Quotulatiousness

September 29, 2012

Regulating the size of soft drinks won’t solve the obesity problem, but will infringe on individual rights

Filed under: Food, Health, Law, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:41

At Reason, Baylen Linnekin explains that even if all the claims about the nutritional evils of sweetened soft drinks are completely true, regulations will not actually make much difference:

As an opponent of increased regulations, I find these latter scientific points noteworthy. But I also believe that even if sugar-sweetened drinks turn out to be virtually everything their opponents claim, people still have a right to buy and drink these beverages — just as much, as I argued in a recent Bloggingheads debate, as they have a right to buy a Big Mac. After all, we don’t have a right to free speech or to travel from one state to another because speech or travel has been proven by the scientific community to promote good health.

But suppose, for the sake of argument, I was to take at face value the assertions of those who claim the NEJM studies justify some combination of sugary drink taxes and bans.

There is still this problem: The solutions these advocates propose won’t likely solve the problem of obesity. For example, studies have suggested taxes will have little or no impact on obesity. And not one person has (to the best of my knowledge) even attempted to argue that soda bans would have any specific impact, either — unless one counts “sending a message” or “creating a debate” as conditions precedent to weight loss.

There is also the issue of a genetic predisposition, which again is one finding of the studies. Many people are genetically predisposed to certain food allergies — including soy, dairy, gluten, nuts, and seafood — and food intolerances. I have never seen a researcher or AP journalist like Marchione argue seriously that the widespread impact of food allergies “adds weight to the push for taxes” on wheat, tofu, and shrimp. Yet if one were to buy the argument of those calling for taxes and bans to combat consumption of sugary drinks in light of the NEJM studies, one would have to accept the idea of taxing society writ large based largely on the outcomes of what these researchers argue is a genetic condition.

August 15, 2012

Canadian liberty, 1776-2012

Filed under: Cancon, History, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:32

F.H. Buckley has an interesting article in the National Post, comparing the American and Canadian “flavours” of liberty from the American Revolution down to today:

The Fathers of Confederation had seen the American constitution close up and didn’t want any part of it. They didn’t foresee just how we’d turn out. Overall, however, our good fortune would not have surprised them, for they knew that they were founding a free country.

On reading the Confederation debates, one is struck by how the Fathers insisted that we had real liberty in Canada, more so even than Americans. That comes as a bit of a shock, as we had thought that Americans had property rights in liberty. They owned it, and on occasion were kind enough to try to export it to lesser countries, as they did 200 years ago in the War of 1812 (where they came in a very strong second).

[. . .]

When McGee and the other Fathers looked south, they saw a country with more of Constant’s liberty of the ancients but less of the liberty of the moderns. Moreover, of the former, the right of self-government had been corrupted by political machines and trivialized by elections for dogcatchers. The high ideals of the American Founders had been forgotten, and their republican virtue was now, in the era of Boss Tweed and Jay Gould, little more than American braggadocio. As for the liberty of the moderns, there was that little matter of slavery and its aftermath. True, Americans could express themselves through lynch-parties, but that was the kind of liberty the Canadians did not want.

Many of the differences between the two countries remain, but Canadians no longer have more of the liberty of the moderns than Americans. In both countries, benign neglect has been replaced by the bureaucrat’s officious nudges, giving us ugly light bulbs, toilets that don’t flush and idiotic playground rules. Could one have predicted this 25 years ago? I think not. Back then I had legal scholar Cass Sunstein over for dinner. Until a few days ago he was Obama’s regulatory czar, and over dinner in 1987 he predicted how the regulatory state would expand, in the name of risk reduction. “Americans won’t stand for this,” my wife told him. They prize their freedom too much. “Ah, but we’ll change their preferences,” he replied. And he was right.

August 10, 2012

Drink some rainwater, go to jail

Filed under: Environment, Law, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:09

A 1925 law still applies in Oregon:

You just can’t make this stuff up. A man in Oregon is currently in jail serving a thirty day term – along with a $1500 fine – for collecting rainwater and snow melt on his own property for drinking and household use. You think I’m kidding? I’m not.

