Posted on 12/20/2006 5:15:05 AM PST by Molly Pitcher
New York City has ordered restaurants to stop selling food made with trans fat. "It is a dangerous and unnecessary ingredient," says the health commissioner. Gee, I'm all for good health, but shouldn't it be a matter of individual choice?
A New York Times headline about the ban reads: "A Model for Other Cities."
"A model for what, exactly?" asks George Mason University economist Don Boudreaux (LINK: www.cafehayek.com). "Petty tyranny? Or perhaps for similarly inspired bans on other voluntary activities with health risks? Clerking in convenience stores? Walking in the rain?"
Trans fats give foods like French fries that texture I like. They are probably bad for me, but Radley Balko of Reason points out that "despite all of the dire warnings about our increased intake of trans-fats over the last 20 years, heart disease in America has been in swift decline ... So, if they're killing us, they're not doing a very good job."
But that's not the point. In a free society the issue is: Who decides what I eat, the government or me? It's not as though information about trans fats is hard to come by. Scaremongers like the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) are all too happy to tell you about the dangers, and they have no trouble getting their declarations of doom on television and into newspapers.
Unfortunately, CSPI is not content to tell you avoid trans fats. It sues restaurants like McDonald's and KFC for using them, and urges governments to ban them.
But why do the health police get to take away my choices? Adults should be expected to take responsibility for their own health.
Often the health police say they must "protect the children." But children are the responsibility of their parents. When the state assumes the role of parent, it makes children of all of us.
The food prohibitionists don't understand that there are ways to influence people's behavior without resorting to coercion -- remember, coercion is the essence of government. The public fuss about harm from trans fats has already induced many food makers to remove them. It's suddenly become a competitive advantage to boast that your products are trans-fat-free. Such voluntary action is the best way to move toward healthier food.
Why isn't that good enough for the prohibitionists? Why must they enlist the iron hand of government?
I think they dislike freedom of choice. They know the right way, so it's only right that they force everyone to follow them. That's the philosophy of prohibitionists.
The Center for Consumer Freedom is running ads saying: "Now that New York has banned cooking oils with trans fat (the same substance as margarine) ... it opens the door to banning so much more! Using the same logic, let's get rid of New York style pizza (seriously, do you need all that cheese?), beef hot dogs (tofu dogs almost taste the same), corned beef (turkey breast is much leaner). ... "
Yes, I know the center's sponsors include restaurants and food companies, but still, it has a good point.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, who died a few weeks ago, would have agreed. He was the author of "Free to Choose" and "free to choose" sums up Friedman's philosophy. He would have cringed at the banning of trans fats, just as he objected to the earlier banning of products like the sugar substitute called cyclamates.
Over 25 years ago, Friedman wrote, "If we continue on this path, there is no doubt where it will end. If the government has the responsibility of protecting us from dangerous substances, the logic surely calls for prohibiting alcohol and tobacco. . . . Insofar as the government has information not generally available about the merits or demerits of the items we ingest or the activities we engage in, let it give us the information. But let it leave us free to choose what chances we want to take with our own lives."
''What will they Ban Next?
Foldin' money?''
Yep, you can bet it is on the agenda. Just look at the proliferation of places that require direct deposit and direct withdrawal. Just try to buy an airline ticket with cash. They even gave people on welfare their own debit cards!
The tax folks want it to be able to track our money, but they won't say much about that. We will see law enforcement screaming for it as a way to fight the WOD and crime in general. Social services will talk about hungry children finally getting their money from deadbeat dads. We will also see it parroted as a homeland security measure. They will say that it is a way to stop smuggling and currency transfers to terrorists. They will also announce that we are at specific high risk of terrorists spreading anthrax and other biological agents on paper currency. A few scares and the sheeple will be demanding that the government do something to protect them.
This stuff gets predictable after awhile.
Is this sarcasm?
He is being air conditioned too????
Don't I have to take him to some recycling center so we can safely reclaim his exhalant???
crossing the street without holding hands.
Using the same logic, let's get rid of New York altogether.
As far as I'm concerned, this country's silly "war on terror" officially ended when the same New York City government that had to deal with a catastrophic attack on 9/11 decided -- only a few months later, mind you -- that second-hand smoke was the biggest threat to its citizenry.
I heard a lady on the radio yesterday.
Passing her site on to you in case you haven't seen it...
http://www.tobaccocontroloutofcontrol.ca/
Remember the little white card that Clinton held up when touting Hillary Care? Well that card will be scanned at the check-out counter and anything not on you prescribed diet from the Directorate of Dietary Compliance will be seized. Multiple offenders will be disqualified from recieving healthcare.
