As I age, I’ve discovered that I am prone to getting sinus infections from the bug du jour, from things growing, or from wherever else, thanks probably to my amazing luck in inheriting bad sinuses from both of my parents. I rarely go to my doctor for treatment, because I don’t believe in running to doctors every time I get a malady, and I certainly don’t believe in taking antibiotics to fix every cold I have.

The only thing that provided real relief for my sinus maladies is pseudoephedrine, found in such products as Sudafed, Mucinex D and Claritin. I’ve tried several alternatives, but products with pseudoephedrine are the only thing that allows me to breathe without causing excessive drying (a problem for those of us who wear contact lenses), or the other effects of antihistamines. Pseudoephedrine has been used for years for those who suffer from allergies and prefer not to take medications that induce drowsiness.

But pseudoephedrine is one of the ingredients of methamphetamine, thus requiring, in the mind of legislators continually running for reelection, bold and decisive action to prevent the ill among us from getting relief without running to the doctor … I mean, to protect us citizens from the scourge of meth-heads invading Wal–Mart for ingredients for their next fix.

2005 Wisconsin Act 14 requires that pseudoephedrine be sold only by pharmacists or employees working under registered pharmacists, and that no one can purchase more than 7.5 grams within a 30-day period without the approval of a physician, dentist, or veterinarian. The pharmacy is required to get photo ID from the buyer, and must record the buyer’s name and address and how much he or she purchased; those records must be kept by the pharmacy for two years. Similar legislation was passed by Congress as part of the renewal of the Patriot Act in 2006.

This law — unanimously passed in the Senate and passed 92–6 in the Assembly, which means there is bipartisan blame — is an inconvenience, to say the least, to the ill, in addition to being a burden on business. In the week I started at Marketplace in 2008, I (1) was barred from purchasing the correct medication because the pharmacy was closed even though the store was open; (2) had to have my wife get it with the usual legal third degree, and (3) stood in line at another pharmacy with other sick people so that I could buy a medication that does not require a prescription. Can’t sleep because you can’t breathe? To quote a former coworker of mine, then it sucks to be you.

I suppose I should be grateful that I can still get pseudoephedrine, since Oregon, where this began, makes pseudoephedrine available only by prescription. As it is, cold medications with pseudoephedrine are now not available in any store that doesn’t have a pharmacy, which includes most grocery stores and convenience stores — a case of government telling businesses what they can and cannot sell to their customers. Some countries are phasing out pseudoephedrine. Drug manufacturers have also removed pseudoephedrine from some cold medications or replacing it with phenylephrine, which does not work.

This is all because meth is the current popular target in the “war on drugs”: “With the help of the press, they’re once again frightening the public with tales of a drug so seductive it instantly turns masses of upstanding citizens into addicts who ruin their health, their lives and their families,” wrote the New York Times’ John Tierney in 2005, when state legislatures were falling over each other trying to regulate pseudoephedrine. This is the same non-thinking that has helped turn flying into such a drill-holes-into-your-skull experience, when grandmothers and babies are subject to random searches because they could be terrorists. A 45-year-old man who can barely breathe apparently is a potential meth-head, so let’s inconvenience everyone and invade the privacy of the ill for this supposed wave of the use of the popular drug of the day.

The rationale, as always, is that, to quote Hillary Clinton, “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.” Or, to quote U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh (D–Indiana), who sponsored the Senate bill, “Your ordinary, law-abiding citizen isn’t going to object.” Evidently Bayh feels no need to be bothered by constitutional rights.

Or whether pseudoephedrine overregulation will actually work. Just one-fifth of the meth in this country is domestically produced, which means this law will do almost nothing to combat meth use. There is always a way for the motivated druggie to get more drugs — in the case of meth, from Mexico (whose organized crime has gotten quite a shot in the arm, so to speak, from efforts to curb domestic production, according to the New York Times), or by purchasing the ingredients on the Internet.

This, as usual, does nothing to curb the demand for illegal drugs. And, as always, the Law of Unintended Consequences applies: Burglaries in one Iowa county “skyrocketed,” according to the New York Times, after a state crackdown on large meth labs, since what cost $50 to make on a stovetop ended up costing $800 to $1,500 on the street. And the more profit there is in an illegal activity, the more incentive there is to commit crime to support or fund that illegal activity.

