Legislators should mind their own business

Make-work measures
Legislators should mind their own business

Most of the nanny-state measures churned out by legislators at the state and federal level are based on an insulting premise — that most Americans are mindless Bozos who can’t think for themselves or act in their own best interests. A nanny-statist, as we define the term, is someone who purports to care more for people than people care for themselves. And with statists firmly in charge at the Statehouse, there’s no shortage of such measures still in play, according to “Bills would provide business oversight,” a report in Monday’s Gazette.

“Oversight,” of course, means licensing, regulating and more barriers to entrepreneurship. And most of the trades or businesses in the crosshairs don’t need more of this, if we assume — as we do — that Coloradans are competent consumers. An argument might be made — might — for state licensing of naturopathic doctors, since they can have a direct impact on public health and safety. But most of the other trades on the regulator’s wish list — including sports trainers, landscape architects, plumbing contractors, interior designers, luxury limousine operators and moving company workers — are best regulated not by the state, which has better things to do with its resources and people, but by the market, which can sort the wheat from the chaff with ruthless efficiency, assuming consumers exercise a modicum of due diligence.

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Love and marriage in Texas could go together like a carrot and stick

Polly Ross Hughes
Austin Bureau

AUSTIN — Debate over government's role in matters of love, marriage and divorce begins today when the Texas House considers a bill doubling marriage license fees to $60 unless couples take premarital classes.

Couples agreeing to eight-hour courses in conflict management and communication skills would get their marriage licenses free under the bill sponsored by Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, a leading House conservative.

Chisum's bill, with its carrot-and-stick approach, is part of the Texas Conservative Coalition agenda to ease the demand for poverty programs by reducing divorce rates that can financially hurt split couples.

The package could create voluntary "covenant" marriage contracts with tougher conditions to discourage divorce and lengthen waiting periods for no-fault divorces unless couples undergo marriage crisis classes.

"It's in the state's interest for marriages to be saved," said John Colyandro, the coalition's executive director. "A lot of single parent households are in poverty. Once they're in poverty, that makes them eligible for a whole host of programs they might not otherwise be involved with."

But critics say the proposed measures — especially those lengthening waiting periods for divorces — amount to government intrusion into private lives.

While Republicans long have decried the "nanny state" of liberal social safety nets, some House Democrats now complain about the GOP meddling into highly personal decisions they say are best left to individuals.

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Baking soda: the latest target in the war on drugs

By: Holly Brantley

In the latest move to fight the war on drugs, A Missouri lawmaker wants to put of all things - baking soda - behind the counter. You've probably already heard of similar laws to fight meth, this proposal is modeled after those.

Right now a state law requires cold medicines with pseudoephedrine be placed behind the pharmacy counter. Pseudoephedrine is the key ingredient in meth amphetamines. To buy pseudoephedrine, you have to be 18 years old, show a photo id, and sign a log book. Now lawmakers want to put the same kind of restrictions on sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda.

Baking Soda is a staple in every home, we use it for recipes, cleaning, odors...but some people use it to make crack cocaine. So, lawmakers say putting it behind the counter would call attention to the drug problem.

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Big brother in NH: Seat belt issue isn't safety

No offense to New Hampshire representatives who last week (narrowly) approved mandatory usage of seat belts by adults, but they just don't get it. We hope the state Senate and Gov. John Lynch do.

Contrary to expressions voiced in the debate, the issue here is not public health or safety.

Cornish Democrat Carla Skinder told colleagues, "You all may think you are good drivers. (But) It may be the person coming in the other direction who causes this life-changing event."

True enough, which is why everyone should opt to buckle up. It makes sense.

But it doesn't make sense for government to be intruding in matters of personal choice. Up until now, New Hampshire's citizen government has for the most part resisted those intrusions.

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NYT Clueless on Libertarianism

In Sunday’s New York Times, Times economics columnist David Leonhardt reviews Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement by Brian Doherty.

It might have made sense to get a libertarian, or someone familiar with the libertarian movement, or a political historian to write the review. Instead, the Times turned to someone who knows something about economics. Since the Times is the most important book review venue in the country, it’s worth taking a close look at Leonhardt’s complaints.

The first half of the review retells the story of Ayn Rand and the Objectivists, which is fine. It’s an interesting story, though it’s probably the part of the book most likely to be already familiar to Times readers. After the Randian opening, Leonhardt writes:

"The story of the American libertarian movement, like the story of its most famous salon, has been a combination of small numbers and big influence. It has never really emerged from the fringe, for the simple reason that most Americans want their government to educate the young and care for the old. But over the last few decades, they have also grown increasingly skeptical of collectivist policies that go beyond the basics. Libertarian thinkers — Rand, Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard and others — have helped foment this skepticism and then enthusiastically pointed to the alternative."

Fair enough. Most movements are small, even those that have big effects. “Fringe” is a subjective issue; if a movement produces several Nobel laureates and a chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, and plays a role in such policy reforms as the end of the draft, deregulation, sharply reduced taxes, and freer trade, is it still on the fringe?

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Students who ‘desecrated Allah’ acquitted

March 21, 2007

World Net Daily

After months of pressure, San Francisco State University has decided not to punish College Republicans it charged with desecrating the name of Allah by stepping on makeshift Hezbollah and Hamas flags at an anti-terrorism rally.

Led by the non-profit advocacy group Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, the public and some media outlets had called on the school to “uphold the students’ constitutionally guaranteed right to free expression.

“We are relieved that SFSU has come to its senses and recognized that it cannot punish students for constitutionally protected expression,” FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. “But the fact remains that the university should never have investigated or tried them in the first place. This was a protected act of political protest, and it is impossible to believe the university did not know that from the start.”

The trouble began at an Oct. 17 anti-terrorism rally in which the students stepped on butcher paper painted to resemble the flags of the Middle East terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah. The College Republicans say they simply copied the script from an image on the Internet and didn’t know it bore the name of Allah in Arabic script.

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Study Shows Real-World Impact of Campaign Finance Regulations:

Arlington, Va.—Thanks to campaign finance regulations, ordinary Americans are being shut up and shut out of the political process according to a study released today by the Institute for Justice. The report provides a hard look at the real-world impact of campaign finance regulations on ordinary citizens—by actually asking them what they think.

“Campaign finance laws don’t just impact politicians and professional campaigners inside the Beltway—they impact ordinary Americans across the nation who simply want to speak out, but are too often shut up by burdensome regulations,” said Steve Simpson, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice.

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