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Still missing the point.
I agree. I just want you lawyers to admit that you end up punishing people who do not distribute because it appears they might (based on either quanitity or packaging).
We *do* arrest people (charge people with a more severe crime) because based on the pattern of possession (amount/parcelling) they *might* be a distributor.
Just say yes to that. You seem to say "well, that's not the intent, and that may happen sometimes", but nontheless the law is written specifically because under a set of circumstances, a person is usuaully a distributor, and *this* person *might* be.
That's a big part of it. I would quibble with "no access" and argue "little access without the expenditure of resources - financial, time, and travel - that are likely in short supply."
Now, the argument might be made that not expending those resources in pursuit of a healthier lifestyle is a rational choice. I just find that argument specious.
I won't disagree with you about the lack of supermarkets in poor neighborhoods. I will wonder why there are many markets with sweet produce in every Latino part of town, though.
My original point was that people will buy cheaper, more mass-market, less healthy products in the supermarket even though there are healthier products available in the same supermarket. If we aren't at 43rd and Greenwood, we can also question why people stock up on microwave food and snacks instead of fresh produce as well.
But really, I can't even remember why we got started on this topic. I am tired.
I really don't think the problem with the ghetto is that they can't buy fresh veggies or produce but that they don't want to buy fresh produce and veggies. Your basic veggies and fruits are not expensive. Now your oddball fruit and veggies that are becoming more and more popular are expensive but going to the store to buy onions, potatoes, celery, carrots, and apples is not an expensive proposition. IF you ignore the time it takes to prepare the food it probably costs the same amount of money (if not cheaper)to buy the raw ingredients and make it yourself as opposed to buying premade prepackaged stuff.
Because I raised a specific point about the availability of healthy food in economically deprived neighborhoods in response to your point that people could simply go find good produce easily.
"Well, look at the size of the specialty/organic/health food nook at the supermarket and compare it to the rest of the place."
Now, apparently Flynn interpreted your comment differently than I did. I took it to mean that it is readily available. If you were making the contrary point, then I misinterpreted. The rest of my points, however, remain valid in my mind. The rational choice point of view that seems to underscore much libertarian thinking may be as theoretically valid and logically consistent as Marxist thought, but it happens to have a tangential relationship with reality at best.
For many people with meager means - who are the ones most likely to suffer from obesity and other health issues related to a poor diet - it is emphatically not easy to find healthy foods.
Regarding good produce available in Latino neighborhoods from smaller vendors, you have at least a partial point. I think you'd be more likely to find them in Logan Square than S. Lawndale, however. It's been a while since I spent a lot of time there, or in other Latino neighborhoods.
Taste. And "other than"? Are you offering to pay the extra cost for General Mills?
BTW, most of the elimination of trans fats is coming from voluntary removal, not the government (outisde of NYC and wherever else has a law), right?
And things like the threat of lawsuits (and actual lawsuits) by consumer advocacy groups, the members of which should really go out and get real jobs, already.
What do you mean "you lawyers?" Do I look like the state, man? Also, I absolutely have said three times that people who do not distribute get screwed under this type of law.
You seem to say "well, that's not the intent, and that may happen sometimes", but nontheless the law is written specifically because under a set of circumstances, a person is usuaully a distributor, and *this* person *might* be.
Fair enough, but I would say that the law was also written that way so the state can punish the person they *know* is a dealer without having to prove it. I would say yes to your way as well, though.
And yet diabetes and obesity is a huge problem in Latino neighborhoods. Why? Could it be that the problems are multivariate? That is one point I've been trying - apparently unsuccessfully - to make. It involves access to a knowledge of good nutrition. It involves a healthy lifestyle on several levels. It involves - heaven forbid this coming into play - cultural capital and education. I don't think any one thing will solve the problem, and my argument has been, to a certain constraint, to argue against the libertarian argument which is to shrug and say "let the market and homo economicus sort it out". I think that approach hasn't worked.
Go to largely poor, black neighborhoods and tell me if you find the same thing about access to fresh food, McCoy. The ghetto is not a monolithic entity, and simply citing Latino neighborhoods is not refuting my points.
Time to get ready for bed. You all enjoy your evenings.
This is pretty crude and insulting. If the government doesn't do it, and business doesn't do it willingly, then third party action is going to need to do it.
Oh right, the magic finger of the market. Your comment is belied by the threat of lawsuits and the actual lawsuits being the mechanism that works.
I think most people making that argument would say that approach had not been tried in modern society.
I wasn't talking about you in particular. But many public libertarians like Glenn Reynolds and many of the libertarians I've chatted with seem to fit that description.
This discussion has reached epic status...
Your second claim makes even less sense. Of course "we" don't owe the poor anything, but even if we did, what does that have to do with trans fats? You're not arguing to give stuff to the poor -- which is what one does when one "owes" someone -- you want to take stuff away from them.
Obesity is a private health issue. Why is this so hard to understand? Things that affect private individuals are private issues, not public. Public health refers -- or it did, before people realized that they could live off taxpayers by mission creep -- to things that affect the general public, like contagious diseases. (And despite pretend-scientist Kevin's misunderstanding of the English language and scientific research, obesity is not contagious.)
Crazy Joe:Ones that harm other people.News flash: the fact that we're not 2 year olds -- and neither you, nor the government, nor "experts," nor the majority of voters, are our parents -- makes the analogy worthless.
