New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | December 7, 2005

Jacob Sullum asks: What happened to the days when everything good in life was illegal, immoral, or fattening?

Comments

|12.7.05 @ 9:58AM|#

Is there be a pony under the vast pile of words about what's good and what's bad for us? Could the pony be a trend toward self-medication now that we have so much scientific opinion readily available to all? Could a healthier attitude toward self-medication be a gateway drug to the idea that we own our bodies?

|12.7.05 @ 10:35AM|#

A little related rambling:

I was cruising around the James Randi Educational Foundation forums when I found a thread in the "Politics, Current Events, Social Issues" section where a rather green poster decided to plug the LP. While JREF is a great place to poke fun at funides, UFO kooks, and pet psychics, it's members are not exactly friendly to the notion of limited government. Anyway, at one point a poster calling himself "The Don" wrote in reference to seat belt and helmet laws:

"Nanny laws protect me (or my insurance premiums) from you"

What struck me about that phrase is mention of his insurance premiums. We've heard for years that smoking leads to rising health insurance costs, so anti-smokers urge us to ban tobacco.

Why stop there? If eating sugary snacks makes us fat (not to mention drives up dental bills) then for the sake of "affordable health care for all," the government should regulate what we eat. Since sex can be risky business (pregnancy, STDs, etc.), why not keep and enforce the "blue laws." Not for the sake of outdated religious values, but because unwanted kids and HIV would mean everyone paying more for insurance.

I could go on: To save on liability insurance in case of liable and slander suits, we could chill free speech. Guns can be dangerous; maybe we should have mandatory firearms insurance and rachet up the rates each time there is some highly publicized shooting until the gun owners turn in their collections to save coin.

A slippery slope? Perhaps. Still, I hate to think that my rights and liberties are going to be decided by MetLife and American Family.

|12.7.05 @ 10:36AM|#

drinkers are less prone to obesity than teetotalers

Having held a drinker's hair while they threw up from overindulging more than a few times, let me say that I'll take the obesity. You guys go ahead and enjoy yourselves though. You all look fabulous, well, you do at the beginning of the evening anyway.

|12.7.05 @ 10:38AM|#

EDIT: While JREF is a great place to poke fun at fundies, UFO kooks, and pet psychics, its members are not exactly friendly to the notion of limited government.

|12.7.05 @ 10:40AM|#

FURTHER CORRECTION: While the JREF forums are a great place to poke fun at fundies, UFO kooks, and pet psychics, its members are not exactly friendly to the notion of limited government.

|12.7.05 @ 10:49AM|#

Here's to mk and the wagon he's on!

|12.7.05 @ 10:50AM|#

Akira: I've noticed that, too.
I've always wished one politician, just ONE, would run on a platform that included a vow NOT to prosecute scam artists who bilk money from the naive. If you give your cash to a man who claims he will bury it in sacred earth to purify it, you lose.

fyodor|12.7.05 @ 10:54AM|#

Akira,

The Don's logic is a major obstacle for libertarians. You can always find something in someone else's behavior that "harms" you if your definition of "harm" has no grounding in the concepts of the individual's rights to person and property. I have a generally very leftist friend who supports Tancredo on immigration because he feels that immigration harms him due to such things as additional traffic. Under such logic, there really is no principle in politics, it's all just a convoluted power play to determine who gets to be "protected" from whom.

|12.7.05 @ 11:02AM|#

Under such logic, there really is no principle in politics, it's all just a convoluted power play to determine who gets to be "protected" from whom.

That's all politics and government ever really has been: A tribalist system that that is designed to enrich and empower "us" at the detriment of "them."

|12.7.05 @ 11:28AM|#

Sadly Fyodor, The Don's logic is used by too many people who only consider everything they dislike an egregious harm, while simultaneously dismissing the idea that their own actions can similarly (also wrongly)be considered harms by others. They always either fail to see the disconnect, more likely, think perfect for them should be perfect for everyone.

|12.7.05 @ 11:33AM|#

The "Insurance!" strain in libertarianism/minarchism/market "anarchism" is just as frightening as "My premiums!" dude over at Randi's.

What difference does it make if the omnicompetent intermeshed classes of "expert" (self-)protection mafias directing our every decision is called government?

"We get to say we're free!"

Yeah, we do that now. Works great.

