New camp game: capture the fee

If the life experiences of officials at the state Department of Health have led them to conclude that dodgeball, Wiffle ball and tag create a "significant risk of injury," we must assume they were unpopular as children. Sure, you can hurt somebody playing Wiffle ball, but you'd have to want to with every fiber of your being.

This could matter, because a law that took effect April 1, meant to close loopholes allowing indoor day camps to operate under different rules than outdoor ones, brought with it a long list of "nonpassive recreational activities with significant risk of injury" that needed to be regulated. (As opposed to dangerous, passive activities? I hope they're not playing "kickchess" or "taunt the poet" because, well . . . it can get rough.)

The list includes a lot of legitimately risky activities (rock climbing, horseback riding, shooting sports) along with the fairly tame ones (think crab soccer, red rover, tetherball), and the law stipulates that any program featuring such pursuits is subject to oversight.

Also defined as dangerous were ga-ga (a complicated form of kickball played in an ever-shrinking octagonal ring) and steal the bacon (a combination of capture the flag and tag), neither of which I had ever heard of. Spud, a hybrid of dodgeball and red light-green light played with bean bags, however, was deemed quite safe -- thank heavens.

The list is arbitrary, as it would have to be. Why is tag dangerous but relay racing safe? Why are hurling and golf risky but duck, duck, goose and boccie fine?

The problem is not, as some media outlets have said, that these regulations could shut down many summer recreation programs, including some offered by local nonprofits. The newly applied rules mostly consist of imposing a $200 licensing fee. Claims that these camps would now need medical personnel on staff are dire -- but also untrue. They would only have to keep the phone number of a doctor handy.

But this is a great example of how, in the long run, nanny-state liberalism becomes a snake that must eat its own tail to survive. We are told it's a national emergency that our kids spend more time on their enormous butts scanning Facebook than on the playground. Then we're instructed that the simplest games of childhood now pose "a significant risk of injury" and our vigilance must be unflagging. We're told communities must band together to offer inexpensive, wholesome and active recreation for our youth, then we slap those programs with fees, regulations and oversight requirements.

And parents are as much the problem as the bureaucrats and politicians. If our little angels have a mishap, we'll demand hearings, file lawsuits and lay blame faster than we can say, "Tag, you're it."

"How could the state have let this horrid camp, where a slavish devotion to competitive tetherball left my child scarred for life, operate without a plastic surgeon on site? You, sir? How do you sleep at night?"

The new regulations have created enough uproar that the state backed off, promising to study the issue again and come up with more sensible rules. It won't work any better next time, because how could it?

We demand government make our lives perfectly safe -- and leave us alone. We have to pick one or the other. Insist on both, and we end up forcing officials to parse the relative safety of boccie, ga-ga and spud. It's little wonder, faced with such impossible tasks, that steal the bacon becomes the only game with much appeal.