I never said it was nor was what I said meant to refute your point completely. My point in that whole statement was that I don't think fresh produce matters, or I should say I don't think that it is what is keeping poor people from eating and living a healthy lifestyle. Poor latinos and poor people who live in latino neighborhoods have access to a ton of fresh produce. Doesn't make them healthy poor people. Fresh produce and vegetables are cheap, they are not expensive. Poor people do not need to buy organic pomegranates and kumqwats. Yet by and large poor people do not buy a lot of fresh produce. Is that because that can't find it? No, it is because by and large they don't want it. There are plenty of liquor stores in the hood. Why? Because people want it. Supply and demand. If people in the hood wanted fresh produce you would see a korean store on every corner selling apples and onions instead of cigarettes and 40's.
Now obviously that is a very huge exaggeration and stereotype but my point is that your point on fresh produce is I believe wrong. Availability of fresh produce is not the issue. Getting poor people to utilize fresh produce is the issue and banning trans fat or anything else out of prepared foods isn't going to change the problems in poor peoples diets.
This is pretty crude and insulting. If the government doesn't do it, and business doesn't do it willingly, then third party action is going to need to do it.
Oh right, the magic finger of the market. Your comment is belied by the threat of lawsuits and the actual lawsuits being the mechanism that works.
"Works." What you're missing is that I don't agree that they should have been forced to do this in the first place.
Yeah, my point was that when healthier alternatives are available, people still choose to eat crap. I am totally with you on the lack of quality food in certain areas. Incidentally, I have been through S Lawndale (or at least close by) in the recent past and have seen a nice Latino market. I spend a lot of time in Pilsen, and even the corner stores have some pretty good produce. The lack of quality food, and even supermarkets, in poor black areas is a entirely different problem, and I don't dispute it at all.
I wasn't talking about you in particular. But many public libertarians like Glenn Reynolds and many of the libertarians I've chatted with seem to fit that description.
Fair enough. Like I said, I think of myself as more of a small 'l' libertarian, and I find civil rights certainly as important as I do individual rights. Nieporent is certainly capable of fighting his own battles, and I am not trying to fight for him at all. I do feel that anyone around here who puts forth ideas that Nieporent might share, though, ends up 1) being accused of being all that Nieporent espouses, and 2) getting lumped in with a bunch of Cato Institute/big 'L' Libertarianism - (1) and (2) perhaps being the same thing.
David, I am with you on defining "public health" as things such as contagious diseases. What Flynn has exactly right, though, is that the government's role in health care and the associated costs make this a "public" issue, even if not traditional "public health."
Edit: yes, I know that you will say that the government shouldn't be in health care at all. I tend to agree, but this is a serious swimming against the tide issue, and we are way past the point that the market is going to be unregulated enough to allow for health care for the poor. Besides, there is a legitimate interest in attempting to regulate to avoid having really bad doctors.
I may have been unclear. Driving while impaired would be considered reckless by itself. We simply wouldn't distinguish the primary crime of driving recklessly merely because you're a ######## from driving recklessly because you are exhausted from driving recklessly because you are drunk. (Although I would suspect a certain amount of intoxication might trigger an aggravated charge because it is more reckless and more dangerous.)
You smell some alcohol? Do we remove him?
That's it? The officer does a spot check, maybe a gaze test, asks some questions and gets reasonable answers -- and no other indications of intoxication? At that point, you let the guy go, I think.
Or during a checkpoint, do we remove him from the traffic system? What about stopping him for a headlight out, or a busted taillight? That's not reckless, but does probable cause get a breathalyzer?
I think it's a matter of degree. If a police officer pulls over a couple and the woman looks upset, he'll probably ask some questions. If she looks terrified, he'll do a more thorough investigation before letting her go. If she's covered in fresh bruises and crying and the guy's knuckles are bruised, he's taking him in.
If he hasn't been reckless *yet* but is clearly intoxicated, does he not have to be "preventatively" removed?
Most certainly. Driving while clearly intoxicated establishes enough evidence to reasonably believe the driver is driving recklessly.
Sorry if I was unclear. Anyone obviously intoxicated attempting to drive should be stopped.
David, I am with you on defining "public health" as things such as contagious diseases. What Flynn has exactly right, though, is that the government's role in health care and the associated costs make this a "public" issue, even if not traditional "public health."
So is the problem that we have to pay for your choices? IF that is the case why don't we just stop paying for them? I am guessing how we have to pay is in the form of health insurance yes? I can't really imagine what other cost we are talking about that I have to pay because you are fat. So that must be it. So why can't (and I already believe they do) fat unhealthy people pay higher premiums and healthy people pay lower premiums? Why do we have to have "better living through government"?
But in any case, benign is in the eye of the beholder. Enhancing flavor (and texture, by the way) is value.
No, what it means is that the government already has its hands in all things health care. As such, these things do have a public impact, because our taxes are paying for it. It isn't just health insurance or HMOs - it is Medicare and Medicaid. Also, you and I pay more for health care because other people go to the hospital yet don't pay their bills.
As far as the whole food thing goes, being fat is a matter of poor planning and poor nutritional understanding regardless of the types of food someone eats. It is entirely possible--and not even difficult--to avoid being overweight even while eating all of one's meals at fast food restaurants. It's even easier to do it eating the convenience foods that are sold in supermarkets and liquor stores. All that's necessary is understanding the principle of caloric intake vs. energy expenditure, which could--and probably should--be taught to public school children from an early age. It's a public morale issue at least as much as one of public health; many, perhaps most, people who are fat seem to be miserable about it and always trying to lose weight, but they have no idea how. I eat every kind of fatty, fried, "unhealthy" food imaginable, but because I know how many calories my body uses and eat no more than that amount, I stay thin. It's extremely easy, and requires no more than minimal food expenditure.
A point some of us tried to make in the steroids threads w/o any success w/you or Dial.
But I'm with you on the trans fats. Let them eat Twinkies, I say!
