NYT op/ed writer: Quit yer b*tchin’, and embrace the nanny state!
The writer of this opinion piece – author andΒ Bowdoin CollegeΒ assistant philosophyΒ professor Sarah Conly – is not an official member of the NYT’s editorial board, but her drool-fest over Bloomberg’s nanny-state power grabs make her a strong contender should an opening become available (bolded emphasis added by me):
WHY has there been so much fuss about New York Cityβs attempt to impose a soda ban, or more precisely, a ban on large-size βsugary drinksβ? After all, people can still get as much soda as they want. This isnβt Prohibition. Itβs just that getting it would take slightly more effort. So, why is this such a big deal?
Obviously, itβs not about soda. Itβs because such a ban suggests that sometimes we need to be stopped from doing foolish stuff, and this has become, in contemporary American politics, highly controversial, no matter how trivial the particular issue. (Large cups of soda as symbols of human dignity? Really?)
[…]
We have a vision of ourselves as free, rational beings who are totally capable of making all the decisions we need to in order to create a good life. Give us complete liberty, and, barring natural disasters, weβll end up where we want to be. Itβs a nice vision, one that makes us feel proud of ourselves. But itβs false.
[…]
A lot of times we have a good idea of where we want to go, but a really terrible idea of how to get there. Itβs well established by now that we often donβt think very clearly when it comes to choosing the best means to attain our ends. We make errors. This has been the object of an enormous amount of study over the past few decades, and what has been discovered is that we are all prone to identifiable and predictable miscalculations.
[…]
We also suffer from a status quo bias, which makes us value what weβve already got over the alternatives, just because weβve already got it β which might, of course, make us react badly to new laws, even when they are really an improvement over what weβve got. And there are more.
The crucial point is that in some situations itβs just difficult for us to take in the relevant information and choose accordingly. Itβs not quite the simple ignorance [John Stuart] Mill was talking about, but it turns out that our minds are more complicated than Mill imagined. Like the guy about to step through the hole in the bridge, we need help.
[…]
Do we care so much about our health that we want to be forced to go to aerobics every day and give up all meat, sugar and salt? No. But in this case, itβs some extra soda. Banning a law on the grounds that it might lead to worse laws would mean we could have no laws whatsoever.
In the old days we used to blame people for acting imprudently, and say that since their bad choices were their own fault, they deserved to suffer the consequences. Now we see that these errors arenβt a function of bad character, but of our shared cognitive inheritance. The proper reaction is not blame, but an impulse to help one another.
Thatβs what the government is supposed to do, help us get where we want to go. Itβs not always worth it to intervene, but sometimes, where the costs are small and the benefit is large, it is. Thatβs why we have prescriptions for medicine. And thatβs why, as irritating as it may initially feel, the soda regulation is a good idea. Itβs hard to give up the idea of ourselves as completely rational. We feel as if we lose some dignity. But thatβs the way it is, and thereβs no dignity in clinging to an illusion.
Let me repeat that: “but sometimes, where the costs are small and the benefit is large, it is.” Β Even if the “small cost” is giving up your individual liberties bit by precious bit until none are left? Oh hell no, lady. I don’t think so!
This is the mind of the typical leftist: There is no such thing as personal responsibility – because you’re too stupid to take care of yourself and therefore Uncle Sam has to step in to “help” you control your diet, and anything else they decide is beyond your scope of being able to manage. Β Anne Sorock at Legal Insurrection adds:
If Conlyβs βThree Cheers for the Nanny Stateβ is the best retort toΒ New York Supreme Court Justice Milton Tinglingβs take downΒ of the Bloomberg ban, which the Justice referred to as βfraught with arbitrary and capricious consequencesβ and an βadministrative leviathanβ that would βeviscerateβ separation of powers, then it is time to rejoice and give three cheers for Conlyβs reveal of the leftβs mental state.
[…]
Conly, educated at the bastions of high thinking Princeton (BA), Cornell (MA), and Cornell (MA), may be as fine an advertisement against the leftβs thinking (as well as an Ivy League education) as any messaging campaign the RNC would hope to undertake.
Indeed. Β Beware.
Hat tip: Mememorandum