The slippery slope [Nannny State Activisim]

Townhall.com ^ | Jun 14, 2006 | Walter E. Williams

[Small-L]

Down through the years, I've attempted to warn my fellow Americans about the tyrannical precedent and template for further tyranny set by anti-tobacco zealots. The point of this column is not to rekindle the smoking debate. That train has left the station. Instead, let's examine the template.

In the early stages of the anti-tobacco campaign, there were calls for "reasonable" measures such as non-smoking sections on airplanes and health warnings on cigarette packs. In the 1970s, no one would have ever believed such measures would have evolved into today's level of attack on smokers, which includes confiscatory cigarette taxes and bans on outdoor smoking.

The door was opened, and the zealots took over. Much of the attack was justified by an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) secondhand smoke study that used statistical techniques, if used by an academic researcher, would lead to condemnation if not expulsion. Let's say that you support the attack on smokers. Are you ready for the next round of tyranny using tactics so successful for the anti-tobacco zealots?

According to a June 2 Associated Press report, "Those heaping portions at restaurants -- and doggie bags for the leftovers -- may be a thing of the past, if health officials get their way." The story pertains to a report, funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) titled, "Keystone Forum on Away-From-Home Foods: Opportunities for Preventing Weight Gain and Obesity." The FDA says the report could help the American restaurant industry and consumers take important steps to successfully combat the nation's obesity problem. Among the report's recommendations for restaurants are: list calorie-content on menus, serve smaller portions, and add more fruits and vegetables and nuts. Both the Department of Health and Human Services and the FDA accept the findings of the report.

Right now, the FDA doesn't have the authority to require restaurants to label the number of calories, set portion sizes on menus or prohibit allowing customers from taking home a doggie bag. That's for right now, but recall that cigarette warning labels were the anti-tobacco zealots' first steps. There are zealots like the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest who've for a long time attacked Chinese and Mexican restaurants for serving customers too much food. They also say, "Caffeine is the only drug that is widely added to the food supply." They've called for caffeine warning labels, and they don't stop there. The Center's director said, "We could envision taxes on butter, potato chips, whole milk, cheeses and meat." Visions of higher taxes are music to politicians' ears.

How many Americans would like to go to a restaurant and have the waiter tell you, based on calories, what you might have for dinner? How would you like the waiter to tell you, "According to government regulations, we cannot give you a doggie bag"? What about a Burger King cashier refusing to sell french fries to overweight people? You say, "Williams, that's preposterous! It would never come to that."

I'm betting that would have been the same response during the 1970s had someone said the day would come when cities, such as Calabasas, Calif., and Friendship Heights, Md., would write ordinances banning outdoor smoking. Tyrants always start out with small measures that appear reasonable. Revealing their complete agenda from the start would encounter too much resistance.

Diet decisions that people make are none of anybody else's business. Yes, there are untoward health outcomes from unwise dietary habits, and because of socialism, taxpayers have to pick up the bill. But if we allow untoward health outcomes from choices to be our guide for government intervention, then we're calling for government to intervene in virtually every aspect of our lives. Eight hours' sleep, regular exercise and moderate alcohol consumption are important for good health. Should government regulate those decisions?

[patton]

My 11-yo came home from school the other day and said, "Dad, xxxx people a year die from second hand smoke!"

I replied, "Name one."

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

Good points in your post #8. There are some lines to be drawn with private property owners. I just don't think smoking is worthy of that line in all but a few cases. Sometimes the market can't correct the problem if everyone offering a service, say air travel, decides to offer smoking. What are others to do? Drive everywhere? What about medical services? Sure the market should provide the fix, but the problem is, selfish people who are brought up to think only of themselvs and their own instant gratification get in the way. Of course choosing to be considerate would be the far better answer to government intervention. I will never understand why a smoker thinks he OUGHT to smoke on an airplane. It's rude! This is where the debate should include the issue of people being fit for liberty. Raising the next generation with a strong moral sense, an understanding of the difference between good and evil, a Judeo-Christian ethic of putting God first and others second, where selfishness is still a sin, is the most important thing you can do to protect liberty. Without it, you can holler about individual rights, property rights, and liberty this and that all you want. It can't work if the people are unfit to govern themselves.

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

and yes, I am a smoker, and I am a very careful to respect non smokers around me, for I am treated like a pariah, I will not act like one.

That's all I ask for. Good for you.

[Gabz]

Good comeback, dad!!!!

[CSM]

"Sometimes the market can't correct the problem if everyone offering a service, say air travel, decides to offer smoking."

Actually, if the air travel providers were all making a profit in this scenario, then the market would be working just fine. If you specifically didn't like smoking on airplanes you would be free to risk your capital and hard work to start a non-smoking alternative. If a demand existed you would also make a profit. The market will not meet every individual's demands, but it will offer enough alternatives that people will be satisfied.

Why should the government be involved at all? Why should they make it illegal for someone to offer a smokers only airline? The answer is control, plain and simple.

[bfree]

Orwell had it spot on.

[Hat-Trick]

Tyrants always start out with small measures that appear reasonable. Revealing their complete agenda from the start would encounter too much resistance.

As seen time and time again in the gun-grabbers template/strategy of incrementalism.

[Gabz]

I will never understand why a smoker thinks he OUGHT to smoke on an airplane. It's rude!

Actually what I believe to be rude is the fact that airlines are forbidden to give travellers a choice. If I remember correctly Aeroflot was the last airline that still had some flights that permitted smoking....that was until the US threatened to end landing rights here unless they banned all smoking on all flights.

