its conception, one principle essential to the United States of America has been limited government. It was for this concept that the Revolution was fought: the colonists' right to form their own government, small enough that individuals were in control of their own lives. Our founding fathers created a government that was radically different than others by establishing a system that assumed its citizens had God-given rights that did not need to be granted by government.

They forged a Constitution that treated government with extreme suspicion, and they shackled it with checks and balances and separated powers and a firm Bill of Rights that prohibited the government from making laws that limited individual liberty.

It was that spirit of limited government and a heightened sense of individual liberty which helped create the most prosperous, free and vibrant society the world has ever seen.

We’re a nation built on rugged individualism, self-reliance, and personal responsibility. Yet far too often our politicians are fostering a culture built upon apathy and dependence.

We have been given unprecedented freedom, opportunity, and prosperity. The sacred trusts we call freedom and liberty that have been granted to us by generations that paid a high price for it, must now be defended again with vision, vigilance and courage.

If we allow our federal and state governments to continue down the road of more rules, regulations and government programs, the net result will be the erosion of freedom in America and a further undermining of the country's economic competitiveness. We too will go the way of the Brits and Europe.

Now is the time to ensure that we remain the shining city on a hill. Now is time to for us to revive the principles that set individual liberty as our highest value. For it is only through a foundation of liberty and freedom that we create true fairness and opportunity.

In a free society, government has the responsibility of protecting us from others, but not from ourselves. Yet far too often the modern political agenda of those in office is simply: enact government rules, regulations and programs with one purpose in mind -- protect you from yourself.

Towards those ends Reason.TV has announced their Nanny of the Month for April 2010.

Last month's biggest busybody was the New York politician who's waging a war on salt.

This month's top honors could have gone to the US senator who wants to block betting on box office sales or the Silicon Valley pol who yanked toys from kids' meals.

But the Nanny of the Month goes to the North Carolina cop who clamped down on tax day protestors' right to carry flags and signs because he feared Old Glory might be used as a weapon. We kid you not...

Exit Note: There is a cost to governmentalizing every responsibility of adulthood - and simply stated, it is the stirring up of apathy. As Mark Steyn noted in this article at the OC Register, to demand a government organized on the principle of preemptively "taking care" of potential "vulnerabilities" is to make all of us, in the long run, far more vulnerable. A society of children cannot survive, no matter how all-embracing the government nanny.