On the Absurdity of American Legislative Impulses

Casey Mattox of Americans for Prosperity has a good weekend read for us at the New York Post titled Politicians Can’t Stop Passing Absurd Laws. This has long been a favorite topic in political circles and entire books have been published on the subject. You’re probably already familiar with some of the more famous old chestnuts and Mattox includes many of them. There’s the Arizona law that bans donkeys from sleeping in bathtubs and Utah doesn’t allow people to fish from horseback. Connecticut regulates the bounciness of pickles (somehow) and Californians can be fined for eating a frog that died during a frog jumping contest.

Yet as Mattox points out, these aren’t just colorful exceptions to the rules where lawmakers momentarily seemed to lose the thread. This is actually the norm in American politics, particularly at the state and local levels. The supply of bad ideas is apparently endless and nearly every example we can find takes the form of curtailing the various freedoms that Americans should be able to enjoy without causing harm to anyone else. The stated rationale for such laws may change, but the underlying effects are the same.

Take New York. To kick off the new year, state lawmakers, in their wisdom, are contemplating compelling some Chick-Fil-A restaurant locations to be open on Sundays. Never mind that the First Amendment prohibits the government from forcing businesses to open in violation of their religious convictions.

Or that other restaurants exist in the Empire State happily serving chicken sandwiches on Sundays. Chick-Fil-A makes for a tasty culture war issue, so lawmakers are drawn to it . . . apparently like Arizona donkeys to bathtubs.

Americans have even more examples of ludicrous law-making to look forward to in 2024. A new California law micromanages stores by requiring major retailers to offer gender-neutral toy aisles. The Federal Highway Association wants to ban safety signs that both prevent crashes and — gasp! — help make people feel good during their daily commute. No more signage “intended to be humorous,” the government has declared. 

Bad laws are still arriving at a fast and furious pace, including at the federal level. Legislators and executives always have to dream up some sort of rationale to explain their decisions and in the current era, climate change is all too often the go-to excuse. It’s why New York is banning gas stoves and the White House is trying to force everyone into expensive electric vehicles that most people simply don’t want. It’s why the government continues to try to shut down functional sources of energy in favor of solar panels and windmills that can’t come close to producing the same amount of power when the sun fails to shine or the wind doesn’t blow.

Many laws that may otherwise seem sensible or at least reasonable have been twisted like pretzels in the name of the political cause du jour. Perhaps you’re someone who believes that abortion should be legal, at least in some cases. Fair enough. But legislators and courts aren’t willing to stop there. You can now apparently be arrested and wind up serving significant prison time for the “crime” of praying or singing religious hymns at an abortion clinic. Who’s rights are being threatened in a situation like that? Who is being placed in danger? If the truthful answer to those questions is “nobody,” then the law is being abused.

Freedom of Religion is enshrined right in the Constitution. Yet if you happen to prefer a traditional Catholic mass performed in Latin, you can wind up on a list of potentially dangerous domestic terrorists according to the Department of Justice. No, they haven’t passed an actual law against participation in such rituals (yet), but you can tell they’re spoiling to do it if they ever get the chance. If you doubt that, just go ask those Arizona donkeys in their bathtubs.

Where do these impulses among legislators and law enforcement officials come from? Mattox argues that legislators often can’t help themselves. When someone invokes the phrase, “There ought to be a law,” they respond like Pavlov’s dogs at the sounds of a bell and begin scribbling. I don’t disagree, but I think it goes much deeper than that. Many legislators likely entered into the field with a genuine desire to do good and help people. But upon arriving in office, they got a taste of real power. And power is as addictive as fentanyl, if not more so. Power also can affect the minds of those who control it. They have their own vision of how the world should be and how people should properly behave. So when they see people behaving otherwise, dreams of banning personal conduct begin flitting through their minds and they reach for their pens. And before you know it, you’re paying a fine because your pickle isn’t bouncy enough.