Using the same logic, the state should ban alcoholic beverages, since alcohol leads to drunk driving. Then again, perhaps I shouldn’t have written that, since a Missouri legislator in 2007 proposed similarly heavily regulating a key ingredient in crack cocaine … baking soda.

This is an issue of the trade-offs between societal liberty and safety (which has been happening since before 9/11, but has been more noticeable since 9/11) more than the personal freedom to use the controlled substance of your choice. It is also an issue of the effectiveness of those trade-offs. Infringing on everyone’s liberty to not particularly improve safety is not a trade-off we should be making.

U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl (D–Wisconsin) announced Friday that four terms in the U.S. Senate was enough. (Which means you can ignore this.)

Kohl was in the Senate for four terms, you ask? How can you tell?

Part of me says I shouldn’t be critical of Kohl for two reasons. First, he did put up $25 million of the $72 million cost for the University of Wisconsin’s Kohl Center, one of the premier college sports facilities in the U.S., particularly compared to the UW Fieldhouse, which had great views from the front of the upper deck and little else to recommend it.

Second, Kohl probably didn’t do any damage to the country, unlike former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold (D–Wisconsin), whose McCain–Feingold campaign finance deform bill ushered in the era of the nasty campaign ads we all enjoyed in 2010 and violates the First Amendment. Better inaction than the wrong action, I suppose.

Having written that, Kohl was sort of the unflavored gelatin of Wisconsin politics — inoffensive for the most part, yet ineffective. I wrote in the 1990s that with Kohl’s lack of noticeable accomplishment for the state and Feingold’s fixation on campaign finance deform, I wondered when Wisconsin gave up the right to have U.S. senators.

When asked Friday about what he considered his greatest accomplishment in his political career, Kohl pointed to the Marinette Marine Littoral Combat Ship project. That is an important project for Marinette and Northeast Wisconsin, but (assuming the U.S. Navy buys more than one) it is not a project one would think would be on the top of the list of a senator who first arrived in Washington in 1989.

I covered the 1988 Senate race when candidates would come to Lancaster. That included exactly two Democrats, Ed Garvey (yes, this Ed Garvey), who had narrowly lost in 1986 to Republican Sen. Robert Kasten, and Secretary of State Douglas La Follette. The other Democratic candidates were former Gov. Anthony Earl, who had been upset in 1986 by then-Assembly Minority Leader Tommy Thompson, and perennial candidate Edmond Hou-Seye. Kohl did not deign to show up in Lancaster; I don’t recall if Earl did.

Kohl’s sole qualification for office was his millions of dollars as part of the Kohl family of Kohl’s grocery stores and Kohls Corp. department stores. Kohl nonetheless won the Democratic primary with 47 percent of the vote, and then got 52 percent of the vote against Republican Susan Engeleiter in the general election.

I was assigned to write an editorial endorsing Kohl because of his business experience. That must have impressed some Republicans as well because I recall a group calling itself “Republicans for Kohl” consisting of some older male Republicans. I was not sure if they were convinced of Kohl’s business experience or turned off by Engeleiter’s gender.

That business experience part is one of the ironies of Kohl’s career. At no point was his name attached to something remotely pro-business — that is, something that could benefit all businesses, not just business sectors in current favor such as alternative energy firms. Business tax cuts (not breaks)? Regulatory reform? Employment law reform?

His voting record (which ultimately is the only thing any politician should be judged upon) was standard Democrat, which is odd for someone who had enough money that he didn’t need national Democratic support. No Democrat you’ve heard of ever ran against him after 1988, and he would have crushed any Democrat who did. Yet, like Feingold, Kohl listened to only Democrats back in Wisconsin, and could not be accused of being a moderate. Which is one reason why Democrats cannot be accused of being pro-business; their voting records get in the way of their rhetoric.

Kohl’s future replacement was topic one on WTMJ-TV’s “Sunday Insight with Charlie Sykes.” The big question was whether U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R–Janesville), who would be the instant favorite if he decided to run, will try for the Senate, which he’s believed to be interested in, or if he would stay in the House of Representatives, where he theoretically has much more power as the House Budget Committee chairman. Everything on the right side will flow from whatever decision Ryan makes.

