Just to keep us safe

Ah, the nanny state. Is there anything left from which our legislative masters will not endeavor to protect us?

Fifty years ago, just 3 percent of Americans had to obtain a government license to practice their livelihoods, reports Clark Neily, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, a Washington-based public interest law firm.

Today, the number is 35 percent ... and rising.

According to a feature in the Dec. 28 Wall Street Journal, the institute is currently fighting the state of Texas (alone) over schemes to limit through license or regulation the right of citizens to make their livings as eyebrow threaders (they use cotton thread to remove unwanted facial hair), wig servicers, equine massage therapists, interior designers (can they take away your license for using too much fuchsia?), locksmiths, karate instructors, and even horse floaters.

(Horse floaters grind down horses' molars to give them a more even chewing surface.)

Requiring horse floaters to obtain a veterinary degree "is like saying you need to be become an architect in order to work as a carpenter," says Tom Allen, a Missouri floater who also happens to be a licensed vet.

Meantime, here in Nevada, the usual raft of new laws went into effect Jan. 1. Our favorite? AB266, sponsored by Assembly Majority Floor Leader (and union firefighter) John Oceguera, D-Las Vegas, prohibits the sale of "novelty" cigarette lighters -- devices designed to look like cartoon characters, toys or guns, or that play musical notes or have flashing lights.

"They're cute, they're little, but they can be deadly," Mr. Oceguera told a committee hearing earlier this year.

Well, we once saw a young child take a set of keys and plug one into a wall outlet. In the fairy tale, the king tried to destroy all the spindles in the kingdom to keep the princess from sticking herself. It didn't work.