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The great Chicago writer Nelson Algren once described rough times in Butte, Mont., by saying it was “when fists were the thing that counted most, but money counted more.”

Or as the 2008 Iowa House of Representatives might say: “The health of our citizens matters most – but gambling revenues matter more.”

For the most part, our legislators have stayed on the sensible side of a fine line. It’s not government’s job to protect people from themselves, but it is necessary and proper for government to protect citizens from one another.

If you want to talk on a cell phone, go ahead; but if you’re distracted to any significant degree by chatting while driving, you pose a threat to others. Some rules may be in order.

If you want to eat trans fats, it’s not the public’s concern. Society might end up paying more because of potential health problems, but extending the connection that far goes beyond common sense. Health problems await us all.

But you don’t have the right to blow health problems toward others. If you want to smoke, it’s your choice only until the smoke wafts into someone else’s nose. Banning smoking in public places makes sense.

The House showed some backbone in voting for a ban, because not everybody is happy about the idea.

But under pressure from gambling interests, and unable to stop thinking about all of that money that flows to the state, the lawmakers gave the casinos a break.

We don’t owe our gamblers two vices for the price of one. The exception was made simply because the people who run the casinos don’t want to lose any customers – not while they’re alive, anyway – and because they have clout.

You say you run a neighborhood bar, and it draws a group of regulars who like a nice smoky haze with their beer? How many millions of dollars have you sent the state lately?

If you run a gambling concern, that’s different. The state likes your money, so the legislators like you.