It’s not every day someone proudly proclaims his love of busybody snitches. Leave that to a liberal like Chicago Tribune metro columnist Eric Zorn, who gives a merry “Ho, ho, ho!” to the nosy next-door neighbors in today’s column.

The city recently fined more than 1,000 drivers who did not have the required city sticker displayed on their cars. The ticket, the sticker and the late fee add up to $165 for these drivers who have traditionally avoided the fines by parking in private garages both at home and work.

Zorn cheers:

Heaven and nature might not be singing at the plight of those who’ve been skulking around from private garage to private garage trying to avoid paying the $75 annual sticker fee, but I sure am.

And knowing that calls from informants to 773-742-9217, the tip line at the clerk’s office, have lately increased from between five and 10 a day to approximately 40 fills me with great cheer.

Prompting the surge was a City Council ordinance passed last month authorizing law enforcement to search for sticker violators in nearly all privately owned parking garages. …

And all the surrounding publicity has inspired keen-eyed citizens to call 773-742-9217 — What? I already gave the number? Well, then I repeat myself–to offer suggestions to inspectors where to find mother lodes of violators.

It’s not that those without stickers are lawbreakers that’s making my days merry and bright. It’s that they’re freeloaders who for years have been taking a ride on the sleigh pulled by those of us who ante up and get our stickers and who have occasionally paid the “failure to display” fine when missing the deadline to install the new sticker.

Never mind the theoretical issue of fairness — ultimately, those who follow the law make up the shortfall caused by those who ignore it. If there were true justice in the system, authorities would cross-reference these new tickets with old vehicle registration, voter registration and tax records, then charge fees and fines dating back as far as the statute of limitations allows.

No tender and mild treatment for the wicked. Let ’em pay, let ’em pay, let ’em pay.

Never mind that the city sticker — or sucker sticker, as a friend of mine dubbed it — has no valid purpose and is simply a way to generate revenue. Gas is already taxed by Chicago and Cook County of 11 cents per gallon. If that is not enough to maintain the road infrastructure of the area (doubtful), then the gas tax should be increased.

The sucker sticker isn’t necessary for vehicle identification, of course. We have license plates for that, another $85, if I recall correctly. No, it’s not an easy pass to get you through the tolls faster. It doesn’t even verify that your car has passed the environmental inspection. It just sits there, with some kid’s ugly drawing on it (there’s a contest every year, see), and is impossible to scrape off the window, which you must do because it’s also against the law to put your new sticker above the old sticker, as that would make it too hard for the police to notice you’re scoffing the law.

And if you don’t buy the sticker, that’s a great opportunity for the city to make you pay yet again. All taxes deserve some “avoision,” as Kent Brockman put it, but this one’s a real stinker that ought to be reduced or scrapped altogether, not cheered on and enforced by busybodies like Zorn.

One last note. While the conceit is that mostly the well-to-do who park in private garages are being hit by this stepped up enforcement of the sucker sticker, this is yet another unnecessary tax that everyone has to face, and it obviously has a disproportionate impact on the poor folks liberals like Zorn claims to care so much about. He should be explaining how the city’s cronyism and wasteful bureaucracy make taxes like this necessary — that’s what a real journalist would do, anyway.

I guess it’s OK if a few families have to pass on toys for the kids this Christmas, so long as the busybodies can feel good about themselves.