    Gary Harrington, the Oregon man convicted of collecting rainwater and snow runoff on his rural property surrendered Wednesday morning to begin serving his 30-day, jail sentence in Medford, Ore.

    “I’m sacrificing my liberty so we can stand up as a country and stand for our liberty,” Harrington told a small crowd of people gathered outside of the Jackson County (Ore.) Jail.

H/T to Jon, my former virtual landlord, who said “This is just a little weird […] But does the fact that I can see the point of the law — preventing people from messing with a watershed area, I guess — mean that I’ve consumed the nanny state kool-aid?”.

July 24, 2012

QotD: The totalitarian tendency

Filed under: Law, Liberty, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:09

[…] This illustrates very well the totalitarian tendency which is implicit in the anarchist or pacificist vision of Society. In a Society in which there is no law, and in theory no compulsion, the only arbiter of behaviour is public opinion. But public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law. When human beings are governed by “thou shalt not”, the individual can practise a certain amount of eccentricity: when they are supposedly governed by “love” or “reason”, he is under continuous pressure to make him behave and think in exactly the same way as everyone else.

George Orwell, “Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver’s Travels“, Polemic, September-October 1946.

July 20, 2012

Reason.tv: How the Government Makes You Fat: Gary Taubes on Obesity, Carbs, and Bad Science

Filed under: Food, Health, Science, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:09

“The government can come along and, with all the best intentions, cause enormous problems” says Gary Taubes, a science writer and author most recently of Why We Get Fat And What To Do About It.

Reason.tv’s Zach Weissmueller talked with Taubes about his controversial work in the world of nutrition and epidemiology, including Taubes’ hypothesis that carbohydrates, not dietary fat, overeating, or lack of physcial activity, are the primary factor causing obesity. Other topics include the inability of governments and large informational institutions such as the American Heart Association to adapt to new information, the mess of bad legislation and bad science that Taubes believes led to America’s obesity problem, and why many libertarians seem to love the Paleo Diet.

Taubes’ work has unsurprisingly invited criticism from scientists, government officials and journalists, even in the pages of Reason Magazine, where he went back and forth with Reason contributor Michael Fumento.

July 17, 2012

How the Nanny State undermines family life for parents and children

Filed under: Britain, Government — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:13

Jennie Bristow at sp!ked:

… Bailey’s diagnosis of the dangers inherent in eroding parental authority was absolutely spot on. By attempting to ‘nationalise’ childrearing, whether by providing classes to instruct parents in officially approved childrearing methods or by using schools to inculcate children in a heightened awareness of the failings of their mothers and fathers, in recent decades, government parenting policy has stripped parents of their directly authoritative role.

Instead of being the boss of their own homes, parents are situated as mediators in the relationship between the child and the state, and told that their primary responsibility is not to do right by their child but to show that they are doing the right thing according to the current parenting orthodoxy. The effect of this, as Bailey suggested last year, is to disorient both parents and children, as both question the basis for parental authority.

Was this what caused the riots last summer? Not on its own. The behaviour of those young people engaged in the mayhem was profoundly shocking – but so, too, was the response of the adult population, from the middle classes cowering in their living rooms and boasting about that in the press, to the failure of the police to intervene decisively. What underpinned the chaos was the open collapse of adult authority, and this should have provided a wake-up call to our society about the need to grow up and take responsibility for the younger generations.

But the problem of parental authority forms an important part of the generalised crisis of adulthood, and it is worth reflecting on the relationship between the two.

June 26, 2012

The “Draft Andrew Coyne” movement

Filed under: Cancon, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:49

I’ve met Andrew Coyne. We had a pleasant chat about political matters a few years ago (although I was one of dozens of Toronto-area bloggers he talked with that night: I doubt he remembers me). I often agree with his writings (and even when I don’t, he’s usually quotable). But how would he fare as a candidate for the Liberal leadership? Abacus ran the numbers:

Nationally, most Canadians told us they didn’t know enough about Mr. Coyne to say whether they had a favourable or unfavourable impression of him. Sixty-four percent were not sure of their opinion while 15% said they had a favourable impression while 21% had an unfavourable impression. Unfortunately for Mr. Coyne, the percentage of respondents who had “very unfavourable” was higher than those who had a “very favourable” impression of him (9% very unfavourable vs. 3% very favourable).

