JUNE 8, 2012
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IN LATE MAY, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that he would impose a 16-ounce limit on servings of “sugary drinks”—sodas, sports and energy drinks, sweetened tea or coffee, and artificially sweetened fruit beverages—on the grounds that they contribute to the nation’s obesity epidemic, which in turn elevates the incidence of diabetes and other diseases. Bloomberg previously banned smoking—which, of course, causes cancer and heart disease, and increases the cancer risk even for nonsmokers who inhale secondhand smoke—first in indoor gathering spaces and later in outdoor public spaces like parks and beaches. Hizzoner has also banned artificial trans fats from restaurants (they raise your cholesterol); required restaurant chains to include calorie counts on their menus (obesity again); and strongly urged restaurants and food processors to reduce the amount of salt in food products by up to 40 percent (salt raises your blood pressure).
These policies have been denounced, as one would expect, by restaurants, food companies, and professional curmudgeons on the right. (Fox News’ John Stossel: “In a free society, I should be able to determine my own diet.”) But they’ve also been questioned from less predictable quarters. “It seems to be more on the punitive side of things,” City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, a Democrat, said about the 16-ounce limit. “I am all for promoting public health,” said Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart of the soda proposal. “But Mr. Mayor, this plan makes your asinine look big.”
Bloomberg’s health policies are straightforwardly paternalistic, and paternalism is an idea nobody feels comfortable with. Indeed, it was loathed by the left before it was loathed by the right. Colonialism was essentially paternalism on a global scale. The 1960s counterculture brought an end to college parietals—the prohibition against a girl spending the night in a boy’s dorm room or vice versa—and never took government prohibitions on recreational drug use very seriously. Listen today to Arlo Guthrie’s 1967 song “Alice’s Restaurant” and you may be surprised by how politically incorrect it has become. Yes, it mocks the Vietnam draft, but it also lampoons—as yet another petty imposition on individual freedom—environmental regulations concerning the disposal of solid waste (known in those days as “garbage”).
The left’s aversion applied to all sources of paternalistic authority: government, corporations, priests, university administrators, and, of course, parents. When the virus jumped to the right it mutated into an aversion only to government authority (with exemptions for the military and police) and granted blanket amnesty to private businesses, religious authorities, mom, and dad.
Yet, even as liberals and conservatives profess to hate the idea of government paternalism, both practice it. Liberals support restrictions on harmful things individuals do to their bodies, like smoking, driving without a seat belt, and riding a motorcycle without a helmet. Conservatives support restrictions on actions they deem harmful to the soul, like having abortions, using contraception, and marrying a person of the same sex.
Restrictions on any of these activities amount to the government saying: Don’t do this; it’s bad for you. After the imposition of New York’s first smoking ban, Christopher Hitchens (by then a sort of left-right hybrid) mocked Bloomberg as “a baby authoritarian who knows what’s good for you. Those, as you know, are the worst kinds of tyranny.” But Hitchens knew well (and often documented) that the worst kinds of tyranny, far from improving the body’s condition, tend to worsen it through torture and death.
The truth is that there’s nothing inherently wrong with paternalistic government or, in the harsher, feminized shorthand of its detractors, the “nanny state.” Parents and nannies can be good or bad. No adult likes to be told how to live his life, but most of us benefit from baby authoritarianism far more than we’d like to admit. The government doesn’t want me talking on the phone while I drive? I can’t say I’ve given that vice up completely, but fear of getting ticketed makes me do it a lot less than I used to, and I may live longer as a result. The government wants me eating less salt? I don’t live in New York, but, when I heard Bloomberg was tightening the noose, I reexamined my attachment to sodium chloride and found it to be fairly weak. Bloomberg didn’t want Hitchens to smoke? Hitchens, who died this past December of throat cancer, went to his grave believing his vices remained none of Bloomberg’s business. But after being diagnosed in 2010, he conceded unsentimentally that he had long “been taunting the Reaper into taking a free scythe in my direction.” If New York City regulations persuade some of his acolytes to give up cigarettes and thereby avoid his fate, don’t let’s consider his legacy tarnished.
What about when the nanny state instructs us to behave in accordance with its views of morality? I disagree with conservative aspirations to install the nanny state in my bedroom, but I wouldn’t necessarily begrudge the state its power to play moral cop elsewhere. I approve of the government prohibition against the selling of organs, and I would never want the government to stop discouraging illicit drug use and prostitution (though I might quibble with its methods). These prohibitions all constitute the government helping to define the nation’s collective values, which is entirely legitimate.