(Regardless of Ryan’s decision, ponder this: Ron Johnson, whom few had heard of even a year ago, will be the senior senator from Wisconsin in January 2013.)

If not Ryan, another candidate might be Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, who has won two statewide elections.

Another candidate I’m skeptical about is Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, who I think isn’t well known enough statewide. I don’t think Assembly speakers are good candidates for higher office anyway, given the experiences of GOP speakers David Prosser and John Gard, who were collectively 0 for 3 in congressional elections — as leaders of majority parties, they tend to be controversy magnets.

Kohl’s departure adds another headache for Wisconsin Democrats and their supporters, regardless of what they say. Democrats either are being or will be asked to financially back (1) Joanne Kloppenburg’s quixotic quest to get elected to the Supreme Court by invalidating votes; (2) Democrats involved, on the offensive or defensive side, in state Senate recall elections; (3) President Obama’s reelection efforts in this (supposedly) swing state; (4) whoever decides to run against freshman U.S. Reps. Sean Duffy and Reid Ribble; (5) efforts to retake the Legislature in 2012; and now (6) whoever runs to replace Kohl.

The obvious Democrat to run is Feingold, largely because he (and his most fervent supporters) has acted as though Feingold’s birthright was taken away from him when he lost Nov. 2. Senator Left Ear was simultaneously a phony maverick and ineffective on issues that actually matter to Wisconsin voters, which is why they fired Feingold Nov. 2. His “listening sessions” were an excuse for his leftist allies to claim that government is not big enough (to which Feingold agreed on such subjects as single-payer health care). It is faint praise that no one would accuse him of being two-faced; based on those who had to deal with him, if he disagreed with you, you might as well have been talking to the door.

Assuming Feingold doesn’t challenge President Obama in the Democratic primary (a persistent rumor since his loss), I have to believe Feingold will run. Almost as likely, and absolutely likely if he doesn’t run, is U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D–Madison), who will be making a huge mistake if she does run because, while she can probably be elected to Congress from the People’s Republic of Madison indefinitely, she is unlikely to do well in the conservative parts of the state, which will be able to find at least three reasons to not vote for her. (Her party is one, where she’s from is another, and you can guess about number three.) Another name from the People’s Republic is Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, who has, however, already lost two statewide races — the Democratic gubernatorial primary in 2002 and the attorney general race (after knocking off incumbent Peg Lautenschlager) in 2006.

The Democrat who should run but is probably 50–50 at best is U.S. Rep. Ron Kind (D–La Crosse), a former Kohl aid. Kind represents the Third Congressional District, a swing district bordered by the Mississippi River. Kind, who would have been a better candidate for governor than Tom Barrett, is that rarest of things, a 2010 Democratic winner. The latter half of the 50–50 is that, like Baldwin but for different reasons, Kind would be giving up a safe Congressional seat for a not-at-all-assured result in November 2012.

The craziest suggestion I’ve read — which means: Go for it, Democrats! — is that someone from the Fleeing Fourteen should run. This suggestion, forwarded from The Capital Times’ John Nichols, is the result of the delusion that Wisconsinites widely oppose Gov. Scott Walker’s budget reforms. Had that been the case, we’d be talking about Supreme Court Justice-Elect Joanne Kloppenburg, instead of Kloppenburg the Meaningless Lawsuit Machine, and Democratic Sens. Dave Hansen, James Holperin and Robert Wirch wouldn’t be facing recall elections this summer. Apparently the closer you get to Madison, the farther away you get from reality.

Johnson, interestingly, is a model for Democrats in this election. Not because of Johnson’s ideology (the only reason liberals read Atlas Shrugged is so they can denigrate it), but because of Johnson’s backstory. The mythology of Wisconsin politics is that we like mavericks or, in the case of Feingold, politicians who seem like mavericks though they are not. This is one of those periods (which seem more numerous than they actually are) where being an insider is a bit of a disadvantage. People regardless of ideology are disgusted by politics more by the day, and someone who seems outside the process — as Kohl was in 1988, as Feingold (who defeated two Democratic opponents who vastly outspent him) was in 1992, and as Johnson was in 2010 — is probably the ideal Democratic candidate in 2012. As Marquette University Prof. John McAdams said on WTMJ radio Friday, you don’t know that person yet.