Our Benevolent Overlords are at it again. This time they're banning classic kid games like freeze tag, kickball, dodgeball, Wiffle Ball, Capture the Flag, Steal the Bacon and Red Rover.

Classic kids games like kickball deemed unsafe by state in effort to increase summer camp regulation

ALBANY - State bureaucrats have identified a potentially deadly hazard facing our children this summer - freeze tag.

That's right, officials have decided the age-old street game - along with Wiffle Ball, kickball and dodgeball - poses a "significant risk of injury."

And classics like Capture the Flag, Steal the Bacon and Red Rover are also deemed dangerous in new state regulations for day camps.

"It looks like Albany bureaucrats are looking for kids to just sit in a corner in a house all day and not be outside," said state Sen. Patty Ritchie (R-St. Lawrence County).

"I don't think Wiffle Ball is a dangerous sport."

The Health Department created a list of supposedly risky recreational activities - which also includes more perilous pursuits like archery, scuba and horseback riding - in response to a state law passed in 2009.

The law sought to close a loophole that legislators said allowed too many indoor camp programs to operate without oversight.

Under the new rules, any program that offers two or more organized recreational activities - with at least one of them on the risky list - is deemed a summer camp and subject to state regulation.

Ritchie said the regulations could cripple small recreational programs, forcing them to pay a $200 fee to register as a summer camp and provide medical staff.

Hmmmm .... $200 in the government coffer ???

If you ever wonder why we're speeding down the road to serfdom, just ask your safety-troll neighbor. After all, I just answered 'No' on the NYDailyNews.com poll asking: "Do you agree with the Health Department that Wiffle Ball, kickball and Red Rover are dangerous?"

So far, 83% have answered "Yes, kids could get seriously hurt playing them."

That's right! 83% of the descendants of American pioneers are now so scared of children's games, they welcome the intervention and coercive violence of the Almighty State.

Public Housemaids Regulate Kickball and Freeze Tag

Additionally, in the same week, the mainstream press is running numerous articles on those death traps known as cribs. Puffy bumpers, pillows and blankets, low-hanging mobiles, quilts, and assorted stuffed animals are now labeled as potential child killers. Reading these two articles ("Keeping Up With Kid-Safety Advice" and "When a Cuddly Crib Puts the Baby in Danger") makes one realize that America has become a wasteland of functional retards who have become unhinged on “safety” issues. Laying your baby down for the night has been turned into a spectacle for the thinking impaired.

No wonder 1 out of 3 kids are now considered overweight or obese. They aren't allowed to do anything. They might get a bruise, or gasp!, scrape a knee. The horror of it all!

Last I checked, both life and living results in death. Now, I'm by no means a doctor, scientist, government bureaucrat, or other all-knowing seer, but I'm quite confident that not playing freeze tag or dodgeball, isn't the path to immortality.

"The end justifies the means" ... is the new American motto. using police powers to micro-manage the lives of other people we don't know and will never meet. For their own good of course.

Parents love their children. The exceptions are incredibly rare. Parents have a biological interest in keeping their children alive, safe and well. It's hard-wired into us. Do parents make mistakes? Of course they do. We're mere humans. But the assumption that the coercion and violence of the state is needed to intervene due to the obsessions of a handful of safety-trolls is, well, nuts. Absolutely bonkers!

Advocating for "safety" doesn't make you a better person or better parent than those "others" whose child has a sprained knee or paper cut. In fact, I'd argue it makes you worse. Dangerously worse.

Because when you take away the small pleasures of childhood that involve a bit of risk, you harm children considerably. You impede the development of their imaginations, physical skills, perception, memory, judgment, reasoning, and emotional strength.

Scraps, bruises and even hurt feelings are how children learn to be grown-ups and take personal responsibility. But then again what am I thinking ... Who needs personal responsibility when we have Mommy and Daddy Big Government, right?