Public health paternalism can be carried too far, but in the current anti-regulatory political environment, I don’t waste a lot of time worrying about that. Bloomberg is never going to ban soda altogether; even if he wanted to, he would find the political opposition too great. (He couldn’t even persuade the state legislature to pass a sin tax.) All his nanny state can plausibly achieve is to make it slightly more difficult to drink soda in preposterous quantities.
Indeed, the 16-ounce limit might actually enhance individual liberty by compelling restaurants and bottlers to sell soda in the smaller quantities that people often want but can’t get. It might become possible once again to order a Coke at a movie theater in something less than a Jacuzzi-sized tub. After all, the government isn’t the only actor imposing its will on Americans today; corporations boss them around quite a bit, and, unlike the government, they seldom have to answer to anyone but their shareholders for it. When their bullying gets rough, it sure can help to have a tough nanny in your corner.
Timothy Noah is a senior editor at The New Republic. This article will appear in the June 28, 2012 issue of the magazine.
23 comments
Good God, Noah is gonna turn me into a libertarian. Why not outlaw being fat; after all, it's the over-consuption not the product that causes people to be fat. Indeed, if food with too many calerories caused folks to be fat, the French wouldn't be so good at what they are supposed to be good at.
- rayward
June 7, 2012 at 8:40pm
I have no issue with the limit. I'd love to see a smacking big tax on sugar and high fructose corn syrup just to make everything laced with the shit more expensive and cut down on consumption. Use the proceeds for health care, particularly caring for diabetics and the morbidly obese. Peoples cravings make them stupid. Their wallet is a good way to give them control over the nastier cravings, and sugar is one of the nastier ones. In anything but very limited quantities, refined sugars are poison, pure and simple (much as I also crave them).
- IowaBeauty
June 7, 2012 at 8:50pm
My initial thought on Bloomberg's edict is that he has no Standing in the Soda Wars, or that maybe our Government Healtcare system is so warped that he can make a round-about claim and people take it seriously. I rarely drink soda pop, about 10 years ago I gave it up and really haven't missed it. About the only time I get the pop is when I order a Meal Deal and end up with the 24 oz soda. But I find it a real reach that New York City can make a claim through Medicare/Medicaid that these medical services costs can justify their banning of these large sugery drinks. Hmmmm.... Haven't I paid for the Medicare Services I am recieving? I have full medical insurance that I have paid for, why should I be saddled with this prohibition? I went about 25 years without seeing a doctor, how is my soda consumption a problem for New York City? If Medicare means I can't have a Big Gulp, then maybe we should be able to get our money back from Medicare and get out, and make our own decisions about what we drink.
- CRS9TNR
June 7, 2012 at 9:22pm
I have real doubts about how effective a large soda ban would be, but I didn't read anything in the article about "banning fat people" or making "a claim through Medicare/Medicaid." Maybe Bloomberg has a point based on some of the reactions to his proposal.
- Pnaut
June 7, 2012 at 10:34pm
Talking on a cell phone while driving is not comparable. That's like driving drunk: A direct danger to other people. The claim that this ban can't achieve very much is an argument _against_ it, not an argument _for_ it. There is some point to nanny-state legislation if it accomplishes something, but there's no argument for it if it is useless as well as annoying. Bloomberg gives the impression that he has no sense of limits whatsoever when it comes to forcing people to live the way he approves of. Next week, he could try to make it illegal to cook unhealthy meals in your own kitchen, or ban alcohol, or impose compulsory exercise. Yes, this is just a slippery slope argument, but whatever stops this slide, it won't be any understanding on Bloomberg's part that "public health paternalism can be carried too far."
- ErnestDavis
June 7, 2012 at 10:55pm
"Indeed, the 16-ounce limit might actually enhance individual liberty by compelling restaurants and bottlers to sell soda in the smaller quantities that people often want but can’t get." That's true. I've been to food outlets where the smallest soda option was a 20 oz. bottle. Didn't want that much, so I didn't buy any soda at all. (Which may have been a good thing after all?) Anyway, the regulation is a play on the psychology of portion size. People can still buy as much as they want, but since we usually consume whatever is in front of is and are satisfied with it, it would be interesting to see if this experiment works. If it's such a minor intrusion on "liberty," it's hard for me to see what the fuss is about.
- dsimon
June 8, 2012 at 1:03am
I'm trying to understand the comparison of soda pop drinking and cigarette smoking with abortion and the redefinition of marriage.