Nonetheless, there are “pockets” of Coynemania out there.

  • Men are slightly more likely to have a favourable impression of him than women (men 18% favourable, women 12% – women were also much more likely to be unsure).
  • There was no significant age difference although older Canadians (no surprisingly) were more likely to be aware of Mr. Coyne.
  • Regionally, he is more popular in Manitoba and Saskatchewan (25% favourable) than in other regions of the country. He is a tough sell in Quebec where his favourable rating is a mere 8%.
  • Considering his occupation and the audience likely to read and watch him, it is no surprise that respondents with a university degree were most aware and favourable to Mr. Coyne. 24% of those with a bachelor’s degree and 29% of those with a post-graduate degree had a favourable impression of the National Post columnist.
  • He is also more likely to be viewed favourably by those who live in urban communities (urban 18% favourable, suburban 13% favourable, rural 12% favourable).
  • Mr. Coyne is also viewed more favourable by those who own stocks, bonds, or mutual funds: 20% favourable vs. 10% among those who don’t own those kinds of investments.
  • Finally, there isn’t a significant partisan difference. Those who voted Liberal in 2011 are only slightly more likely to view him positively than NDP and CPC voters but the differences are marginal. He is a post-partisan candidate!

I don’t know if he’s actually interested in a political career, but he’d at least be a different kind of candidate than the Liberals have had in decades. I’ve never voted Liberal in my life, but I could imagine voting for a Liberal if Andrew Coyne was the Liberal leader. He appears to actually believe in smaller government and free markets — which is why he’d never be able to run as a Conservative. He’s on the record as being almost libertarian in his views on individual rights (especially on Nanny State issues) — which is why he couldn’t run as a New Democrat.

It’s not clear whether there are any members of today’s Liberal Party of Canada who could cope with a classical liberal as leader. But it would create a viable third choice in federal politics: that’s worth a lot in my books.

Update: There’s a Twitter hashtag for the movement: #coyne4lpc, and Jesse Helmer points out that there’s a Facebook group, too:

Update, the second: Apparently Andrew Coyne is getting into the swing of being a big-time politician, having already fired his first campaign manager:

June 15, 2012

The Never Seconds flap reveals highly selective anti-authoritarian reactions

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Education, Food, Liberty, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:52

Brendan O’Neill is happy that the petty authoritarians at the Argyll and Bute council have rescinded their ban on young Martha Payne’s school lunch blog, but points out that the Twitstorm that helped publicize her plight is remarkably selective in which kinds of official bullying they will oppose:

But what a shame that these decent folks’ opposition to council heavy-handedness in relation to school lunches is so spectacularly partial. What a shame, for example, that they haven’t offered solidarity to those millions of children who have been banned from bringing sweets and crisps into schools, which, as I once reported for the BBC, has given rise to a black market in junk food in school playgrounds. What a shame they didn’t speak out when councils, behaving like a Tuckshop Taliban, stormed into schools and shut down tuckshops and vending machines that sold chocolate or Coke. What a shame they didn’t have anything to say when mothers in Yorkshire who passed chips through the schoolgates to their children were slated in the media and depicted as Viz-style “Fat Slags” in The Sun. What a shame they didn’t complain when it was revealed that some schools are taking it upon themselves to raid children’s lunchboxes — made for them by their parents! — in order to confiscate anything “unhealthy”.

What a shame, in other words, that only one kind of authoritarianism in relation to school dinners is criticised — namely that which censors people from revealing how crap such dinners are — while other forms of authoritarianism, which control both what children can eat and even what their parents can provide them with, are tolerated. Like stern headmasters, it seems concerned hacks will only give their nod of approval to nice, polite, healthy schoolchildren, while withholding it from the rabble, from kids who eat chips and cake with the blessing of their stupid parents. Those kids, it seems, can be censored and censured and controlled as much as is necessary.

