This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Jan. 29, 2009 - My car is worried about me. I know this because it beeps alarmingly every 15 seconds or so when I don't wear my seatbelt. The nagging is relentless.
I try to explain to it that we're in line for the drive-up window at the bank and I can't reach my wallet with the belt fastened but my protests fall on deaf ears. So, despite the fact that my odds of having a serious auto accident while at a dead stop on the bank parking lot are less than my chances of being struck by a meteorite, the beeping continues.
My mechanic tells me that he can't disconnect the belt-nagger because doing so would screw up the computer that monitors the vehicle's engine functions. The nanny state has crept beneath my hood.
We've learned to tolerate these kinds of annoyances because they're inflicted upon us for our own good. Seatbelts reduce the incidence of serious injury in accidents and it's generally a good idea to wear one. However, adult citizens of a constitutional republic apparently cannot be relied upon to look out for their own welfare. We thus have cars that drive us while we drive them.
If you dig around long enough, you can usually uncover a profit motive behind most of the supposedly well-intentioned intrusions on our personal freedoms. In this case, the insurance industry lobbied Congress to mandate seatbelt use to reduce the expenses it incurs from auto accidents. Congress, ever anxious to give Americans the best law that money can buy, promptly acquiesced and required auto manufacturers to install warning devices that sound when belts are not fastened on an occupied seat.
Question: Who is safer in traffic - the unbelted driver sitting behind an airbag in the padded cockpit of an SUV or the motorcycle cop who writes him a ticket for his reckless behavior?
Locally, we are currently under siege from yet another campaign to further limit personal prerogative. An outfit operating under the moniker of smokefreestl is running radio ads imploring citizens to demand a total ban on indoor smoking modeled after the one Illinois adopted a year ago. According to the secretary of state's website, smokefreestl is not an incorporated non-profit so I can't tell you who's really funding the effort.
If gamblers in the Land of Lincoln are any indication, such a ban would not be universally welcomed. On Dec. 4, the Chicago Tribune reported that casino revenue in the state is down 20.3 percent since smoking was outlawed. Of course, the economy suffered a sharp downturn during the period in question, which could also account for the loss. But the Trib reports that is not the case:
"While casinos in Illinois struggle, across the border in Indiana, revenues are down by only three-quarters of a percent, according to the American Gaming Association.
"They have basically the same economy, the same weather as Illinois. ... The only difference is the smoking ban."
The ban has cost the state between $150 million and $160 million in lost taxes - and that's just for 2008.
In western Illinois, gaming losses to Missouri were moderated by the fact that, until recently, Missouri had statutory limits on how much a gambler could lose. Fun-lovers here could "only" lose $500 every two hours. Though $500 in gambling losses would suffice me for several lifetimes, big time wheeler-dealers apparently found the limits too restrictive.
At any rate, Missouri voters eliminated the loss limits last November by passing Proposition A. You are now free to lose every cent you own whenever you want and destroy your health by smoking cigarettes while you do so. What's not to like?
If you're an Illinois casino-owner, there's quite a bit you'd find objectionable. Compulsive personalities often like to smoke and gamble. Indeed, The Casino Queen of East St. Louis was reported to be a major sponsor of the effort to defeat Prop A. Unless you've just arrived in town on a truckload of watermelons, you've got to suspect the motives of a casino that donates money to publicize the perils of gambling. With local loss limits now history, the effort to ban smoking has been revived. Hmm...
Elsewhere, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has contributed $200+ million to associations that promote smoking bans. RWJF holds $5.4 billion of stock in Johnson & Johnson. Along with manufacturing baby shampoo and cotton swabs, J & J earns $500+ million yearly selling pharmaceutical nicotine products like Nicoderm, Nicotrol and a new smoking cessation drug called Chantix.
It may be merely happy coincidence that the people who would rob of us of liberty to protect us from ourselves also happen to profit financially in the process. And it may be that a large white rabbit hides brightly colored eggs on my lawn every Easter. But I don't think so.
M.W. Guzy is a retired St. Louis cop who currently works for the city Sheriff's Department. His column appears weekly in the Beacon.