The New Yorker Admires Bloomberg’s ‘Incorrigible Nannyism’
Defending Michael Bloomberg’s
scheme to shrink New Yorkers’ waistlines by shrinking their
soft-drink servings, The New Yorker‘s Alex Koppelman
trots out a dismayingly common argument that was
mocked as “politician’s logic” on the British sitcom Yes,
Prime Minister back in the late 1980s: “Something must be
done. This is something. Therefore we must do it.” Only Koppelman
isn’t kidding:
The proposed ban may not be the best way of dealing with the
obesity problem, or the role that sugared drinks play in it. It may
not work at all—actually, given the rather large loopholes it will
contain, it may backfire. But at some point someone had to step in
and do something, and for a number of reasons, that someone
basically had to be Mike Bloomberg.
Quoting my
post explaining why the beverage regulations are bound to fail,
Koppelman concedes “it’s not at all clear that this latest plan
will make much of a dent in the city’s obesity rate.” But he
suggests “the point isn’t actually to make people thinner, at least
not in the short term.” Rather, the goal is to “shift the
discussion about what the government can do to protect the health
of its citizens.” Hence “the ban doesn’t have to work that well, or
really at all, to be a success.”
That’s a pretty permissive performance standard, even for
government work, and no doubt every politician in America will envy
Bloomberg if he can make it stick. But those of us who are
wary of a government bent on protecting us from our own choices
are not likely to be persuaded by Koppelman’s argument that
Bloomberg’s arbitrary interference with people’s drink orders,
though unlikely to have any measurable impact on obesity, will set
a precedent for more ambitious meddling down the road. Koppelman,
for his part, says Bloomberg “deserves the reputation for
incorrigible nannyism that he’s gotten during his time in office.”
He agrees that the mayor’s drink diktat “is nanny statism
taken to its most ludicrous extreme,” that “it’s a violation of
personal
You can read the rest of this article at: http://reason.com/blog/2012/06/01/the-new-yorker-admires-bloombergs-incorr
Short URL: http://www.txwclp.org/?p=10546
Posted by rbutler
on Jun 1 2012. Filed under Libertarian News.
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