Thank goodness for law-enforcement leaders like North Carolina’s Scott Hunter, chief of the capitol police. Reason TV salutes him as the man who put an end to our long national nightmare of … flag-related violence? When Tea Partiers started preparing for Tax Day, Chief Hunter tried to stave off the orgy of violence by banning staves. Eventually, others less concerned about ending this scourge of American communities suspended Hunter’s new law, and the result was a grand total of zero incidents of violence involving Old Glory or homemade signs at political rallies:

I’m impressed with this choice. I’d have put money on Reason TV selecting the Silicon Valley busybody who outlawed Happy Meals at fast-food restaurants, but Chief Hunter represents a more troublesome type of government intervention. It’s an example of those in power attempting to silence in some small, petty, and absolutely absurd way those citizens who want to hold the powerful to account.