Danger; reading this may damage your eyesight. Danger; thinking about what you just read may distract you from something else. This may lead to a problem.
Danger; there are too many dan- gers everywhere we look.
I work at the Iowa State Senate now on Tuesdays and Thursdays as an intern. It is an insightful experi- ence into not only the politics of our state, but also its trends.
In the last couple of weeks, the senators have found themselves in heated debates about government reorganization and protection Iowa’s workers. They also found themselves spending time debating regulations on amateur boxing, seatbelt require- ments and banning texting while driving.
Is it just me, or are all three of these issues common sense? I don’t in- tend to box someone if they’re going to successfully break my nose (thus, I never box). Believe it or not, my fear of death is much stronger than
my fear of a ticket, thus I wear my seatbelt anyway. I consider myself at least marginally intelligent and I un- derstand that driving a car weighing several tons down a highway at high rates of speeds means that I should at least put the car on autopilot if I want to text.
Are our senators really spending time debating about how much they should nanny us?
I recently read a newspaper article about the invention of a choke-proof hot dog, and then there’s the classic example of required “hot” warnings on the side of hot chocolate mugs.
Since when can’t we chop up our hot dog before we eat it? Since when do we think that the steam com- ing out of the hot chocolate means it’s ready for chugging? Since when do we think we can text and drive? That’s like someone thinking they can play basketball and go fishing at the same time—just silly.
If you’re texting you shouldn’t be driving. If you’re in a car you should wear a seatbelt. If you’re boxing you
should set rules. If you’re climbing a ladder, you shouldn’t climb to the top rung. Simple. Does our government really need to nanny us all?
Maybe this is one reason for our generation’s lack of protest—we’re so used to being taken care of.
But I don’t want to live in a nanny state anymore; if for no other reason than the fact that I believe in evolu- tion. Now, no one should die, but if I saw a deer chugging a hot chocolate and subsequently burning its tongue, I would not feel bad for it.
If I saw caterpillars boxing one another without setting some ground
THE ARTS
rules, I would try and tell the scrawny one it’s a bad idea.
If I saw some raccoons playing video games while driving a car, I wouldn’t feel bad if insurance didn’t cover the accident.
Sometimes I wonder what we are doing to ourselves evolutionally. Why does life’s only known intelligent be- ing need to be told that the top rung of the ladder is not safe? Why can’t we chop up the damn hot dogs? Why do we need to be taken care of so much?
I’m not a eugenicist in any way, but I am a proponent of something much more effective than laws: learn- ing from our mistakes.
I love interning at the Capitol, and the legislature has passed a lot of important legislation this year. I just hope they stay legislators and don’t turn into babysitters.
Last fall, the Stalnaker Executive Council put on a game of “stalnas- sins.” It was an awesome program where the hall’s members received someone else’s name and face and
had to “assassinate” them at some point. This “assassination” was very simple. The assassinator had to throw some socks at the target, and then they were “dead.”
Well today, it’s all fun and games until the nanny state steps in. “Stal- nassins” probably won’t happen in the same form again because the game was deemed as “dangerous” or “promoting violence.” Really? Socks?
This is just goofy. If I have chil- dren in the future, I want them to write on their own blank slates. I want them to play Red Rover on the play- ground and skin their knees riding their bikes. I want them to learn to cut up their hot dogs. And hopefully they won’t be fearful of hot chocolate or, even worse, the socks on their own two feet.
Price is a first-year rhetoric and politics double-major and can be contacted at ryan.price@drake.edu.
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