Topless women

      In today's article, I will put aside all the weighty, pressing issues of the day, such as taxes, inflation, deficits, President Trump, pollution, crime, the stock market, global warming, pollution, inequality, terrorism, immigration, substance abuse, abortion, homelessness, and so on.  Instead, I will discuss another issue that surely is front-and-center on everyone's mind:

      The town of Colorado City, Colorado, has dropped its prohibition against women going topless in public.  In fact, it is now legal for women to bare their breasts in public in six states.
      Women in the U.S. have been lobbying to modify public nudity laws for quite some time, so to give them the same rights as men on days when it gets scorching hot.  Evidently, the debate in Colorado City was rather heated, pardon the pun.  In the final wash, the city council relented because the cost of enforcing the old law just wasn't worth it.

dirty old man

      Obviously, I am quite joyful about this latest turn of political events!  No, no, no - it's not because I'm a dirty old man who loves to ogle at naked female body parts.  Well … Ok, maybe I AM a dirty old man, and I admire the female body as much as the next guy - but that has nothing to do with it.  More importantly, I'm a libertarian, and this is an area where government surely needs to butt out.

      Let us first make a clear and unambiguous distinction between a cultural taboo, and a law.

      In every culture around the world, there are some things that you just don't do.  I'm not going to go into the historical, anthropological, societal, and religious backstories here.  Just suffice it to say that there are some things that a person should not do.  

      But the purpose of government is not to enforce cultural taboos.  Government's purpose for existence should be to protect life and property from violence, theft, and fraud - and that's a pretty darn short list.  All the other things government does, or tries to do, should be eliminated from the law books.  Getting government out of the vice crime business not only save tons of resources for enforcing REAL crimes with REAL victims, but actually helps foster a more stable and peaceful society all around.  (See my article "Legalize marijuana" for more discussion thereof.)  If someone should violate a cultural taboo, then society, not government, should assume the role of enforcer, using such tools as ostracism, public shame, etc.  

       So now, with all the political mumbo-jumbo out of way and all the arguments argued, and with your permission, dear reader, I would like to delve deeper into this crazy topic of female breasts. 

      Why oh why oh why does our culture consider female breasts, and breast-feeding, to be something dirty and nasty that must be hidden?  Sure, using the toilet should be done in private, but what do breasts have to do with the toilet?  Many other cultures around the world don't think so, as readers of National Geographic well know.  Men have nipples too, but no one cares.
      A few years ago I was in Europe.  At the airport in Prague, right there in the middle of the terminal, in front of God and everybody, a woman was breast-feeding her baby.  I thought: cool!  But imagine what would happen if a woman did that in the U.S.?  The indecency police and the evangelicals would descend like she was Public Enemy Number One.

      A breast is nothing more than a biological tool for feeding babies.  Breast-feeding is a perfectly natural and, I might add, beautiful way for mother and baby to bond.  Doctors say that both of them benefit greatly!  But as a kid growing up, we never so much as mentioned the subject, much less actually saw it in action.  I understood how the mammary thing worked, as our dog had puppies and I watched nature unfold before me.  But it never occurred to me that humans could do this, also.  I'll never forget that day in grade school science class when we learned all about mammals.  I raised my hand and asked the stupid question whether milk-making included human mothers, and everyone laughed at me.  Well, how was I to know?

      So yeah, we need to change our cultural norms AND any remaining "indecency" laws on the books that make breasts obscene.  Don't be bashful about it around kids.  I'm with the gals on this one:  Free the nipple!