Free Republic

Paternalism was supposed to be finished. The belief that grown men and women are childlike creatures who can thrive in the world only if they submit to the guardianship of benevolent mandarins underlay more than a century’s worth of welfare-state social policy, beginning with Otto von Bismarck’s first Wohlfahrtsstaat experiments in nineteenth-century Germany. But paternalism’s centrally directed systems of subsidies failed to raise up submerged classes, and by the end of the twentieth century even many liberals, surveying the cultural wreckage left behind by the Great Society, had abandoned their faith in the welfare state. Yet in one area, foreign...

They may be too unhealthy for regular New Yorkers to eat, but not so for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, apparently. After gaining national media attention for spearheading an almost total ban on trans fats in city restaurants starting last July, Bloomberg was photographed in this month's issue of Wired magazine munching on those very same dangerous fats. The photo, which accompanies a short Q&A about technology and politics, features Bloomberg at his City Hall desk, looking thoughtful and serious. Meanwhile, his right hand is seen almost absent-mindedly pulling a Cheez-It out of a single-serving bag of the crackers. The reader can...

This Halloween night Capital Research Center wants to remind you that scary organizations like The Center for Science in the Public Interest don’t want you or your children to enjoy a night of sugar-filled fun. Instead CSPI (website: www.cspi.org), a non-profit food watchdog group, wants you to hand out “spooky plastic rings” and “temporary tattoos” in lieu of Baby Ruths or Crunch Bars thereby ensuring the arrival of some fresh toilet paper in your tree by tomorrow morning. (See CSPI’s press release in PDF form at http://cspinet.org/new/pdf/halloween.pdf.) The creepy CSPI recommends that parents have their children “save 5 treats to...

WASHINGTON — Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has a message for Americans: Quit digging your grave with a knife and fork. Huckabee shed more than 100 pounds after being diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes in 2003. He has taken his personal health kick to the next level by running marathons and writing books like "Quit Digging Your Grave With A Knife And Fork." He is also using his success story to wage war on junk food in public schools in hopes of targeting childhood obesity rates. Other states, under pressure to encourage healthier eating habits for children, are developing similar school...

MIDLAND — Late last spring, Republicans in this West Texas oil town called for a boycott of Doña Anita's Mexican restaurant, a retaliatory step against its owner, Luz Reyes, for closing shop and showing up at a rally against proposed new penalties for illegal immigrants. But President Bush's three best friends in Midland defied the boycott and went to the restaurant, Bush's favorite when he lived there. One of them, the president's close confidant and former commerce secretary Donald Evans, told Reyes, "Luz, you didn't do anything wrong. We love you." As a congressional candidate in Midland in 1978, George...

The New York City Board of Health voted to make the city the nation’s first to require restaurants to eliminate the artificial trans fats from all of their foods by July 2008. Trans fats are believed to contribute to heart disease by raising bad cholesterol. Restaurant industry representatives called the ban burdensome and unnecessary. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who banned smoking in bars and restaurants during his first term, dismissed cries that New York is crossing a line by trying to legislate diets. “When people cannot choose wisely for themselves it is the government’s job to choose for them,” Bloomberg said....

The lingering lesson of Hurricane Katrina is the great value of self-reliance and the terrible danger of dependence. It was a huge storm. Possibly the largest natural disaster ever to hit the United States. It was the storm of the century. But it taught us more about human nature than it did about the power of nature. More frightening than the storm itself, was the widespread personal failure demonstrated in its wake. It was a peek into the entitlement culture and a sad display of the unwillingness and inability of some Americans to take the slightest responsibility for themselves and...

Although they supposedly speak English in England, they have different names for certain things. When they say "lift," they mean "elevator." "Lorry" is their word for "truck." And someone they call a "businessman" is what we call a "racketeer." David Carruthers, CEO of BetOnSports, discovered the significance of that difference during a recent layover at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, where he was arrested for helping Americans bet on sports. His arrest is part of a larger attempt by the U.S. government to impose its brand of repressive paternalism on countries with more tolerant policies. Carruthers was on his way from...

Fat cup of trouble By Edward Hudgins Published June 26, 2006 Starbucks, of all enterprises, is the latest victim of food fascists. It is ironic that the Center for Science in the Public Interest is attacking the politically correct, rainforest-friendly, self-styled socially responsible Seattle-based corporation for clogging the arteries of Americans. Starbucks, of course, is famous for offering its customers many choices. It's impossible to order just "a cup of coffee." There are two or three coffees of the day chosen from some three-dozen blends from around the world. You can get them in regular, decaf or half-caf and three...

A new breed of paternalists is seeking to promote virtue and wisdom by default. Be wary LIBERALS sometimes dream of a night-watchman state, securing property and person, but no more. They fret that societies have instead submitted to the nanny state, a protective but intrusive matriarch, coddling citizens for their own good. Economists, with their strong faith in rationality and liberty, have tended to agree. As many decisions as possible should be left in the individual's lap, because no one knows your interests better than you do. Most of us have gained from this freedom. But a new breed of...

by Edward Hudgins ehudgins@objectivistcenter.org Governments often get their wealth-destroying, morally depraved ideas from our often misnamed institutes of "higher learning." The latest that's popping up in bulletins, newsletters, and probably soon in legislation is from a 2005 study on "The Economics of Workaholism," co-authored by Joel Slemrod of the University of Michigan and Daniel Hammermesh of the University of Texas in Austin. The study starts by stating that "Economists have recently re-considered whether a range of individual behaviors are self-destructive, and possibly addictive, and have proposed that it may be Pareto-superior to tax them in order to induce people to...

Eating Our Independence for Breakfast by Edward Hudgins As many major public policy matters are being debated in Washington -- a Supreme Court nomination, runaway federal spending -- seemingly small erosions of our independence and, thus, our freedom continue with very little attention. District of Columbia school officials have just announced that all students will be offered free breakfasts, regardless of family income, under a U.S. Department of Agriculture program. School system official Mark Truax argues that, "Studies keep showing the benefits of a good breakfast: increased attendance, better behavior and better performance." What he fails to say is that...

The majority of Africa’s economic and political lag behind the remainder of the world can be attributed to three key factors, the fomentation of strife and lack of preparation for independence on the part of certain Western powers, power-lusting governments that drain wealth from the nations into their own rulers’ accounts, and a prevalent tribalist/collectivist mindset within the populace that has frequently been evoked to bring about colossal tensions. Numerous Western powers performed scant actions to grant their African colonies the requisite experience with the democratic system, technological preparation, and overall enlightenment of the population to achieve genuine functionality at...