Mark Steyn was on Rush a little while ago, retelling the story of how his kids recently got their Kinder Eggs confiscated at the U.S.-Canadian border (a tale he related here). It’s a perfect example of the sheer idiocy that attends the rise of the bureaucratic nanny state.

Kindereier, to give them their German name, are hollow chocolate Easter eggs with little surprise toys inside the eggs, which is why they’re also called Ueberraschungseier. My own children, who grew up in Germany, somehow managed to survive Oster after Oster of Kindereier without ever once being tempted to eat the little airplane or truck or pirate after they put it together. Maybe that’s because the toy comes inside a plastic shell, which is obviously inedible.

Never mind about that: Their importation is proscribed by law. Because hey, you never know — something might happen. So here is the Customs and Border Protection division of our crack Department of Homeland Security, putting the kinder in Kinder by protecting America’s children from their own potential stupidity.

Sure, it’s dumb. But isn’t it also emblematic of the defensive crouch this country has found itself in ever since the rise of the tort lawyers and the decline of common sense? Just asking.

And now back to the writer’s cave. Devlin and Maryam are really in a pickle and I’ve got to get them out of it. And, no, the solution does not involve an exploding Kinder Egg.