"You didn't bring up a more serious problem not related to the thread, so you're a hypocrite." That's a pretty disgusting accusation.
When there's a thread on the 4th Amendment or Jose Padilla, you'll see some pretty heated responses. If it makes you less skeptical of my position, I'll tell you I found Hudson v. Michigan to be a pretty repulsive ruling. Detaining people indefinitely without the benefit of due process is exceptionally ugly too. Who's defending that stuff to make an argument?
If you ask my opinion on the transfat ban or the cigarette smoke bans, I'm against both of them (I figured you could guess). I feel strongly about it. If that stuff comes up in a discussion I'll be happy to contribute there too.
Because that is what people want. The number of people who simply say "screw poor people, if they want health care they can get a real job" is already small and shrinking.
I think that it is inevitable that we will have some sort of government-run universal health care in the not-so-distant future.
I completely agree with that, but isn't the anti-trans fats argument not simply that people are fat, but that their cholesterol levels are high regardless of weight?
Poor people are not forced to eat trans fat. We are not talking bread lines here where the only food they eat is food handed out by the government and it is loaded with trans fat. Poor people even poor people who have the government paying for their food choose what kind of food they eat.
It doesn't make any kind of sense to me to sit there and make grand all encompassing legislature that will prevent me from making decisions simply because some people don't make decisions you like. You cannot get people to eat or live healthy through legislature. You can't do it. Removing trans fat will not decrease your burden to the government in regards to healthcare. All it really does is give the government more power and more right to be your parent, and why will they stop there once you have given them this mission? What will be next salted peanuts? Too salty and too many people allergic, gotta go. French Fries? Nope sorry fried food is not good for the system.
The number of people who say "screw poor people" has only been increasing since the early '80s. But as is always the case, social change happens when people who are accustomed to being in the upper classes start to hurt. Social security happened because millions of people who had been middle class suddenly had no jobs. There is coming to be more support for nationalized medical care because millions of jobs that used to include health plans no longer do.
Yes, that was unclear. My bad. Certainly a cop cannot identify a car going down the street apparently normal but with an intoxicated driver, can he? That isn't what we want though.
In what manner?
I don't deny that there is an education factor. I don't deny that there's a health care factor (people that don't go to doctors regularly are less likely to be told of potentially dangerous health issues).
But even in the poorest neighborhoods, pretty much everyone knows a carrot is healthier than an ice cream sandwich. And even the poorest neighborhoods have relatively easy access to at least canned vegetables (while not as great as fresh, still worlds better than no vegetables).
Americans are fat primarily because we are getting exceptionally good at producing and marketing the easy delivery of high-calorie foods that are chemically designed to taste good, and we don't exercise as more and more of our jobs and lifestyles become increasingly sedentary. And we are culturally disposed to be consumers.
No, poor people can't go to grocery stores, they can only buy Twinkies and cans of transfat from corner bodegas. The market has no power to change producer behavior, and we need legislation to protect people from themselves.
EDIT - /sarcasm. Better to be safe than sorry, I guess.
Why does the government insist on thinking that? Well in the case of say foie gras and trans fat it is because special interests groups are insisting that they think this and then we (the silent majority) don't get worked up about it and it happens. Poofda you lose a freedom.
Why does the government have to make our decisions for us? Why does the government have to make the world safe for us? Why have we decided that should be their role when they have routinely proven that they cannot do it effectively?
No worries.
I don't know how we could have that level of prevention without seriously impacting privacy. Perhaps an interesting way to incentify at least some people to willingly accept regular testing would be a tax/insurance credit on vehicles equipped with the breathylzer starter?
I don't deny that there is an education factor. I don't deny that there's a health care factor (people that don't go to doctors regularly are less likely to be told of potentially dangerous health issues).
I think you might be shocked at just how uninformed people can be about nutrition. Like I said before transfat originally was the healthy alternative to saturated fats. Look at how that went. Look at the evolution of cholesterol knowledge. AT first it was fat is bad, then it was well it is the choleserol that is bad, then it is well it turns out we actually have two kinds of cholesterol a good kind and a bad kind.
I think there is a show on the Discovery Channel or something where they have a nutritionist who goes and lives with poor people and tries to educate them on a more healthy diet. In those shows the parent do usually make poor choices when shopping and giving food for their kids but a lot of times even when they try to make a real effort to give their kids a healthy diet they fail. They fail because it isn't as simple as give them things from group A and don't give them things from group B.
True. As for the second point, I am not sure. I don't know what the burden on the health care system attributable to trans fats is. I suspect that you are right in that it won't make much difference.
As Vaux says, you can educate kids about healthy eating, and perhaps then even serve them healthy food in the cafeteria. Will that matter? I don't know. More social pressure against eating crap foods would help, but it just isn't there - people like what they like. Can the government do anything? Well, the government tells you not to smoke weed and passes laws against it. Has that "helped?"
Besides, who doesn't actually know that eating Doritos and McDonalds and Twinkies and drinking 5 sodas a day isn't bad for you? Seriously?
I feel a tad hypocritical since I comfortably eat the products of factory farming, but I suppose doing a little is better than doing nothing. I don't think it's anti-libertarian or inconsistent with libertarian belief to have some protective impulses with regards to animal cruelty. I'm not pro-dog fighting either.
The wealthy and educated got burned just like the poor and unschooled did there.
When I was growing up, we ate red meat for dinner 2-4 times a week. We used butter, then we were told to use margarine because butter was bad, and now butter is back.
Certainly those with better access to education and medical care are more likely to fix their problems earlier (or at least in position to). But there are a lot of wealthy, smart fat people. It's not close to the whole story.
They're the preferred method of suicide for most Americans.