June 12, 2012

“It’s the slippery slope consciously deployed as a policy strategy”

Filed under: Food, Government, Health, Liberty, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 08:50

Shikha Dalmia on Bloomberg’s nanny complex and the underlying cause of it:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed ban on big sodas in the Big Apple is generating accusations that he is a Nanny Statist. But that’s not quite accurate. A nanny forces others to do things for their own good. Bloomberg is a moral narcissist forcing New Yorkers to do things that make him feel good.

Under his soda ban, street vendors and restaurants would be barred from selling pop in anything over 16-ounce containers on the theory that limiting access to sugary drinks will help combat the city’s obesity and diabetes “epidemics.” No one — not even Bloomberg himself — believes that the ban will actually work, not least because unlimited free refills will remain legal, as will oversized helpings of apple juice and other “natural” beverages with arguably even more sugar. But workability isn’t the point right now. It’s to get the public used to the idea of the government slurping around in your Slurpee, and then to ratchet up. It’s the slippery slope consciously deployed as a policy strategy.

Nor is this Bloomberg’s first foray into minding your own business. He has also cracked down on smoking, salt and trans fats. He has mandated that fast-food joints post calorie counts. He also tried (unsuccessfully) to bar food stamp recipients from buying sodas — one-upping fellow Republicans who want to urine-test welfare recipients to make sure they don’t use their government aid for drugs.

Petty paternalism, “nudging”, and the urge to human perfection

Filed under: Food, Government, Health, Liberty, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 08:15

The Economist looks at the dietary meddling of New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and other forms of “we know what’s better for you” paternalism:

In defence of Michael Bloomberg’s controversial proposal to ban large servings of sugary drinks, Timothy Noah of the New Republic cuts to the chase and plumps for paternalism:

    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.

Mr Noah’s argument seems to be that there’s nothing wrong with paternalistic measures as long as they actually benefit us. Philosophers sometimes call the form of paternalism Mr Noah has in mind, concerned with bodily health and mental well-being, “welfare paternalism”. Of course, ideas about the human good routinely incorporate moral and theological suppositions, which can take paternalism well beyond concern for physical health and psychological welfare. For example, Torquemada, the infamous Spanish inquisitor, acted paternalistically in torturing individuals to confess their sins insofar as he did so intending to save them from damnation to eternal hellfire, which he believed to be infinitely worse than the pain of the rack. For Torquemada, the true nature of the interests of individuals had been revealed by religious texts and religious authorities, which he no doubt took to be at least as reliable as we take the Journal of the American Medical Association to be. I wonder if Mr Noah would agree that Torquemada did nothing inherently wrong by torturing heretics on the rack in order to elicit confessions and save their eternal souls from infinite suffering. As a matter of fact, the inquisitor’s conception of welfare is false, and so he caused a monstrous quantity of pointless suffering. But what if his facts about our moral and spiritual welfare had been right and that he succeeded in saving many souls? No problem?

June 9, 2012

QotD: Counteracting those irritating “nudgers”

Filed under: Economics, Education, Liberty, Media, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:09

In the wake of Mayor Bloomberg’s proposes big soda ban, I have some suggestions for paternalistic nudges for economists who advocate such paternalism. One idea is when they go to a restaurant, by default they should be seated at the table that places them in the most proximity to people near the median income level. Or when they turn on their TVs, have them by default turn to awful TV shows popular with the median household, like America’s Got Talent, Dancing with the Stars, or some poorly written show about cops. Of course they will need a nudge so that when they rent an apartment or house it comes by default with a TV and cable. Perhaps if we want to escalate from nudge to shove, we could have them signed up to teach one class a semester at a local community college or technical school, so they get exposure to students much closer to the median ability and future income level than they’ll find at the top departments they normally teach at. They can opt out of this, of course, but have them enrolled to teach as a default upon completing their doctorates.