Today's insurance industry doesn't act as the flailing forearm of the law by some wild cosmic fluke.

|12.7.05 @ 11:34AM|#

Nutrition guidelines are a Sunday afternoon, all-you-can-eat smorgasbord. Pick and choose the studies you like and leave the one's that look yucky. I've got an aunt who's a self-described health nut that thinks red wine reduces heart disease, mushrooms prevent cancer and salt is the Devil's powder. She's got the studies to prove it. Of course she's always loved wine and mushrooms and always hated salt. But whenever she comes across studies that refute or are inconclusive about those things, she ignores them keeps quoting her older studies.

She also used to have eggs and bacon for breakfast with a smoke afterwards, back when all that stuff was healthy. She quit all of them for non-health related reasons a long time ago. Since then, though, each of those things have become killer foods. She's got the studies to prove it.

Luckily - according to her - burritos and potato chips are still good for you.

|12.7.05 @ 11:38AM|#

The problem with 'The Don's thinking is that he accepts as gospel the government's interference in the insurance market. There's no inherent reason that nanny laws should affect the insurance rates, but the reason they do is because there are so many regulations on the insurance companies. I'm sure that insurance companies would love to limit the people they cover, or the products they offer, but many laws prevent them from doing that. I'm sure that someone on Reason has done an article on what insurance companies HAVE to provide, be it medical, property, etc.

|12.7.05 @ 11:53AM|#

Perhaps the fixation on insurance premiums is an outgrowth of the vast interconnectedness implicit in the current interpretation of the Commerce Clause?

Insurance is the wrong metaphor for things like healthcare costs. Let's call them mutual health protection societies, and then we'll take one tiny step toward sanity in that market. I'll join the rare steak eating, bourbon on the rocks drinking, motorcycle riding society.

Larry A|12.7.05 @ 11:58AM|#

"Nanny laws protect me (or my insurance premiums) from you"

If it was only about insurance premiums and taxes you could point out that people who smoke and don't wear seat belts and motorcycle helmets die sooner, and thus cost less.

In too many cases (see the earlier Bork post) it's about "I don't want to do that so you shouldn't be allowed to."

grylliade|12.7.05 @ 12:30PM|#

Having held a drinker's hair while they threw up from overindulging more than a few times, let me say that I'll take the obesity.

Did you read the article, mk? It pretty clearly states that the reduction in obesity only comes for moderate drinkers (one to two drinks per day). By the time you get to four a day, you're back to regular obesity rates. If the people who were throwing up had had only one or two drinks, then there's something seriously wrong with them.

|12.7.05 @ 12:40PM|#

" Our latest Sleeper moment came when researchers announced that drinkers are less prone to obesity than teetotalers."

"A good bachelor drinks his dessert (and sometimes the rest of his meals). A sweet tooth is a danger signal that you're getting too much exercise and not enough cocktails."

-P.J. O'Rourke

|12.7.05 @ 12:59PM|#

Rock and roll ain't noise pollution.

|12.7.05 @ 1:28PM|#

Grylliade,

I was just being a smart-ass. I'm all for moderate drinking. I'm also for moderate eating. I'm just not very good at it.

|12.7.05 @ 2:05PM|#

It pretty clearly states that the reduction in obesity only comes for moderate drinkers (one to two drinks per day). By the time you get to four a day, you're back to regular obesity rates.

This is obviously an indication of one's ability to maintain self-control. It says that if you can indulge yourself in the occasional drink without going overboard, you can probably do the same with that chocalte bar or that extra helping of lasagna. Self-denial and bingeing are not healthy for one's soul not matter what the subject is.

|12.7.05 @ 2:09PM|#

Someday the puritanical notions of banning substances will be overcome, but that's a long way off.

|12.7.05 @ 2:28PM|#

But surely those who drink too much and throw up ought to be thinner, shouldn't they?

;-)

And, yes, if you're being forced to pay for somebody else's insurance claims, then you are already not free, my friend. Taking away more freedoms (by advocating Nanny laws) is a step backwards, not forwards.

|12.7.05 @ 2:29PM|#

I have to say there's a good point in the article about the statement that chocolate is "sinful" because this is something that people believe. It's like the twisted merger between the 19th Century Puritanical "red meat causes masturbation" crowd and the 20th century science-über-alles crowd that brought us such spectacular successes as Communism.

I can't even talk to people my own age (in their 20s!) without wondering if I've been tossed into an alternate universe where we're all 80 years old. All anyone wants to talk about are their medical problems and their prescriptions. Besides birth control, I have had literally one prescription in my life. One. For chicken pox. When I was eight.

|12.7.05 @ 5:43PM|#

It's like the twisted merger between the 19th Century Puritanical "red meat causes masturbation" crowd and the 20th century science-�ber-alles crowd that brought us such spectacular successes as Communism.

You got it backwards, dagny. Masturbation causes red meat:)