Margarine sucks. Healthier or no, I would still eat butter.
I've never had a twinkie. Are they nice??
Not really, IMHO. I didn't even like them when I was a kid. It is something like an eclair but with plastic-y angel foodish cake and something like whipped cream in the center. Any bakery will have something 10 times better.
Besides, who doesn't actually know that eating Doritos and McDonalds and Twinkies and drinking 5 sodas a day isn't bad for you? Seriously?
I think that oversimplifies the problem. Yes eating at the extreme edges is bad for you and most people know that. The problem is what some people think is moderation and what they think is acceptable levels of different foods.
For instance some people might think "well sure I go to McDonalds but I don't get a big mac I get their chicken salad" Well guess what that is a pretty bad choice, or at least it used to be. Then you got people who realize that McD's is a bad choice and try to do things in a more healthy manner and again they don't realize that some of their choices and at the levels they are taking them is not healthy. Diets are a complicated thing, our bodies are complicated. There is no golden formula that we all can follow and all be healthy.
But I can't afford them anymore.
"Hi, I'm actor Troy McClure! You may remember me from such self-help videos as 'Smoke Yourself Thin' and 'Get Some Confidence, Stupid!'"
If you buy a box in the supermarket, they are individually wrapped. They also don't have that white cardboard that peels off, leaving Twinkie residue behind like a culinary wax job.
I had a fried twinkie at an Italian feast. It's pretty incredible.
The swiss cake rolls have that cardboard thing even in the boxes, though it does help them to keep their shape if they start to melt.
Long haired hippie girl shaking way past her years"
I just wanted to add my favorite Replacements' lyric (at least how I heard it. I am terrible with lyrics).
I really wonder about the people who think that the only reason that companies don't just round up their customers and shoot them is because of government regulators. Remind me never to hire you or patronize your businesses, okay?
For me personally, it was the war on drugs' affect on the fourth amendment which made me a libertarian; I grew up a traditional liberal, and only upon realizing that liberals were just as gung-ho on the anti-civil liberties war on drugs did I begin to move towards libertarianism.
The takeway libertarian point here is that what you think they should want shouldn't matter. It's their life, not yours.
By the way, want to know why there's so much use of trans fats? Because the same people now campaigning against trans fats on the grounds that they're so much smarter than the public thought they were so much smarter than the public before and campaigned in favor of trans fats at one point, thinking they were a healthy alternative to saturated fats.
Many public libertarians are just flat out apologists for the Republican Party. Like I said, Republicans in short pants. But I digress.
Taste. And "other than"? Are you offering to pay the extra cost for General Mills?
Taste? McDonalds fries their food in oils with trans fats. In-N-Out fries their food in veggie oil. So that's a demonstratively false argument.
And I'd be happy to pay the extra cost. As long as it was the extra cost, and not the extra penalty for paying for the extra cost. Because the actual extra cost would be, say, for a $1.50 pack of Twinkies, about 3 cents.
By the way, in regards to education instead of compulsion, New York City launched a public advertising campaign on the dangers of trans fats, sent pamphlets and such to all restaurants in the city, and overall use barely declined. What other alternative is there, when all other options fail?
I don't mind when people disagree with me -- well, I mind, but obviously I have to live with it -- but I do mind when people misuse language, intentionally or unintentionally, to misstate an argument. (Which I'm not accusing you of.) Calling it a "public health" issue is a rhetorical trick used by left-wing ideologues; it's a lot easier to convince people to support one's agenda by telling them it's a health issue than by saying, "I previously decided I was going to force you to accept my control over your health care, so now I can control your life so that I don't spend too much on your health care." (And then there's the followup, "Gee, let me pat myself on the back for my compassion.")
Incidentally, to respond to your other post, neither Cato nor I represent big-L Libertarianism. People who think we do simply don't realize how much more 'extreme' big-L Libertarians are. Hell, to most big-L Libertarians, we're somewhere between heretics and dupes.
Assuming your latter proposition is true, it is inapplicable here, because you are depriving them of their personal freedom. You seem to think the appropriate analysis is, "Does Google Boy want to do X? If not, then nobody else can rationally want to do X.
This is a commercial regulation decided by a democratically elected administration. It has nothing to do with what Google Boy wants. Why you're making it sound like I'm enforcing my standards on people is beyond me. Communities have the right to set reasonable standards about what they want and expect from businesses. If the businesses don't like it, they can try to make money somewhere else. Apply your own logic there. For some reason you think the right of a company to make profits should not be impinged by any external concern. We're not living in Nieporentopia (thank f'ing christ), we're living in reality. There are real problems here that need to be addressed. There are people that don't get educated about these things, and you're saying \"### 'em, too bad they aint as smart as the David Ubermench."
Man, you're fukking batshit crazy if you'll depend peoples' rights to eat transfats they probably don't even realize they're there. Oh, you're not. You're defending the right of businesses to serve people transfats without them really being aware of it so the company can make larger profits. Because personal freedom for you equals unrestrained pursuit of profit...
I really wonder about the people who think that the only reason that companies don't just round up their customers and shoot them is because of government regulators. Remind me never to hire you or patronize your businesses, okay?
Because the interests of consumers and the interests of the business are often at odds, jackass. It's been this way as long as there's been businesses and consumers.
Once more: people knew about it, and didn't care. So the do-gooders forced the change since it wasn't happening naturally.
Hey, I have a problem: I'm always up too late watching tv. Can we get the democratically elected government to pass an ordinance requiring Time Warner Cable to shut service off to all customers in the city at 11pm?
Actually, the interests of the business fall in line with the interests of the consumers pretty quickly. If one business doesn't give the consumers what they want, another business will.