You see, paternalists clearly have a problem with reasoning from their own preferences, and so giving them exposure to the median consumer might help them learn valuable lessons. Paternalist economists, it seems, simply cannot imagine how a “nudge” or a “shove” like buying only 16 ounce sodas or smaller would be any kind of inconvenience to someone. What they don’t understand is that as Ivy League economists with IQs north of 140 their preferences tend to be very far from the median consumer’s, so it should be no surprise that they can’t imagine it being an inconvenience. After all, they also probably can’t imagine wanting to drink a lot of soda in the first place. In the same way, the median consumer probably could not imagine letting their kid not eat birthday cake. So from the start they should be aware that their imaginations and preferences aren’t useful guides

Adam Ozimek, “Nudges for Paternalist Economists”, Forbes, 2012-06-05

The future of dining

Filed under: Food, Health, Humour, Liberty, Politics, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:09

What’s the restaurant of choice for Michael Bloomberg and Michelle Obama? Watch what happens when Brian tries to order lunch at Nou Nou D’Enfer!

H/T to Nick Gillespie.

June 8, 2012

Toronto City Council’s latest collective brain-fart

Filed under: Cancon, Environment, Government — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:01

Terence Corcoran is too kind in his discussion of Toronto’s new ban on plastic bags:

In star-struck liberal green Los Angeles, it took a full-court press by environmental groups, major propaganda efforts, endorsement by the roll-over editorialists at the Los Angeles Times, and deployment of Hollywood stars, such as Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Peter Fonda, to work up the political steam needed to prompt L.A.’s city council to vote last month to ban plastic bags.

In starless Toronto, all it took was a bunch of dumb city councillors who suddenly decided — seemingly out of the blue — to stage a surprise vote.

“Ban the bags,” somebody said. “Good idea. Let’s vote!” Passed: 27 to 17.

No study, no research, no public review, no thought, no concept and no brains. What’s the environmental and fiscal impact of the ban? Nobody knows, although many people say the cost to both the city and the environment will be greater than the cost of using plastic bags.

As I think Adrian MacNair mentioned, one of the most likely outcomes is that people will end up buying less. It’s those little impulse buys that will be curtailed the most, as many folks — especially tourists — won’t have realized they need to bring their own carry bags.

June 7, 2012

Reason.tv: Obesity in America

Filed under: Food, Government, Health, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:07

June 5, 2012

“We do not know if low salt diets improve or worsen health outcomes”

Filed under: Food, Government, Health, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:14

You’ve undoubtedly heard lots of recommendations to reduce the salt in your diet, right? The western diet — especially the North American variant — has “too much salt”, and it’s killing us. At least, that’s what has been drummed into our heads for the last twenty years or more. The problem is that is may not actually be true, and in fact may create other health issues:

Although researchers quietly acknowledged that the data were “inconclusive and contradictory” or “inconsistent and contradictory” — two quotes from the cardiologist Jeremiah Stamler, a leading proponent of the eat-less-salt campaign, in 1967 and 1981 — publicly, the link between salt and blood pressure was upgraded from hypothesis to fact.

[. . .]

When researchers have looked at all the relevant trials and tried to make sense of them, they’ve continued to support Dr. Stamler’s “inconsistent and contradictory” assessment. Last year, two such “meta-analyses” were published by the Cochrane Collaboration, an international nonprofit organization founded to conduct unbiased reviews of medical evidence. The first of the two reviews concluded that cutting back “the amount of salt eaten reduces blood pressure, but there is insufficient evidence to confirm the predicted reductions in people dying prematurely or suffering cardiovascular disease.” The second concluded that “we do not know if low salt diets improve or worsen health outcomes.”

The idea that eating less salt can worsen health outcomes may sound bizarre, but it also has biological plausibility and is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, too. A 1972 paper in The New England Journal of Medicine reported that the less salt people ate, the higher their levels of a substance secreted by the kidneys, called renin, which set off a physiological cascade of events that seemed to end with an increased risk of heart disease. In this scenario: eat less salt, secrete more renin, get heart disease, die prematurely.

With nearly everyone focused on the supposed benefits of salt restriction, little research was done to look at the potential dangers. But four years ago, Italian researchers began publishing the results from a series of clinical trials, all of which reported that, among patients with heart failure, reducing salt consumption increased the risk of death.

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