'Nation of hall monitors': Nothing to crow about?

I don’t often see eye-to-eye with syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts Jr., but his column in Monday’s Enquirer (here’s the link to it in his home paper, the Miami Herald) shows him taking almost a (gasp!) libertarian point of view, bashing “political correctness that straitjackets communication” and decrying “the campaign to regulate language, law, culture and every other aspect of human intercourse …” You get the idea.

Well, a couple of new developments in Los Angeles, pointed out courtesy of Reason magazine’s "Hit & Run” blog, help make Pitts’ point that we’re “hell-bent on becoming a nation of hall monitors."

Last week, the L.A. City Council voted unanimously to adopt rules that would limit the size of remodeled homes to about 3,000 to 4,000 square feet in the city’s single-family “flatlands,” and would forbid the conversion of downtown residential hotels into condos. But wait! There’s more! Responding to noise and gambling complaints, council member Janice Hahn has propsoed limiting the number of roosters a household can own to one. Residents already are restricted to no more than three dogs or three cats.

Private property rights? Not in L.A. Bet you have to check with the Arts Commission before you paint your bathroom purple.