Potatoheads At Law

An erotic dance club owner in Idaho charges $15, two nights a week, for what he calls "Art Club Nights."  To skirt laws forbidding full nudity, he gives patrons a pencil and a sketchpad, allowing his art 'subjects' to legally take it all off.

It's an interesting case for highlighting a fundamental question: Since clothing can't be legislated, where should personal liberty end and government begin?  Depending on your perspective, this line often zig-zags and is hard to see.  Yet, if we look through the 20/20 lense of history, these 'best practices' are clearly relevant:

• Limit government to enforcement of just law and protection of public good.
• Limit "just" laws to those necessary to prevent someone from injuring someone else.
• Use strict criteria when determining "public good".
• If in doubt, leave the law out.

Since erotic dancing promotes a mentality that treats woman as souless sexual objects, I'm not a fan.  What's more, despite its instinctive effects, watching it seems pathetic for reasons I can't quite figure out.  So, you won't see me in Idaho 'dance' clubs.  Even so, given the criteria I list above, the anti-nudity law in the Idaho nightclubs is a bad one to begin with.  Even Mrs. Potatohead would agree with that.