Freedom is the ability to do what you want, not the ability to do what someone chosen by 50.1% of the people want you to be allowed to do. Who is having their freedoms infringed upon? Anybody who wants to sell food made with trans fat in NYC, and anybody who wants to buy those foods.
Because that's what you are doing. The phrase "democratically elected," as I point out above, simply means that you ganged up with a bunch of other people to help you impose your standards."Communities" don't have rights; only people do.
Ah, yes, the good old bankrupt, "People are stupid. Therefore, I have the right to run their lives, because I know better." What's really puzzling is that the same people who hold this view nonetheless are gung ho on voting rights for everyone. People are too stupid to decide what to eat, but they're smart enough to pick a candidate.
Actually, they're not. Part of the problem is that you just don't understand this. Being anti-business is not pro-consumer. Lower costs for businesses benefit consumers, not just businesses. More choices benefit consumers, not just businesses. Satisfied customers benefit consumers and businesses.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with "profit." I am not saying that restaurants should use trans fats to make more "profit."
McDonalds continually scores a number one on their fries. When the health nuts forced a change from frying their fries in animal fats to saturated fats MickeyD's got around that by coating their fries in animal fat beforehand. Of course they didn't bother to tell people this and they ended up getting sued. But McDonald's and their unhealthy fries are some of the best tasting fastfood fries in the business.
Thanks for correcting me. I had a girlfriend years ago whose parents were big-L Libertarians and quite active in the party. On one occasion, I happened to meet a bunch of them, and, well... they were, shall we say, interesting. Pretty much what one might expect from members of a party that gets votes in the single digits.
I threw Cato out there because they are probably the most recognizable organization outside the Libertarian Party that gets labeled "libertarian," but yeah, libertarian wing of the GOP is probably a better description.
You're defending the right of businesses to serve people transfats without them really being aware of it so the company can make larger profits. Because personal freedom for you equals unrestrained pursuit of profit...
Google Boy, why is it that one can't believe that businesses should be able to have freedom to pursue profit and believe in personal freedom? Why are individual freedoms always the sheep's clothing to the profit motive's wolf? Do you really believe that Nieporent can't believe in both? That I can't? That no one can? I am not sure if this is about David or just a general belief of yours.
Reminds me of Lewis Black:
"The people who told us about sun block were the same people who told us, when I was a kid, that eggs were good. So I ate a lot of eggs. 10 years later they said they were bad. I went, 'Well, I just ate the eggs!' So I stopped eating eggs, and 10 years later they said they were good again! Well, then I ate twice as many, and then they said they were bad. Well, now I'm really ######! Then they said they're good, they're bad, they're good, the whites are good, t-the yellows - MAKE UP YOUR MIND! It's breakfast I've gotta eat!"
But, blood ass rare and incredibly unhealthy. Won't be long until that is a no no. Heck right now you have to put a warning on your menu about foods that are not served well done. When will the day come when you can't eat a raw oyster or have Tuna that doesn't come out of a can?
No real point but hey it would be great to turn this into your favorite comedic bit thread.
They vote for a candidate who they assume is going to look out for their interests, and maybe recognize that it's really ####### arrogant to think that you personally always have the best solution to a problem, that no one is an island, and we do live together, so maybe it's kinda dumb to pretend we don't. The smoking ban has been a huge success so far in terms of reducing the number of people who die from smoking related diseases. There are a lot of people in favor of it now who weren't at the time because they see the health benefits. I'm not sure who other than a handful of corporations(not individuals, David, since you're so insistent that only individuals have rights) and some restaurant owners( yes, these would be individuals) is up in arms about this. Most of those corporations manufacture food outside of NYC, and can (again) opt to manufacture a different version of their food for sale in NYC or just opt not to sell the foods in NYC at all. Consumers will find alternatives to those foods. Where's the injustice again?
Actually, they're not. Part of the problem is that you just don't understand this. Being anti-business is not pro-consumer. Lower costs for businesses benefit consumers, not just businesses. More choices benefit consumers, not just businesses. Satisfied customers benefit consumers and businesses.
This is the problem- the only thing that fits into your narrow-minded view of "benefit" is money. Cheaper doesn't always equal better. More choices don't always benefit consumers. You argue from this stance of "maximize fairness" but fairness from the point at which you decide it's fair. Again, look at advertising- in the US, advertising turned into a practice of producing desire, producing wants. This isn't leftist propaganda, this is in the industry lit around the turn of the century. If you can train consumers to react to cues, you can convince them they want what it is you have to sell...that's your job as the advertiser. You're not worried if people don't actually want the thing, don't need it, or can't afford it. When you've got a n industry devoting hundreds of millions of dollars to manufacturing wants, scientifically analyzing consumption patterns so that they can manipulate peoples' spending habits, fairness has gone out of the equation entirely.
Google Boy, why is it that one can't believe that businesses should be able to have freedom to pursue profit and believe in personal freedom? Why are individual freedoms always the sheep's clothing to the profit motive's wolf? Do you really believe that Nieporent can't believe in both? That I can't? That no one can? I am not sure if this is about David or just a general belief of yours.
No, it's his problem. Any check on unrestrained pursuit of profit, the myth of the free market, he reads as a threat to personal liberty. He's stuck in the 18th century. I don't think the pursuit of freedom is always about the pursuit of profit, but I do think that rhetoric gets mobilized when people want to pursue profit unimpaired by other concerns. And neither one of you has told me under what circumstances it is OK for the government to limit businesses, for what concerns. Governments regulate markets all the time, they regulate our commercial transactions. They even make the currency which our transactions are carried out with. The notion that they can't decide an ingredient is bad seems a bit absurd and not even worth arguing over. You can still have your burger and fries. You can still manufacture and sell foods with transfats in them. If you don't like it, go somewhere else. NYC has a problem, the mayor has recognized it and is taking steps to try to deal with it. No one is being denied any fundamental freedom here. I guess that's what I don't get. "They're trying to take our transfats away!!!" seems like a weak-ass rallying cry for your side of the argument.