- rvogel
June 8, 2012 at 7:42am
Timothy Noah: a monument to progressive tools. This ban is obviously worth it because, as we know, even in America people need to be told what to do, but this is exactly not how you make the case. There has never been anything compelling about being the worried little tattle-tail insisting that you put the joint down because your mom is worried. I found myself wondering the other night, while eating ribs, how this incredibly brutal way to eat was still legal. Tearing meat from a rib bone with your teeth - it's just so primitive, so animalistic. And, as prissy democrats or cross-eyed republicans, shouldn't we be constantly striving to purge ourselves of that baseness? Isn't that the idea, to hide our true natures? Progressives should particularly humiliated by that idea. It's so moralistically Christian. But, then again, ever met a Quaker who was a Republican? Bloomberg is great to try this. I can essentially guarantee that it will work, but that doesn't mean that it's morally right (or wrong) - and you insisting that, you know, "in our hearts, [we] know he's right" is about as thoughtful as that wussy little tattle-tail who is just afraid of getting in trouble.
- travis
June 8, 2012 at 10:00am
I noticed that several comments overflow the default permitted for comment length. Beginning Monday, limiting yourself to the suggested comment length will no longer be optional. For your own good. After reading TNR for years, I now realize that expressing conservative opinions not only makes no sense, but actually harms society. An artificial intelligence program developed by Stanford University called BIG NANNY will now rewrite any comments you make so they are liberally correct and obey the new rules guaranteeing FREE SPEECH, known as the Roger Williams memorial law. Also, if you are snacking or drinking soda pops while reading and posting comments a large hand will reach out from y
- skahn
June 8, 2012 at 11:07am
As long as we're in the mood for Nanny State bans about truly serious problems, why don't we institute a nationwide ban on tobacco and alcohol, substances that arguably cause more damage than any other vices? I mean, with serious jail time for offenders.
- gmck1948
June 8, 2012 at 12:12pm
I see some of the folks here have their knickers in a knot over giant portions of watered-down soda. Creeping statism and all that. Get over it. The main conflict in civilization over the last century or so has been between the individual and society, and the state is only part of society. In America today business is much more intrusive than the state is. Using the Web and other tools, business is building a profile 24/7 of every individual--a very detailed one. Business knows what I buy, the size of my family, and what the names, ages, S.S. numbers, and personal habits of every member of it are. Business knows my whole life history--and yours, too. By law the state is not allowed to gather such files on "innocent" individuals (although they sometimes do, of course). So guess who the state turns to when it has a legal reason to develop a file on me or you. Business! Of course, business demands a fee for this service, so, ironically, you as a taxpayer are paying, unbeknownst to yourself, for a file on yourself from the world of "free" enterprise. When it comes to fees, the business world will never say, "That's none of my business!" And, yes, the files that business has on us are centralized, just like those of the dreaded state. Interactive brain chips are only about 30 years away. Will individuals who volunteer to have their brains connected to the Web be doing so at the prompting of the state or business? In America I don't think it it will be the former. There are trillions of dollars of profit to be made in having folks physiologically wired. Yes, the state is creeping more and more into our lives, but so is everything and everybody else. I'm getting more and more personalized ads on Web pages now that were put there without my knowledge or permission. America hasn't even approached the level of an authoritarian state yet, let alone a dictatorial one. In our great nation there are more things to be terrified of than the state. Get over it.
- magboy47.
June 8, 2012 at 12:17pm
And, remember, as long as we have the right of free speech, we are in no danger of being co-opted by the state. That's why the First Amendment is about speech. If we can't say what we think, then all of our other rights, including the right to bear arms, are taken away. And I don't see speech in America being threatened to any degree at all. Do you?
- magboy47.
June 8, 2012 at 12:37pm
My objection to his proposal is that it's not consistently targeting the problem and is essentially arbitrary, as many critics have pointed out -- leaving in many higher calories items and only limiting the soda sizes in certain locations. It seems like he randomly picked a size that he personally thinks is acceptable and selected a few types of outlets where the size would be restricted. A tax on sugary sodas is clearly a simpler, more consistent (and probably more effective) way to achieve the same results, and probably would help on a much broader scale -- and raise money too! But Bloomberg is not good at legislative politics, so instead of trying to get the NY State legislature to man up and buck the beverage lobby, he just imposes this arbitrary rule. (I am completely behind his other efforts btw, and have changed my planned order many times based on the posted calorie count.) I am also wondering how we diet Coke addicts will fare. Can we still get the giant soda (which my husband and I share) with our giant popcorn (which we share among all 4 family members)? If not, I'm being penalized for no reason and if those sizes are only allowed for diet sodas, I fear the concession stand staff (who tend to be overwhelmed and barely competent as it is) will not be able to manage that policy.
- shellski
June 8, 2012 at 1:04pm
magboy wrote: I'm getting more and more personalized ads on Web pages. Indeed. This is a personalized ad responding to your comment. Send me money.
