live from the guillotine: Here's Your Sign!

Before the 4th of July parade in 2003, our town council was threatened with legal action over two issues. The first was the throwing of candy from the floats. Some mothers were worried about their children dashing into the streets to get a piece of bubble gum and being run over by a float. At first glance this sounds reasonable, but even if the candy throwing is banned, who is going to keep these toddlers from dashing into the streets for myriad other reasons the other 364 days of the year? That's a parent's job. Why can't their silly parents make sure they don't get hit by a float on the 4th of July? At one time I had 5 children under the age of 10 and not one was mashed by a parade float. In a show of great courage, our intrepid council members banned candy from the parade.

Now imagine you had an expensive camera at a parade, were looking through the view finder, and saw a group of kids shooting water guns at spectators. Would you (a) move your camera out of harm's way so that it would not get wet or (b) continue to take pictures anyway and risk damage figuring that you could always sue someone later? Nit-wits who chose (b) are the reason the city council also banned Super Soakers from our parade. I think the council should have called their bluff. In our town it is not against the law to carry a water gun. They should have offered to round up the entire youth baseball league and put 'em in a line-up. If you can pick out the freckled-faced, smiling, 6 year-old T-ball player who drenched your camera because you are such an abject moron that you kept it right out there to get sprayed, we would be more than happy to allow you to be laughed out of a courtroom, down the courthouse steps, and back to your vehicle.

Sadly, there is a good chance that they wouldn't be laughed out of court. These two issues may sound trivial, but they illustrate a much larger problem in our country. When we make laws and policies that shield people from the logical consequences of their behavior, those people lose the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and make better decisions. We all lose just a little more freedom.

When the 4th of July parade came down the street in 2003, we didn't even bother to roll out our hoses. It wouldn't have been fair to shoot anyone. In fact, it would have been depressing. All of the parade entrants had been informed by officials that if they shot any type of water gun their float would be immediately escorted off the parade route. My son's float, while strictly following the rules, heaved cups of water over the side for a few blocks, but it just wasn't any fun and they quickly gave up their small rebellion. One poor group of baseball players had bubble machines on their float. It was pretty pathetic. None of us got to suck on half-melted Tootsie Rolls or fight over the cherry Tootsie Pops and a great deal of the joy of the day was stolen from all of us by a small minority of stupid people.