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Tuesday, 12 December 2006 18:37 |
 | | Carl S. Milsted, Jr. |
The Nanny State strikes again!
New York City is banning trans fats from its restaurants. No longer will restaurateurs be allowed to deep fry your chicken wings in shortening or dollop your baked potato with margarine. Itës tyranny in the name of good health.
And yet, I am not bothered. I, who would defend your right to inhale marijuana or play with lawn darts; I, who grow furious at the thought of smoking bans in restaurants, am not bothered. I am actually pleased, albeit with some guilt.
Why?
One reason is
pure selfishness. I personally experience more negative health effects
from partially hydrogenated vegetable oils in restaurant food than from
second-hand smoke. It is annoying and embarrassing to have to ask what
type of oil the cook is using or whether that greasy yellow puddle is
butter or margarine.
So, it is
possible that I am just a hypocrite, approving of tyranny when it
serves my interest while whining about other tyrannies. Such hypocrisy
is common ÇƒÓ and dangerous, for if the government outlaws everyoneës pet
annoyances, then we all become prisoners.
However, I have a few other reasons, possibly good ones:
1. Trans fats in
restaurant food are a hidden danger, not always detectable by the
customer. Second hand smoke is obvious, detectable by the nose in
concentrations well below the harm threshold of all but the most
sensitive. (This touches on a good general rule for product liability:
hidden dangers should be the responsibility of the manufacturer,
obvious dangers should remain a matter of customer choice.)
2. The
restaurant industry is notorious for fraud in this area. I have lost
count of the number of establishments I have visited that offered
"butter" while actually serving margarine. A bit of additional
regulation is just punishment for those so guilty.
3. While the big
tobacco corporations were slow to admit to the harms of their products
(harms that were noted hundreds of years before the establishment of
said corporations), the PHVO industry for years actively claimed that
their products were healthier than the natural foods they displaced.
4. Trans fatty foods are marketed to children.
I donët claim that these reasons justify an outright ban. In a perfect world, proper labeling would suffice.
But this
imperfect world is full of busy bodies who get their jollies banning
unhealthy pleasures. Well, here is an opportunity where such a ban
might do more good than harm. Unlike the drug war, a ban on PHVOs would
not generate a dangerous criminal black market. We have natural
substitutes that are not only healthier, but more pleasurable. The only
advantage of PHVOs are their price, an advantage that goes away in a
black market situation.
So here is my
offer to busy bodies everywhere: legalize marijuana and let restaurants
decide whether to allow smoking, and Iëll support a complete nationwide
ban on partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.
We can have happy party-goers, lower crime, healthier children, and a government program that actually does some good.
ï
Carl Milsted Jr. is chairman of the Libertarian Party of Buncombe County.
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