This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: August 22, 2008 - Finally a reason to feel superior to a certain toddling town to the north. Reason magazine recently ranked the Second City first when it comes to meddling in people's affairs.
Reason, in case you don't know, is a libertarian monthly that reports on the incessant attempts of governments to limit individual rights in the name of health or environmentalism or safety -- a necessity since we are too stupid to know what's good for us.
Reason's survey ranked how free residents of U.S. cities were to imbibe alcohol, use tobacco, gamble, visit strip clubs, own guns, eat at fast-food restaurants and operate vehicles without wearing helmets and seatbelts and without cameras watching their every move.
Libertarians have a name for this kind of government interference. Actually they have several names since there is so much of it. Parentalism or nannyism is the idea that the government is the babysitter and we are the dumb and spoiled little brats who if not for the nanny's watchful eye would poke ourselves in the eye with a sharp stick, or, god forbid, drive to the casino without fastening our seatbelt.
This phenomenon falls into the same category as save-me-from-myself syndrome and the eerily named reductio creep. The former is the idea that most of us are incapable of deciding what is best for us, so we need Washington, D.C., or Jefferson City to tell us how to act. Think of it as self-help through public legislation. Missourians saw a sample of reductio creep last year when Rep. Talibdin El-Amin, D-St. Louis, tried to regulate the sale of baking soda because it is sometimes used in the making of crack cocaine.
Despite Rep. El-Amin's heroic efforts labors to save us from ourselves, St. Louis didn't make the list of the 35 most meddling cities. Not because St. Louis' bureaucrats and politicians aren't busybodying buttinskis, but because Reason's editors didn't think St. Louis was large enough to matter, unless you count the entire metropolitan area, which they didn't.
Unlike the most meddling metropolises, St. Louis does not have a city-wide smoking ban. Not yet, anyway, though many city saloons have adopted their own bans. And in case you haven't noticed, St. Louis is also big on gambling and fast food -- unlike Los Angeles, which last month restricted new fast food joints. St. Louisans, on the other hand, can't get enough of that artery-clogging stuff.
That's not to say we're entirely at liberty here in The Lou. You can't hardly come to an intersection without some kind of camera spying on you. You are required by law to wear a seatbelt and a motorcycle helmet, whether you want to or not. In fact, traffic stops have become so frequent a guy I know had his driver's license photograph taken wearing a priest's collar. Now, unless he's got a hooker in the front seat with him, he tends to get out of most traffic tickets. As for me, I'm looking into some kind of diplomatic immunity.
As usual there doesn't seem any rhyme or reason behind lawmakers' decisions to legislate morality. For now tobacco, guns and junk food are targets, while alcohol, gambling, drugs, prostitution and pornography are winked at. It won't be long before we can smoke marijuana in pubs, but if your friend lights up a Salem Light he's going to the clink, which, apparently, is how things are in Amsterdam.
What happened to Chicago?
The Windy City was once home of the speakeasy. No one would dare tell a Chicagoan he couldn't smoke or gargle a little rum. Today, if the City Council tells a Cubs fan to snub out that cigar and like it, he obeys, no questions asked. Meanwhile if the city fathers can ban it, restrict it or tax it they will. According to Reason, Chicago taxes water bottles, bans smoking in bars and booze in strip clubs. Motorists are forced to wear seatbelts and banned from using cell phones, and the city has more red light cameras than any other metropolis.
Now Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has caught the parentalism bug and wants to put more than 100 speed enforcement cameras along the interstate. Blagojevich says he can generate $50 million in fines to help Chicago fight drug gang violence. Chicago City Council members must be high-fiving each other right now.
I'm probably one of the few St. Louisans who feel smug though. In my experience, most people either don't mind or don't care when government busybodies meddle in our lives. Most people, in fact, expect it. I predict St. Louis will soon join the list of meddlesome cities. I am reminded that some years ago Nobel laureate economist James Buchanan said that Americans objected to too much freedom because "liberty carries with it responsibility. And it seems evident that many persons do not want to shoulder the final responsibility for their own actions. [They] want to be told what to do and when to do it."
One almost misses the days when the sons of Irish and Italian immigrants went into Chicago politics to gain power, money and influence. At least they left the plain people alone.
Christopher Orlet is a local freelance writer.