- skahn
June 8, 2012 at 2:02pm
Why is Noah still on TNR? The big-soda ban is bad policy (tax works better), bad politics (nanny state), bad science (the evidence is not good), and bad precedence (what next? steak can only be served in certain portions?). Just flabbergasted at Noah's argument.
- polcereal
June 8, 2012 at 3:57pm
Not a bad argument except for the fact that salt isn't bad for you and too little salt may in fact hurt your health. These things evolve as new food science is developed. There really haven't been that many detailed studies on the effects of things such as salt. We need more to be done before we start banning things. That being said, soda is in fact empty useless processed sugar calories. I don't think this is a big deal because you can just buy two sodas - but it may influence some people to drink less soda, accomplishing its goal.
- andyman344
June 8, 2012 at 5:21pm
At this point, after reading the last two comments (and re-contemplating all the other comments), I feel a need to escalate my policy recommendations. As reading TNR is bad for you (you should be outside exercising and getting skin cancer if the sun is shining), as of Monday, TNR will either go out of business or be banned by the Romney administration. As TNR will cease to exist, you will not be allowed to post comments any more. That means you. But not me.
- skahn
June 8, 2012 at 6:05pm
Magboy. It seems a little too convenient to put the 'state' beyond the affairs of human invention and manipulation. The state, after all, is what we make it. There are plenty of people that are willing to grant privileged and sacrosanct status with a kind of faith in Law that makes prayer warriors look like prayer pansies. Big Brother has some fertile ground to plow especially when one can with a straight face and seemingly logical argument that the state is a realm beyond in its own special class of invention. Thus removing the state from insidious culpability. Your insistence that free speech is a guarantor strikes me as a questionable expression of a Faith of sorts. I have some serious doubts. Though I am a prochoice kind of guy I don't see Roe v Wade as a means of expressing a universal truth. There many ways in which the Law falls short of Truth. Is it any wonder that people on both sides of the political spectrum fear the others political convictions as a vehicle for Big Bro. Forget the Nanny or the Butler. Its the Shadow that s running the show.
- jacko
June 8, 2012 at 8:19pm
Jacko, as my elderly memory whispers to me, you are one of the most perceptive people posting here. I don't see Roe v Wade as a means of expressing a universal truth. Of course not. While one can argue (though quantum physics and string theory and the like puts even science on thin ice) that science perhaps expresses some universal truths. However (scorning the religious believers/earnest humanists here), there likely are no "universal truths" applicable to values and morality. It's a good thing for all around me that I behave as an "ethical nihilist," though as the wild bunnies in our woods I occasionally fire at with my pellet rifle can attest, everyone's best bet is that I am not a good shot nor a charismatic evil leader. (HItler, Stalin, et al, I am not.)
- skahn
June 9, 2012 at 12:46am
Skahn. Your reply to my comment surprises me somewhat. I have, in the past, been rather curt and dismissive of your contributions here at TNR. I have taken particular exception with your tendency to evangelize collective solipsism as the only reasonable destination. I beg to differ, obviously. While I can honor your attempting self honesty I take issue with your conclusions. I do accept the proposition of universal. Our approaches to social alchemy and its less than flattering mechanics differ substantially. Skahn. Is your 'ethical' a noun or a verb? Combination of the two as modified by nihilism?
- jacko
June 9, 2012 at 1:09pm
Skahn - Thank you. One of the best posts I've seen in a while. Have to run, they are starting to trace my line and will be coming after me soon.
- CRS9TNR
June 9, 2012 at 6:04pm
Skahn: "Beginning Monday, limiting yourself to the suggested comment length will no longer be optional. For your own good." Well, if you can't fit your comment within the mandated length, you could always continue it in an additional comment. Sounds kind of familiar....
- dsimon
June 11, 2012 at 9:42am
Banning some forms of soda is not going nearly far enough. It is long overdue for us grownups in government to give these fat slobs some tough love. We must tax every pound over the government mandated index. The morbidly obese will require more severe measures - mandatory surgery or jail time (we will of course have to widen some of our jails). Its time we offset some of the costs these whales are imposing on our society - higher fuel consumption , handicap access, medical costs, wider furniture, wear and tear on sidewalks, etc. However, the most important reason is that it is for their own darn good. I don't understand why these common sense measures are so controversial?! The fact is that we are the good guys here standing up against the calorie industry. I reject the negative epithet "Nanny". In this instance, government acts as a kind of benevolent older brother, who knows best and helps the younger sibling make the right choices. The younger sibling should be grateful for being saved from his own stupidity and hopeless ineptitude.
- Nicomachus
June 12, 2012 at 4:53pm