David McElroy

In Colorado, the state Department of Human Services is proposing new rules that would require day care centers to provide dolls of at least three different races for kids to play with. No, this isn’t a joke.

Among the other proposed rules are those prohibiting whole milk being served to kids older than 2 without a note from a doctor and strict requirements capping time on computers. The proposal was reported Friday by a Denver television station. You can read the actual 98-page document at the agency’s website.

Whatever happened to letting customers decide these issues? Does the state assume that parents are too stupid or uncaring to ask for these things if they believe they’re what their children really need?

Personally, I think a lot of parents do a lousy job. I think they let their kids eat the wrong things and watch too much television. But it’s not my place to make those decisions for them.

There’s a growing line today between two groups of people. It’s not Democrats vs. Republicans. It’s those who believe in individual freedom and choice vs. those who want experts to make decisions about every facet of life. The “one size fits all” mentality is getting worse. The problem isn’t this agency. The solution isn’t “fighting for smaller government.” The issue is bringing real choice to people about which system they’re going to live under by allowing competitive systems of governance. More and more, the “one size fits all” nannies of the state are taking control and choices away from individuals.

The state is the enemy, not just silly rules that “go too far.”

City officials in the Detroit suburb of Oak Park apparently have so little to do that they’re taking the time to prosecute a woman for the dastardly crime of growing vegetables in some well-tended areas of her front yard.

This is a perfect companion to what I wrote Thursday about the need for “legal fences” that keep other people from telling us what to do on our own property. I was thinking more of free cities — and of one group not being able to tell another what to do — but it comes down to the same issues: choice and property rights.

In the Detroit case, Julie Bass faces 93 days in jail for having a small vegetable garden in her yard, because the city says she’s in violation of the city regulation that says front yards must have “suitable” vegetation. Bizarrely, the city has taken the position that this word only means “common,” so Bass is only allowed to have grass, trees and flowers that are common in other yards. (For the record, none of the dictionaries I checked agreed with the city.)

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I’ve been pleasantly surprised at just how far-flung the audience for this site has been so far. It was just eight weeks ago today when I opened the digital doors to the place, but people have already made thousands of visits from 57 different countries around the world.

There have also been visitors from 48 of the 50 U.S. states, plus the District of Columbia. Vermont and South Dakota have been the only two U.S. states missing for weeks. What are you guys waiting for?

Even though I can’t personally identify who comes to visit or exactly where you’re coming from or anything of that nature, the system does give me general information. For instance, I know that the U.S. state sending the most visitors is Alabama, which makes sense considering that I live here and lots of people here known me.

After my home state, the top 10 U.S. states in numbers of visits so far have been Texas, New York, Florida, California, Tennessee, Ohio, Virginia, Indiana and Pennsylvania. (Massachusetts barely missed the cut.)

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