Now that Christmas is over and the New Year beckons, it’s time for Watchdog.org’s annual parade of malfeasance and miscreants.

The Scariest People of 2015 is a frightening list indeed, filled with bureaucrats and functionaries who, shall we say, do not share an affinity for liberty.

No one can stop them from plying their trade — bad government is as old as government. But we can keep an eye on them, report their misdeeds to the world and once in a while help the good guys win.

Through New Year’s Day, we’ll highlight the most egregious examples of nanny statism, overweening bureaucracy and just plain old bad government from the past 12 months, encompassing local, state and federal officialdom.

Here’s lucky No. 13.

Government nannies can be found in every nook and cranny of public office, from the sterile buildings of Washington, D.C., to the quiet corners of small town America.

Reason plays little part in their efforts.

The nanny government of Seattle has empowered garbage collectors to sift through your trash to look for compostable material.

They belong to no single political party. No election can clear them out of the halls of power.

They are the local officials in Maryland who banned the use of lawn care products in the name of improving the environment, then continued to use those same lawn care products on county-owned parks and golf courses. They are the people who think bans on large sodas or trans-fats will make Americans healthier, without regard for the unintended consequences of their rules. They will ban products they don’t use or don’t understand — like Uber, powdered alcohol, ice cream flavored beer or electronic cigarettes – because if they don’t like those products then you can’t like them either, markets be damned.

Want to sell anything? Want to let your kids play outside? Want to grow a garden on your own property? Better get permission from the nannies first.

Ignore their edicts and they will show no mercy. They will issue fines, even threaten to put you in jail for offenses as insignificant as having mismatched curtains or wearing yoga pants in public. In Seattle, they will even deputize the trash collectors to dig through your garbage in order to enforce their rules.

In short: They make your business their business, and they are getting very good at it. That’s truly scary.