It’s a sad truth of today’s politics that politicians on opposing sides of an issue can both be on the wrong side. Consider this nugget (H/T Christopher Summers): the feud between Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Gov. Larry Hogan over Hogan’s offering no-interest state loans to Baltimore City small businesses damaged in last spring’s riots.

Rawlings-Blake’s complaint is that some of the loans could go to liquor stores that operate in residential areas. She and other Baltimore leaders don’t like those stores—“demon rum” and what not—and want them closed or replaced with stores the politicians like, like fruit-and-vegetable stands. (Ignore the fact that all of the vacant buildings in Baltimore already provide ample space for fruit-and-vegetable stands, rare book shops, yoga studios, art galleries, day spas, and whatever else the politicians consider adequately wholesome.)

Baltimore City zoning laws have attempted to keep liquor stores out of lower-income residential neighborhoods; the stores that currently operate there were grandfathered-in. (That feat of paternalism shows how far zoning has moved beyond its original “public safety” justification.) Now, Rawlings-Blake wants to exploit the rioting—which is to say, exploit her own administration’s failure to preserve the peace and protect public property—to further a paternalistic agenda.

So if Rawlings-Blake is on the wrong side, is Hogan on the right one? Hardly. The destruction from the riots is truly lamentable and clearly the product of government failure. However, business owners—including liquor store owners—should be financially protected from riot damage by insurance that covers business interruption and civil unrest. That is, assistance for losses should come from private mechanisms, not taxpayer-provided no-interest loans.

Beyond the payouts in the wake of disaster, private insurance provides an important public benefit: premiums are set according to risk, and high premiums provide an important market signal when risk is high. Unfortunately, American politicians have a long history of disrupting that very beneficial signal—hence all the construction (typically upper-class) in flood plains and other disaster-prone areas. Hogan, by offering the interest-free state loans (and requesting low-interest federal Small Business Administration loans), continues this tradition by disrupting an important risk signal to liquor stores (and an unpleasant but important signal to Baltimore City officials who have contributed heavily to that risk environment).

So I’m hard-pressed to identify the “good guy” in the Rawlings-Blake v. Hogan fight. But I can certainly identify the victims: Baltimore City residents and store-owners, and Maryland taxpayers.