Child-Proofing America

Are we all idiots now?

by Patrick J. Shanahan
05/01/05

A long time ago I used to work for a man named R. Emmett Tyrell. Jr. Bob was - and still is - the editor of The American Spectator and a writer of some marvelous books. My favorite work of his remains “Public Nuisances,” a series of sketches of some of the most beloved liberal/left figures of the 1970s and 80s, the conclusion of which was that the driving energy behind the liberal enterprise was the desire to annoy one’s neighbors. Forget all the high-falutin’ talk about brotherhood and equality and compassion. What really activated liberals was the irresistible opportunity to tell their neighbors what to do.

This remains true. For every Howard Dean rant, for every Michael Moore epic film, for every MoveOn.org misleading ad, the way that liberalism plays out on a day to day basis is through “zero tolerance.” Carrie Nation may be dead, but the Temperance Movement never really went away. They just shift focus from time to time.

The other day I stopped by a different liquor store than my standard. It was part of a local chain, and offered a fine selection of beer and wines. When I got to the counter the nice saleslady behind the counter said she needed to see my ID. I asked her why she needed to see my ID. I am, after all, 47 years of age. And although I think I look pretty darned good for my age, there is absolutely no confusing me for an underage purchaser. She assured me that it was part of the company’s policy to prevent “youth access.”

“Oh. Youth Access, eh? So you card everybody?”

“Sure do.”

“Even little old ladies?”

“Yep. Everybody.”

“How much is the fine for allowing youths to access alcohol?”

“$2,000, for the first offense.”

“Okay. How about we make a bet? How about I bet $10,000 of my money against $10 of your money that I am in fact over the age of 21? If I am right, you owe me 10 bucks. If I am in fact under 21, I will pay you $10,000. Wanna bet?”

“Of course not. That’s ridiculous.”

“Then why do you need to see my ID?”

“Because it is policy.”

You’re darned right it is, lady. You have been “Child-Proofed.”

This may be a silly personal anecdote, but it is directly reflective of a larger, disturbing trend.

We child proof homes because we know that the sorts of harm that is likely to come to a 10 month old - electric shock, poisoning - are completely out of proportion to the effort it takes to avoid the harm. But child-proofing an entire society, otherwise known as Idiot-Proofing, only works if one assumes that we are all children, or are all idiots, who will do irreparable harm to ourselves and other unless we are constrained by our betters..

It is a deceptively seductive approach to solving all sorts of social ailments that appeals to small minds. Thomas Sowell has written elegantly and often about the harm that is created when rules seeking a perfected vision of reality are created by a set of people who do not have to pay the costs for those rules. This is what idiot-proofing is all about. Seeking to achieve social ends - social “goods” in the minds of the Idiot-Proofers - is much easier when you can simply order zero tolerance and let others bear the costs of this mindlessness.

The mindless policy of carding of tens of thousands of middle aged and elderly folks so as to reduce by an infinitesimal amount the risk of a single underage sale is a good bargain for the person whose performance is judged on the basis of underage sales prevention. It is a lousy deal, a collective pain in the patoot, for those of us being carded. But since we rarely complain, there is no countervailing cost passed back to the company.

Look around you and you will see similar child proofing going on around you on a daily basis.

Worried about school violence? Well then, institute a zero-tolerance policy, and expel the kid who comes to school with a butter knife in the trunk of his car. We can’t let judgment, experience, or context help us decide who to punish.

Worried about second-hand smoke? No problem, just proceed from the assumption that people are idiots who cannot be trusted to decide whether or not to allow smoking, and ban all smoking from all public establishments. Idiot Proof it!

Some may protest that this is not an inherently liberal issue. After all, people of all stripes and persuasions can be annoying. Everyone is tempted to child-proof their world. This is true, but the sad reality is that child-proofing society plays to the heart of liberal thinking, while it runs directly against the grain of conservative/libertarian thinking. One of the essential differences in philosophy between left and right is that the left is convinced that ordinary people cannot be trusted with their own well being. They are either idiots to be led or victims to be rescued. The vision of scads of American yeomen merrily making their own decisions and living with the not-always-fun consequences of those decisions is the view of America. To a conservative economist, bad consequences are a vital piece of information that helps the larger society figure out how to better organize goods and resources. To a liberal economist it represents a failure of policy.

A sane adult society recognizes that people make mistakes, and that this is generally a good thing. A nanny-state seeks to bubble-wrap us all to prevent us from harming ourselves.

The only way we can stop this persistent child-proofing is to raise the costs of engaging in it. I have personally vowed to not patronize any store that makes it a policy to card every customer. I urge you to do the same. If your school has a “zero-tolerance policy” about anything, complain about it. And keep complaining. Even if you don’t smoke, complain loudly and vigorously about smoking bans. Any time you spot social child-proofing in progress, call it what it is: insulting, degrading and counterproductive.