David lives in a fantasy world, and I'm sorry I decided to engage his delusional, megalomaniacal ass yet again on Primer.
Prove it. I would love to see how a smoking ban in public places has reduced the number of people who die from smoking related diseases.
For starters smoking related deaths take decades to manufacture themselves. The smoking bans are not decades old. How old is the ban? 4 years in NYC, almost a decade for some of the oldest banners. I would love to see the proof that any actual drop in deaths or diseases can be linked to a ban of smoking in public places. What is the more likely culprit in the drops? Well how about the decades long PR campaign against smoking which you know has actually dropped the number of smokers? It didn't take government law and removal of freedoms to lower the amount of smokers.
Well, given that the smoking ban was just introduced a couple of years ago, that's clearly wrong, but I'm sure it will be true down the road. So what? What if I prefer smoking (or eating trans fats) to living a few extra years? Who says that maximizing quantity of life rather than quality of life is the only legitimate goal? If I prefer the extra years, I will stop eating trans fats. If I prefer the good tasting food, I'll eat the food.Jesus, you're like a broken record. With emphasis on the broken. The injustice is people not being able to sell what they want and buy what they want. The fact that restrictions on freedom are geographically limited does not in any way mean that they are not restrictions on freedom. Banning the worship of Allah in Mississippi is not acceptable because people who want to do so can just move elsewhere or "find alternatives."
Nor is it relevant that most people don't mind it. That will be true of any action taken in a democracy, whether it be enslaving a portion of the population or banning gay sex or trans fats. It's the rights of the people whose freedom is limited that are at issue. Majority rule is not freedom. Our founding fathers, at least, well understood that mob rule was undesirable.
I believe I've done so numerous times: it is OK for the government to limit people -- whether acting in concert in a business for a profit motive or acting alone for a personal motive -- when those people are causing harm to unconsenting victims.
That's because YOU don't care about transfats; you figure if you don't care about something, screw everybody who does. I don't want to clichedly cite Pastor Niemoller, but when they come for what YOU care about, I hope there's someone left to speak for you.
True, the big "L" Libertarians are the anarcho-capitalists like alot of the authors at Von Mises.
One problem I see with your argument (besides a medium-vast gulf in philosophy between you and me) is that it seems at odds with your position on illegal immigration. You admit that you would support unrestricted immigration if we weren't living in a welfare state. Of course, we are, as it is, and thus you can't support letting them mooch off of our tax dollars.
How are smoking/trans-fat bans any different, if health (lung cancer, obesity) is a public spending issue? Answer: they are not different at all. Regardless of your personal philosophy, social security/Medicare/Medicaid aren't going away anytime soon -- I'm sure you will admit this -- so obesity is a legitimate problem the government needs to deal with.
EDITED: grammar.
You and I live in the real world, where we can point and laugh at Loony Libs, who live in an alternate universe, one with little connection to reality.
Not suppporting immigration, which can be argued reduces welfare spend, does not impact or otherwise limit the freedoms of people resident already in the country.
Restricting the use of trans-fats or other "unhealthy" additives to food while also, arguably reducing welfare spend, does limit the freedom of people resident in the country.
My position would be that the erosion on peoples freedom is not worth the added tax spend resultant from obesity.
I'm not understanding you. The added tax comes from what, the added cost to treat the illnesses of the obese? The erosion of freedom comes from taking away the choice to eat trans fats, which may reduce obesity? The two seem at odds.
Have you been to Latino neighborhoods in New York? Bodegas and delis are the main source of groceries in many of them, and they sell very little fresh produce. And the fresh produce is more expensive than the fast foods. Not everyone is stupid: If I can get 500 calories of food from $1 spent on Fritos, why should I spend $2 to get 500 calories of food from broccoli? And the Fritos I can eat out of the bag, whereas I need some kind of pot to cook the broccoli, and some oil, and not everyone has that stuff. You can argue until you're blue in the face that people SHOULD have basic cooking supplies, but people don't always do what they should do. We are not all rational agents playing out game-theory scenarios with perfect information that allows us to sway the market. It's true that people should know better, but telling people they should know better isn't always enough.
You're right. This is all projection at this point based on the numbers of people who have quit since the ban.
I would love to see the proof that any actual drop in deaths or diseases can be linked to a ban of smoking in public places. What is the more likely culprit in the drops? Well how about the decades long PR campaign against smoking which you know has actually dropped the number of smokers? It didn't take government law and removal of freedoms to lower the amount of smokers.
Not in NYC. The mayor's actions were the most recent steps in several unsuccessful attempts to curb smoking in NYC. It was a pretty notorious battle- raising cigarette prices, instituting a free program to help people who wanted to (more on this below) quit.
This is an article based on the most recent report:
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=82036
Correlation does not equal causation, but when you have such a broad, sweeping reform and a sudden drop in the numbers, I think it's safe to infer a link between the two.
The smoking ban doesn't forbid you from smoking, it forbids you from smoking in (most) bars.
