TO THE EYE, LITTLE CHANGES when you drive south over the border from Alberta into Montana. There are billboards advertising cigarettes, an enticement Canada's rulers have judged their subjects too gullible to view. And paved shoulders are rare. Montanans have chosen to pay for asphalt only on that part of the road they actually drive on. Otherwise, undulating grassland is undulating grassland.
Still, some things are different. A Canadian senses it in his bones. There's Montana's "Basic Rule," for one. During daylight hours there is no posted speed limit on the state's major highways. Drivers are asked to be "reasonable and prudent," a speed the state highway patrol pegs at around 90 m.p.h. when the road surface is bare and dry.
And long before governments in the rest of North America (Nevada excepted) twigged onto gambling to supplement their revenues, Montana had legal poker clubs. Pay a token two-dollar fee for a one-night membership, and bet and bluff in peace. Beer and wine are available in grocery stores, and there is no statewide closing time for bars, both of which facts seem exotic to a Canuck. Nor is liquor taxed to discourage consumption, as it is north of the 49th parallel.
Then there's guns. Most Februarys, Snappy Sports Senter in Kallispell holds a used Magnum sale. They advertise it on the big illuminated sign out front. Possession of such a high-powered handgun in Canada is punishable by up to 10 years in jail (no, really). Montana is also a right-to-carry state. Any adult without a criminal record or a graduation certificate from a lunatic asylum must be issued a concealed-weapons permit if he requests one. However, if he is prepared to wear his pistol where all can see, no permit is required.
Finally, Montana is -- for the time being, at least -- an open-container state. Having an open bottle of beer in the cab of a pickup violates no state law. Nor does drinking from that bottle while driving 90 and fondling the Smith & Wesson tucked in one's boot. (Sipping Chablis in the back of a Volvo would be legal, too. But this is Montana, and such behavior is not an issue.) The offense is driving while drunk, not drinking while driving. Indeed, being able to uncap a Bud wherever one chooses is an important symbol of freedom. And it is a bracing reminder -- even to a teetotaling non-hunter from north of the border -- of what it means for a legislature to take self-government seriously, and trust its citizens to act as responsible adults.
But the pop-top, aluminum emblem of liberty is in jeopardy of being banned from the cabs of Big Sky pickups. The transportation bill that cleared Congress just before Memorial Day takes aim at the handful of recalcitrant states like Montana that don't outlaw open containers. A chunk of federal highway-construction funds is to be redirected to "safety programs" in those states that fail to prohibit open container. Never mind that highway repairs and improvements might well save more lives than banning open containers. The point is to force states like Montana to change laws that respect local culture and levels of self-reliance to satisfy the harridans of far-off safety lobbies and their cause-of-the-moment friends in Washington.
Gov. Marc Racicot is fond of saying, "Montana is what America used to be. Being a neighbor means more than living next door." It means looking out for one another without being told, including choosing not to abuse freedoms that might endanger others. Since the lifting of speed limits in 1995, following 21 years of federally imposed maximums, average speeds have increased by less than three miles per hour and fatalities have continued their 25-year decline. Despite its gun laws (or perhaps because of them), Montana has murder and crime rates well below the national average. And the rate of alcohol-related traffic deaths is nearly the same as the national average (43 percent versus 42 percent).
The Republican Congress that lifted the federal speed limits in 1995 and allowed the states to write their own laws understood the difference between Alberta and Montana, between paternalistic Canada and the freedom-loving U.S.A. Judging by this year's highway bill, that understanding has begun to fade. I point this out as a concerned neighbor.
Lorne Gunter is a columnist for the Edmonton Journal.