Even if the restrictions were to be lifted, I seriously doubt many airlines would bother offering flights that permitted smoking. Since the ban the airlines do not change the air as often as they used to, thus reducing fuel costs, but at the expense of severely hurting the quality of air in the cabin.

I avoid air travel if at all possible, not because I can not smoke, I've never smoked on an airplane, but because I get ill from lack of fresh air. Even in a motor vehicle where no one is smoking I must keep a window open if I don't wish to become ill.

[Marxbites]

And here's the backup for Walt's and your claims:

Taking money back (completely logical and constitutional)
http://www.mises.org/rothbard/moneyback.asp

How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution (video)
http://www.cato.org/realaudio/cbf-02-15-06.ram

The Issue of Tariffs: How U.S. Revenue Collection Was Turned Inside-Out (video)
http://mises.org:88/Sophocleus

Size Matters: How Big Government Puts the Squeeze on America's Families, Finances, and Freedom And Limits the Pursuit of Happiness (video)
http://www.cato.org/realaudio/cbf-02-02-06.ram

Big Business and the Rise of American Statism (exc essay)
http://praxeology.net/RC-BRS.htm

The Founding of The Federal Reserve (video)
http://mises.org:88/Rothbard-Fed

The Great Depression, World War II, and American Prosperity, Part I (video)
http://www.mises.org/multimedia/video/Woods/Woods5.wmv

Secrets of the Federal Reserve (the web of power is phenomenal)
http://www.barefootsworld.net/fs_m_ch_01.html

Jackson's 2nd Bank US VETO (very important - what he correctly and constitutionally opposed is just what we ended up with in 1913)
http://alpha.furman.edu/~benson/docs/ajveto.htm

"The Separation of Commercial and Investment Banking: The Morgans vs. the Rockefellers" (the true thieves of the taxpayers and obsconders of the const)
http://www.mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae1_1_1.pdf

[nascarnation]

I can see it now:
electronic scales and laser height measurement at the ordering counter
instant BMI calculation with computer screen showing allowable choices for the customer
all data transmitted to "National Health" for later analysis

[Gabz]

Don't give them anymore (not so) bright ideas..........

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

Government tends to step in when the people refuse to fix the problem themselves. I'm not saying government should step in. I'm saying that these issues come up often because self-centered people refuse to accomodate each other willingly. It is ridiculous that smokers feel they must smoke on airplanes. If they were more considerate of others, this wouldn't be an issue. The air on an airplane is bad enough without adding smoke to the mix. It shouldn't take government power to make free people be considerate of each other. But that's what you get when values are shunned and "rights" are inflated. You can thank the government via the judicial branch for most of that tragedy.

We have been reduced to fighting for "liberty" on issues like blowing smoke in other people's faces, being intoxicated in public, having unnatural sex with the blessing and support of government, adopting children no matter what your perverse lifestyle, buying and selling virtual child pornography, and on and on. If these are the battles we fight for, all the while more and more of our money is being confiscated and our children's minds are being twisted and corrupted in government schools, we've already proven our unfitness for liberty. Get used to government control and just put on an x-rated movie or something to ease your sorrows.

[CSM]

"Government tends to step in when the people refuse to fix the problem themselves."

Only because the government gets to define the problem in the first place. Enterprising individuals see opportunities to use the market to their advantage.

"It is ridiculous that smokers feel they must smoke on airplanes."

Says you. However, if I offered a smoking only airline you would be free to not chose my service. Therefore, a government restriction is not necessary.

"It shouldn't take government power to make free people be considerate of each other."

If people are not free to be inconsiderate, then people just aren't free. We have no right to be free from offensiveness, we do have a right to chose to avoid offensive situations.

Only the weakest in our society turn to the government to enforce their preferences. These are the members that are to weak to chose to frequent places that cater to them or are to weak to take their own risks and start a business on their own. In our society we are catering to the weakest, therefore weakening all of us.

[metesky]

You're wrong there, Wolfie. There was no incrementalism with the drugs, just straight to outright banning.

Now, one more beer and finish this joint before I go back to work.

Come and get me, Nanny! Bwhahahahaha!

[Gabz]

Only the weakest in our society turn to the government to enforce their preferences. These are the members that are to weak to chose to frequent places that cater to them or are to weak to take their own risks and start a business on their own. In our society we are catering to the weakest, therefore weakening all of us.

Very excellent point, and very well stated.

[Mister Da]

Even if you just say the smoke is bothersome to non-smokers, you have a case of one person's freedom restricting another person's freedom.

I believe this is a socialist trap! Many things are bothersome to somebody. Too much perfume or cologne, BO, BBQ smoke, joggers, dogs/cats, peanuts on an airplane or in school, scantily clad men/women, loud people, unruly children, & on & on & on.

Passing more laws to regulate what is at most poor manners is absurd. It can only lead to everyone wearing the same clothes, driving the same car, & living in gov't communes. In other words, North Korea.

But as long as we are banning things, I'd like to see small children banned from the grocery store, Walmart, the park, & restaurants. Or at least limit them to a separate area. See how absurd people can be?

[metesky]

You seem to think that smokers are the only people who are self-centered and rude which is pretty funny coming from a guy that's practically demanding that everything go his way.

[Mister Da]

Amen!

[Calpernia]

>>>It can only lead to everyone wearing the same clothes, driving the same car, & living in gov't communes. In other words, North Korea.

Also

[Gabz]

I like the way you think :)

The problem, as I see it, is the people promiting this kind of mentality do not realize just how absurd they really are.