Reaching further back on our timeline of ill-considered sanctimony was the US Supreme Court finding in 1948 that it violated anti-trust legislation for film studios to own venues of distribution, i.e., movie theaters. Not long after, many were divested and what had been communal gathering spots became empty storefronts or worse.

Whom exactly did this benefit? Not employees of the studio system, who rapidly found output diminished from as many as fifty-two films a year to little more than a dozen. Not theater owners, who without a constant stream of content saw audiences dwindle and tax bills increase. Certainly not patrons themselves, who used to enjoy the choice of multiple showplaces. Rather than ample employment and civic fellowship, urban blight abounded.

To illustrate the economic effects of this dictate, the film industry entered a profound recession in 1948 that was not fully reversed until 1972.

The true beneficiaries of this judicially blindfolded blunder were largely the new medium of television (which garnered viewers who now had nowhere else to go) and a smug Supreme Court that upheld idealized opinion at the cost of practical good. Part of the greatly criticized atomization and isolation of American life developing from that period onward can be laid directly upon the doorstep of this single decision which helped vacate downtowns and city centers across the land.

Cultures are killed by curtailing their traditions and eviscerating their symbols.

Granted, the new mayor of New York is not my kind of politician. Many of his schemes I find to be ill-conceived and rooted more in emotion than rationality. Nonetheless I always give a man a chance to prove me wrong.

Unfortunately, in his initial outing, de Blasio demonstrated not only is he a man of questionable character but one of low intellect as well. Seldom have personal piques benefited the good of the people, and no less so than when public servants take it upon themselves to erase social or historical customs.
Today you can “safely” skydive out of an airplane, but you cannot leisurely cruise the Mississippi on the Delta Queen. You can go to the movie theater, but you cannot avoid the same handful of films playing upon three screens each. You can get raped in Central Park, but sitting with your sweetheart in a carriage will soon be illegal.

While New York may ultimately succeed in cleansing the cherished institution of horse-drawn conveyances from its streets, its City Hall will forever be awash with hypocritical politicians who are full of manure.