Enough With The Symbolism

The City Council passed a resolution officially banning red light cameras and the use of drones in Iowa City last night- because, of course, our airspace is so crowded with drones we really needed to crack down on them.  It's being hailed a unique ordinance (and possibly the first of its kind in the country) and has gotten play on Reddit and elsewhere on the Interwebs but here's the kicker, kids:  it's a completely useless waste of time.

Of course, you could argue that completely uselesss wastes of time are what the City Council does best.   Somewhere around the City Limits (I always remember seeing the one on Highway 6 coming in from Coralville by Carver-Hawkeye Arena) there might still be signs informing visitors to our fair metropolis that we are, in fact, a nuclear weapons free zone.  Because in the mid-to-late 80s the Pentagon was, of course, looking to lodge an ICBM under the west lawn of the Pentacrest.   I think we also might be a Tree City USA, because of course, those other cities just hate trees- they hate 'em.

But, hey, this is what the City Council does.  It may look like a victory for the scrappy coalition of libertarian/anti-authoritarian types that put a kybosh on building a new jail and have been banging on the red light camera drum for months now, but it's really not- and I'm not the first person to point this out.  We'll have red light cameras eventually-  just when the State DOT gets around to issuing guidelines for them.   I'm sure the same thing will happen with drones as well- though it might be a few years before that becomes enough of an issue for the State DOT to start thinking about it. 

This is a fig leaf, a symbolic waste of time and I hope opponents are ready to saddle up again, because rest assured, this issue, at some point, will be back.

So I've decided that we need to stop doing this symbolic bullshit.   Do actual things that benefit actual people and maybe you'll convince me that the government has a use beyond keeping the streets peaceful and putting out fires.  (And just in case you think I'm hating too much on the City Council, keep in mind this is a national phenomenon as well: the House just passed a late-term abortion ban that hasn't a hope in hell of becoming law- they knew that and did it anyway, thus increasing their already boundless appeal to that ever-so-important demographic of women voters.  They've tried to repeal ObamaCare umpteen times with no hope of success.  That the GOPers want to repeal ObamaCare isn't a problem for me- it's the fact that I haven't been told what they're replacing it with that is.   I don't find that 'MERICUH HEALTH POWER! NO SOCIALISM! is an acceptable solution and neither should anyone else.)

Enough with the symbolism already.