Cedar Rapids Iowa has found a different way to cash in on law breakers; traffic cameras catching people being people have raked in $2.6 million in fines during 2010 just in tickets for red lights and speeding infractions. It cost just over $1 million to operate the cameras. That’s one heck of an investment return. Bernie Madoff would be proud of Cedar Rapids City Fathers. But is this how we want to live? Do traffic cameras really add to the quality of our life in Iowa? Do we want to live in a Communist styled state of paranoia? This is a slippery slope and one that leads to corruption of thought.

Perhaps we should have a contest to see how many ways we Iowans can come up with, to dehumanize our cities and towns.

• How about sidewalk cameras for those that don’t shovel their sidewalks?
• Or we could pay people a bounty to snitch on their neighbors. That would be a real communist community builder.
• And let’s not forget spitting. If we pass a spitting ordinance we could make a bundle with camers where people do a lot of spitting.
• Ugly tattoos or tattoos with little or no taste. If we commission tattoo police we could increase revenues for the road construction companies and others that pay so much in campaign contributions to politicians who then need to pay them back with spending from the public till.
• Fashion police! Oh that would be great and we could air it on YouTube or one of Iowa’s TV stations and have wagers as to who is dressed the worse; sort of like dancing with the stars. The Iowa State Fair would take on a whole new meaning.
• And how about selling corporate naming rights for the prisons? We'll need more prisons so perhaps Kinnick Stadium could used as a prisoner exercise yard.

Hey all you young minds, send in your suggestions and I’ll print them. If we are going to act like a communist country we might as well do it right.