I like Stossel, but he is dead wrong. Transfats are poison. The health benefits from their elimination will be looked upon 20 years from now as a great step forward for the well-being of Americans.
That's a typical precursor boogie-man scare tactic followed by the politician pleading to the public for justifying the must have law that will save persons and society from running headlong into destruction.
I've got news for you: The federal government creates on average 3,000 new laws and regulations each year. All of them are deemed, "must have" laws. The States each create about twenty percent that many laws and regulations. I got more news for you: excluding traffic violations, virtually every person breaks the law several times each year. Business several times a month. More news for you, despite that massive lawlessness persons and society have increasingly prospered from one decade to the next, one generation to the next. And they did that in spite of not having the supposed benefits of the new laws to come next year, five, ten, twenty-five years in the future.
In fact, most of the mountain of laws and regulations have oppressed persons and society from ever greater prosperity. They sacrifice the individual, in whole or part, for the supposed greater good of the group. The fallacy of that is that before a group can exist there first must exist an individual. Sacrificing the individual diminishes the group. Protecting the individual's rights enhances the group. Protect the smallest minority -- the individual -- and all minorities and majorities are protected.
Ninety-eight percent of the populace don't initiate force against other persons or their property. That is, they don't murder, assault, rape steal commit fraud against another person or their property. It's got nothing to do with politics and very little to do with laws. The reason 98% of the people peacefully co-exist is personal integrity -- do unto others as others would do unto you. And that begins with choosing to be left alone.
Individual rights and individual responsibilities. The most fundamental right is the right to disassociate. That is, the right to just say "no", walk away with no strings attached. It requires no person's approval or agreement. Whereas the corollary, the freedom to associate, does require that another person agrees to associate. Obviously, when a person refuses to associate with a person they have exercised their right to disassociate/discriminate.
Based on honest principle, here's a litmus test.
If a person believes they've been harmed by another person or business the alleged victim can take the person/business to court before an impartial jury and plead their case. Doing that with the intent of gaining restitution for their loss. Even in this sheeple burdened populace nine out of ten impartial juries would rule in favor of the defendant because the alleged victim had the free choice to say "no" and walk away, no strings attached.. Or had the free choice to not read the things they disagree with. Or had the free choice to not enter the business that allowed smoking. Or free choice to not eat certain foods
Those choices, and the corollary -- freedom of association -- are unenumerated rights protected by the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments.
As Thomas Jefferson so aptly stated:
"No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him. " -- Thomas Jefferson, 1816
Ninety-eight percent of the populace doesn't commit aggression on the equal rights of another.
And...
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1820
The first order of business would be to inform the people why a constitutional republic is far superior to a mob-rule, tyranny-of-the-majority democracy. Perhaps begin by explaining the fallacy of needing 3,000 new laws and regulations each year. Easily identified by the scare-mongering that precedes their passage and the honest-principle litmus test to determine weather a law is necessary to protect the individual and their property..
This is precisely why socialized medicine, and/or "universal" health insurance coverage, can never be allowed to happen in the U.S. As soon as the government can say that someone's bad choices are costing taxpayer's, they establish the grounds to control those choices.
In reality, they're already doing this by saying that obesity is a national problem because it "costs" so much. It only costs so much because we are all forced to pay the medical costs of people who can't seem to control themselves. Drop the whole "everyone is entitled to health insurance" nonsense, let insurers rate or deny coverage to people with unhealthy habits (e.g. smoking, drinking excessively, or eating too many ringdings while they sit on their fat keesters watching "Survivor").
Careful who you agree with! Stossel is a libertarian and he is expressing a very libertarian view of government and government regulation.
You say this like it's a bad thing.
Let's ban certain really good constitutionally protected self defense weapons. Oh wait, they already did that.
Let's ban a certain backyard weed. Oh wait, they already did that.
Let's ban being able to buy certain beverages on Sundays or in the evenings or night or early mornings. Oh wait, they already did that, in my State anyways.
Oh well, at least we can still murder the unborn and the inconvenient.
I remember science and government telling us NOT to eat butter, eggs, bacon, etc... because of the fat and that they were going to kill us. They told us instead to use margarine.
Now Margarine is going to kill us and they are banning trans-fat.
That is why i just eat what I want to eat and often ignore the conventional science of the day.
Sort of like when they were saying coffee would give you a heart attack. Now a fresh cup of coffee is GOOD for you and fights cancer!
Ban them? If not, why not?
and many of them post here, sadly.
no, he's actually a socialist posting here.
Had to be one or the other. No conservative would ever espouse such a fascist idea
That is some site. Thanks for posting the URL!!
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