Strapped

Another lawmaking session is under way in Arizona. Today, representatives from all across the state had a chance to show their stuff. Since Republicans hold a solid majority, they control the agenda, so one would expect to see some rock-ribbed conservative principles on display. Did we get that for which we bargained at the ballot box?

No. In fact, government got even more intrusive, and in sillier fashion than we could have imagined. As of this writing the law now states that children who are riding in motor vehicles must do so in the confines of a booster seat until the age of eight years old. Eight. (The mandatory booster seat age, until we were rescued, had been but five years.)

Two other bills were defeated in Arizona's Congress today. One would've outlawed smoking in the car with children present. The other would have made it illegal to text-message while driving. Neither of these, apparently, crossed that somehow-Reaganesque threshold of rugged individualism.

It surely cannot be easy, and for girls it was probably different, but think back to your childhood. Remember how cool you were at that age, how smart, how tough? Spitting, swearing, defending your mother's honor on the playground... Jumping off the swings at the highest possible point... Eating potato chips while chewing gum... Rock fights, stuff like that.

That kind of bravado was essential to our development, and it was magnified to stressful degrees anytime a bigger kid was around, an older kid who was admired and emulated. Good luck now, Junior:

"Daddy, can you take me and Jimmy to the movies?" Sure, Ethan. Get in your booster seat.

I'm told that Arizona is not the most draconian state in this regard. Some places want to keep kids in automotive highchairs until the age of twelve; I can't see that happening. When we were twelve, we weren't listening to anything our parents said, and that was back in the day when we had corporal punishment to consider.

One kid in my neighborhood, Ron Ludwig, was shaving when he was twelve years old. Booster seat? Why? To keep him upright after he's had a few?

Everybody knows what this really is. It's a way for the state to collect more money, in the form of fines, which is a below-radar way for Republicans to raise taxes on working families. That'd be a hard ticket for a cop to write, though, since children generally aren't required to carry identification.

Just claim your offspring to be age nine, no matter how small he or she might be. You can always say that the child's growth was stunted, you know, from you smoking in the car.

pH 6.22.o9