Prior to the ban, there was no choice about being exposed to second-hand smoke in bars in the city. I don't know of one bar that didn't force its patrons to be exposed to second-hand smoke out of the perceived notion that banning smoking in the establishment would kill their business. Ask bar owners in NYC how bad the smoking ban has been for business. Try to buy a liquor license in the East Village right now. Bars are doing fine (and probably better than ever b/c of all the money coming into NYC right now) because people who go there to drink can still drink and people who go there to smoke can still smoke, they just have to step outside. The free market wasn't working in this instance b/c of a perception that a bar was a place where you go to smoke. And again, the mayor made this a labor issue- the right of individuals not too be exposed to secondhand smoke in their workplaces. Why bartenders in your opinion aren't entitled to the same protections as other workers is beyond me. People don't tend bar to get cancer.
What if I prefer smoking (or eating trans fats) to living a few extra years?
Talk about something which corrodes individual freedom- when you have cigarette advertisements that target youth before they're able to make informed decisions combined with a product that is incontrovertibly and intentionally addictive, you have a lack of personal choice. How do we know that people don't really want to smoke? Because they try and quit in droves. In fact, NYC has been devoting a good deal of resources to helping people quit for years. It wasn't working- you can say this is because as an expression of the individual's true will they really wanted to keep smoking, or you can acknowledge that people's physiology can sometimes overcome their "will" or whatever it is you think expresses their personal "choice". Aside from being a pompous #########, have you ever been addicted to anything? This is the myth that lies at the heart of your argument- free will. If it exists, it looks nothing like the rhetorical construct you manufacture to suit your arguments.
WRT transfats, I haven't heard one consumer advocacy group, or consumer, b*tch about not being able to eat transfats. I've listened to some local radio shows about the issue, and I haven't really heard any consumers complaining. The cigarette ban, if it turned out as bad as a lot of bar owners and smokers thought it would be, was an issue that could've cost Bloomberg his office. This is a different scenario. Could it be because there will be no noticeable impact on their lives? It's an obstacle primarily for large corps who do business in NYC b/c of the issues mentioned above. Seriously man, pick another battle if you want to win sympathy. "First they came for my Red Dye number 5, then my transfats, then my M & Ms".
Banning the worship of Allah in Mississippi is not acceptable because people who want to do so can just move elsewhere or "find alternatives."
That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about the market, and a government's ability to decide the answer to your question:
I believe I've done so numerous times: it is OK for the government to limit people -- whether acting in concert in a business for a profit motive or acting alone for a personal motive -- when those people are causing harm to unconsenting victims.
What constitutes unsuspecting? Do people know they're eating transfats without knowing the health risks? Let's say you've done research on this that shows they don't understand the health risks, or not even aware they're consuming the transfats, and let's say that research shows it's disproportionately the poor who show this trend. We know no one at McDonald's is informing you of the health risks of their food every time you order a meal there. So to what extent have they "consented" to eating transfats? At this point, the government decides there's a de facto lack of consent. Who gets to decide what consent is? If I go to a bar, have I "consented" to being exposed to secondhand smoke?
And once they're "in concert" they're no longer individuals. Who is hurt by restricting General Mills' ability to sell transfats? If communities (groups of individuals) have no rights, why do corporations?
Businesses can and do act altruistically all of the time (or with "enlightened self-interest"). There are numerous examples of businesses acting to protect their customers. That's great. The problem is when they don't, when they act in the exact opposite manner, something needs to be done. When businesses actively try to induce consumers to engage in practices that are detrimental to their health and hide the information taht would alert them to these risks, something needs to be done. When a company dumps toxic waste in a river, why not just put a sign on the river that says "toxic waste, please don't drink or swim"?
(a) This is somewhat of a red herring. I agree with you about the war on drugs, but that's not what we've been talking about for the last couple hundred posts. My comment was made in the context of the "ohmygod, bans on transfats are taking away our liberty!!!" comments.
(b) I have no idea what you mean by "liberals were just as gung-ho on the...war on drugs." The vast majority of liberals think the war on drugs is terrible. So your "conversion" story makes no sense.
My memories of the '80's are kinda hazy, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were as gung-ho about the War on (Some) Drugs as they were as gung-ho about Operation Desert Fiasco and the Administration's assault on the Fourth Amendment. IOW, "we have to support this lest the Republicans make us look even weaker!"
Oh come on this is bull. We are not talking about 12th century fuedal system or the untouchables in the Indian caste system of 1820. We are talking about Americans who are poor, which by a lot of countries standards isn't poor at all. We are talking about people that get government assistance to live, to eat, and for healthcare.
Nor do I understand why we should ban transfats because some people won't do what they should do. So my choices and the vast majority of people in this countries get their choices curtailed because some guy in the barrio won't go to the salvation army and by a $1 pot and cook his free food?
Perhaps they can, but what on earth does that have to do with the free market?
A democratically elected government is part of the free market. Our government established the legal system that enables our economy to thrive. I don't see a clear distinction between the legal system as a whole and a government regulation that restricts a business's activity. THat's not to say that all regulations or laws are intelligent or useful -- some are and some aren't. But there's no coherent economic or legal basis for drawing a bright line between what is and isn't acceptable government action.
OK, so I support nationalized health care and a social safety net, but I oppose smoking and transfat bans. Is there any room in the middle for me?
I think so. I have no problem with the argument that a ban on smoking or whatever is a bad idea. And I don't think it's inconsistent with support for something like nationalized health care. I have a problem with the ideological argument that any restriction on businesses or personal liberty is inherently unreasonable.
Also, most liberals I know were against invading Iraq (while still understanding that Saddam was a cruel tyrant), but the ones who supported the invasion didn't think for a second about appearing weak versus Republicans. There are almost no Democrats in Congress that supported the Iraq war that I would call "liberal."
This is a steaming pile of crap.
Smoking-related diseases take decades to develop, mature, and kill people. The bans have been in place for around 4 years here in NYC.
Where's the injustice again?
