Governmental Hugs
From Jacob Sullum’s fantastic “An Epidemic of Meddling,” May 2007 Reason (subscribers only):
What do these four “public health” problems—smoking, playing violent video games, overeating, and gambling [framed as such by, respectively, Henry Waxman, Hillary Clinton, Surgeon General Richard Carmona, and Thom White Wolf Fassett (general secretary of the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society(] have in common? They’re all things that some people enjoy and other people condemn, attributing to them various bad effects. Sometimes these effects are medical, but they may also be psychological, behavioral, social, or financial. Calling the habits that supposedly lead to these consequences “public health” problems, “epidemics” that need to be controlled, equates choice with diseases, disguises moralizing as science, and casts meddling as medicine. It elevates a collectivist calculus of social welfare above the interests of individuals, who become subject to increasingly intrusive interventions aimed at making them as healthy as they can be, without regard to their own preferences.
This is precisely and elegantly put—as well as pointedly inclusive: nannystatists tend to be progressive statists, the kind of secular moralists whose influence has grown in the wake of cultural Oprahfication; in fact they are, you might say, the bastard children of Ralph Nader’s consumer concern and alarmist hyperbole fetchingly dressed in the slick, sexy garb of modern marketing campaigns.
But such “traditional” nannystatists are not alone, as Sullum’s list makes clear—which is why I am often just as critical of social conservatives who try to legislate their particular morality as I am the progressive nannystatists. Note, though, that legislating is, for me, the key: because I have no philosophical problem with the free-market gambits of social conservatives, such as boycotts or public condemnations of, say, The Dixie Chicks—though I may not agree with the content of the form.
And as Cathy Young very adroitly pointed out not too long ago, libertarians themselves are often guilty of promoting that which they ostensibly and ideologically claim to abhor.
The point being that we all must be constantly onguard if we are to balance individual liberty—the basis of our republic—with our own moral prescriptions, less the prescriptions become a form of socialism.
Making this particularly thorny for the classical liberal or conservative is his adherence to process. That is, laws held to be Constitutionally sound and duly passed by the legislature become part of the social contract—even when we consider those laws silly or intrusive. Which is why many of us wind up legal conservatives—pushing for judges who we hope will respect the Constitution, which we believe does a fine job, when interpreted with fidelity, of promoting and protecting individual freedoms.
But back to Sullum:
This tendency to call every perceived problem affecting more than two people an “epidemic” obscures a crucial distinction. The classic targets of public health were risks imposed on people against their will, communicable diseases being the paradigmatic example. The more recent targets of public health are risks that people voluntarily assume, such as those associated with smoking, drinking, eating junk food, exercising too little, watching TV too much, playing poker, owning a gun, driving a car without wearing a seat belt, or riding a bicycle without wearing a helmet. The difference is the one John Stuart Mill urged in his 1859 book On Liberty: “The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection...The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.” Mill’s “harming principle” is obviously important to libertarians, but public health practicioners also should keep it in mind if they do not want to be seen as moralistic busybodies constantly seeking to expand the reach of government.
Under Mill’s principle, there is a strong case for government intervention to prevent the spread of a deadly microbe, extending even to such highly coercive measures as forcible quarantine or legally mandated medication. The case for intervention to prevent people from placing bets, eating ice cream, or playing Grand Theft Auto is much weaker. It requires demonstrating that such activities harm not only the people engaged in them but other people as well. And although Mill was imprecise on thise point in On Liberty, harm to others has to be understood as a necessary but not sufficient condition for government intervention. To justify the use of force, the alleged harm has to be of the sort that the government has a duty to prevent—that is, the sort that violates people’s rights.
The mechanism Sullum describes—running matters of choice through the filter of moralism and hyperbole and producing, as an end result, an “epidemic” or a crisis of “public health”—is particularly dangerous, as I’ve recently discussed, when the government assumes the role of healthcare provider.
Because under such conditions, the very people who are redefining choices in terms of disease will ultimately be responsible for controlling the costs of treatment, and for determining what is and is not covered by “universal healthcare.”
Which makes bans on soda and salt-and-vinegar potato chips (non-baked)—if not mandatory jumping jacks—that much more likely.
And the last thing I want to do is find myself standing in a field one day, shirtless and smeared with greasepaint, screaming “you can take away my Oreos Doublestuff, but you can never take...MY FREEDOM!”
Especially if I’m wearing a kilt.
It’s worth remembering as well that there is an entire industry of advocates and academics that exists solely to perpetuate ever more expansive lenses of public health. Keep scrolling
here for a taste.
COLUMBUS - A federal grand jury indicted a U.S. citizen on charges of joining al-Qaeda and conspiring to bomb European tourist resorts and U.S. government facilities and military bases overseas.
LMAO.... perhaps the article should go one step further and point out that to reduce Canada and the world's footprint on green house gas CO2 emissions we could just ask the Dion's, Gore's, Clinton's and Suzuki's to stop exhaling CO2... If they hold their breath long enough we all win :P
The only way you're going to stop global warming is to turn down the temperature of the Sun or block out the energy that reaches Earth from it.
When scietific report after report indicates the average temperature on other planets in our solar system have been going up then it ain't rocket science to draw the conclusion that hey...maybe we should expect to see an increase in our own planets average temperature...ya think???
As for water levels rising from melting Ice caps...try dropping some ice cubes in your drink and mark the water level before and after they melt... Now do the same thing in your bath tub as a proportional representation of the Earth's Oceans and the polar ice caps...heck... fill the tub 50/50 ice and water and see where the water level is before and after the ice melts... then shut the hell up 'cause the water isn't going to rise and flood out New York or LA.
The concern shouldn't be focused on the smoke and mirrors of "Global Warming" or the redistribution of the worlds wealth... we should be looking at polution and poluters and be fining and taxing the hell out of people that polute and encouraging people to clean up their act...
Telling 3rd world countries in Africa, South America, Latin America and Asia they're not allowed to develope coal, gas, or oil electric plants to provide electricity to their people for simple things we take for granted like refridgeration of medical supplies and/or food, or lights at night, or power for cooking without having to light a non vented fire in their homes to cook is criminal. Especially when they have some of the largest reserves in Coal, Natural Gas and Oil in the world. That's where your "Millions are dieing"... but it's not being caused by global warming...it's being caused because of global fear mongering...Posted by: Mr Ed at April 9, 2007 1:51 PM "