Injustice is a little bit hyperbolic, don't you think? Can't something just be misguided or a little overreaching?
Any check on unrestrained pursuit of profit, the myth of the free market, he reads as a threat to personal liberty.
Why do you persist on mischaracterizing DMN and other libertarians in this way? You know very well that nobody here is saying it's a terrible thing that corporations can't cheaply dump toxic waste, or that Michael Vick should be left alone for exercising his freedom to facilitate dog fighting.
You start with a "solution" and then decide if the the rights are significant enough to merit not implementing it. That's ass-backwards. You should start with the rights, and make sure the problem is significant enough to merit curtailing the rights.
another red herring or two. For starters I would love to see the percentage of restaurant/bar employees that wanted to work in a smoke free environment. I'm willing to bet it is a small number considering that most food service industry employees smoke themselves. It is like one of those "think of the children" argument. Bartenders that didn't want to work in a smoke environment didn't have to be bartenders. There are lots of dangerous jobs in this world and nobody forces you take those jobs. To me it's like working on a off-shore oil rig and demanding that it shouldn't be an off-shore oil rig.
Bars doing fine and a no smoking ban are two different issues. You could heavily tax bars, have them still doing fine and it wouldn't mean that taxing bars had no ill-effect. What you first have to prove is that business would either be the same or worse if there wasn't a ban. Something you are not likely to prove. As for the choice why is it somebodies right to go into a smoke free bar? Or I should say why should it be forced that every single person now must choose a smoke free bar? Why couldn't we simply let the market dictate what we actually want? If there was a market for a smoke free bar then guess what we would have smoke free bars naturally. Why should there be a government law that gives you what you want at the expense of depriving millions and millions of other people? People at bars smoked, this wasn't exactly a secret, lots of them did. Probably a majority of people smoked, they got shafted.
McCoy, I mean this with no disrespect, but I don't understand what you're saying. I don't get the reference to feudal systems and the untouchables. And what I wrote was not bull.
You know that government assistance programs, like food stamps and welfare, still leave poor people struggling on budgets, right?
And you know that our government provides only minimal healthcare for the poor, right? And that lots of the "working poor" don't qualify for Medicaid, and so they go without healthcare, right?
We can argue over what are the best ways to address these issues, or even if the government's role should be to address them at all. But the previous paragraphs are not fiction.
Yes, even poor Americans are "rich" compared to poor people in Bangladesh and other countries. But I don't see the point in making that comparison, as no one is holding up poor people in Bangladesh, Somalia, East Timor and elsewhere as examples of healthy eaters.
I also have a problem with that ideological argument.
The argument is that restricting personal liberty is always serious business. You don't weigh the rights against the restriction; you weigh the restriction against the rights.
That's why minor things like the seatbelt law, the trans fat ban, the smoking ban, etc. are big deals. They are relatively minor curtailments of rights, but even minor curtailments are suspect.
Ok, this dumb point has been made enough, and the more you guys make it, the dumber it sounds. Unless you want to join the tobacco "scientists" who once denied the relationship of tobacco smoke to lung and other cancers, then it's purely common sense deduction to grant the posters point: the ban on smoking has decreased the exposure of people to smoke, which exposure we all know to lead to cancers, thus, we can rather confidently say that the ban will reduce the number of people who die from cancer (in particular those who never choose to smoke but would have, but for the ban, been exposed to smoke in their workplace). And that's w/o mentioning the possible influence the ban may have on those who choose to quit b/c they can't smoke in their favorite pubs.
And I don't support the ban, btw.
I'm very baffled by the "trans-fat ban is OK because the majority of people support it and it's a democracy and businesses can just go elsewhere argument!"
Do you guys now believe that gay marriage bans are OK because the majority of people support it and it's a democracy and people can just move elsewhere?
While I'm generally what one would consider pro-choice on abortion and gay marriage, I think I'd vote more often for candidates that take those positions if they were "pro-choice" on anything else.
And the fact is, when the smoking bans started, libertarians started saying "well, next they'll ban fatty foods!" and people cried ########. Yet, here we are.
How long until a city bans people from being outside for more than an hour during daylight hours and a subset of posters here cry about how great it is because poor people are more likely to work outside a lot and can't afford the highest SPF sunscreen and aren't educated about melanoma?
Yes!
Not you!
Unfortunately, the smoking ban doesn't even stop there; it has already been -- and is still being -- extended further than that. The end goal is to ban smoking from all places, public or private. For an example, here's a snippet from a news story from just two days ago, explaining that a city council member of Queens is trying to prohibit people from smoking in their own cars:
This has enormous unintentional comedy quality. First they took my cigs, then they took my Twinkies, what's next, my foie gras, my caviar?
For a slippery slope argument to work, the bottom of the hill ought to appear, you know, outrageously tragic, not outrageously funny. "We libertarians knew the fascist government had its eyes on our Twinkies! Rise, people, before the brown-shirted goons take away your right to buy dry-aged steaks on the internet!"
What I am saying is that you are making it out that the poor people in America make pennies a day and that because they make pennies a day their only option is to buy McDonald value meals loaded with trans fats or frozen burritos loaded with trans fats. That somehow these poor people can't afford to buy onions, celeru, and chicken and cook for themselves. That simply isn't true. The problem with poor people isn't that they can't afford basic food/produce it is that they don't want to buy that food. Either because of time restraints, laziness, or lack of education/knowledge on how to prepare it. You can't come to me and say they can't prepare their own food because they can't afford pots and pans when I know for a fact that they get the supplies they need to make food very very cheaply. It isn't like you need Emeril's latest line of pots and pans to boil water folks.
Too late on that one, JC. It's already started.
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