slippery slope | Breaking the Law

Ever heard of Bruce Vladeck?

He’s one of a chosen few health experts hand-selected by the patron saint of Nannydom, Dear Leader Michael Bloomberg, to serve on his noble Nanny Squad, AKA the New York City Board of Health.

You see, Vladeck, who, like I said, was hand-selected by Bloomberg, will more than likely vote Yea when his now infamous large soda ban comes to the floor.

Oh, Vladeck’s also considering a ban on large bags of popcorn.

Yep, popcorn.

“The popcorn isn’t a whole lot better than the soda,” declared Vladeck, whose not exactly, how shall we say it, the sveltest of characters, in a June 12 public health meeting.

You weren’t expecting this? Think Bloomberg and his fellow fat fighters just dream up a few random things to ban–and stop there? This is all part of Bloomberg’s well-intentioned but anti-freedom plan to tackle the obesity problem. And the smoking in public places problem. And the feeding the homeless problem.

You didn’t know these were problems? Well, they’re both illegal now, thanks to Bloomberg.

More bans will follow. Bans that, maybe by design, will be so crazy they make the soda ban seem…not so crazy. That’s that slippery slope thing.

When I first read the headline about the Nanny Squad’s potential desire to ban large bags of popcorn, I first thought it was an Onion article. Sadly, it wasn’t.

Worse, other members of the board, including Joel Forman, are considering a ban on large milk and coffee drinks, too. Probably things like peach milk shakes and iced Frappuccinos.

If guys such as Vladeck get their way, and they very well might–because obesity is a legitimate problem and even absurd solutions to legit problems in today’s ban-happy USA get passed–a couple going to a movie theater would have to pay more money to buy two overpriced popcorns instead of one big one.

By the way: Two medium bags of popcorn, which would still (hopefully) be legal in Bloomberg Land, likely contain MORE popcorn than one large bag.

Yes, Vladeck’s ban could actually make popcorn lovers poorer AND fatter!

Speaking of people who are kinda fat…

Over the past couple years, I’ve bookmarked hundreds of news stories on stupid laws that take away our liberties.

Stories like how New York has amped up its fines on people who smoke in public parks. And how the great business minds who run Portland, Ore, have fined Groupon nearly $900,000 for…

I’m serious…

Selling daily deals for limos.

Coupons, apparently, are considered anti competitive to the limo industry, which is highly regulated in Portland.

In the two days it took me to build this site over the weekend, I bookmarked seven stories on intrusive laws.

One was good: The Obama Administration, after facing a firestorm of complaints, reversed its decision to increase restrictions on how kids can work on farms.

The others weren’t good. At least not if you like freedom.

I’ll continue chronicling the antics of prying politicians and busybody bureaucrats on Breaking the Law’s new Diigo site.

One thing I’m certain of from this bookmarking madness is that the slippery slope is real. One thing, good or bad, naturally begets another. When you give someone power, they want more of it. When you take a little freedom away here, it becomes easier to take another one there.

We can see this on hundreds of issues, perhaps smoking most noticeably. Remember when municipalities, and then California, started banning smoking in restaurants?

It seemed Orwellian. I certainly never thought it would come to the South. Well, I’ll be…This process took only 10 years or so.

That’s more than a slippery slope.

It’s a water slide.

The scary part is that it’s easy to demagogue these issues:

We want to protect children against mangling their tiny hands in power tillers. We want to save hard-working limo drivers from destitution. We want to prevent people from killing themselves with cancerous, smelly smoke.

How can you argue with that?

The first step is to know that almost every mandate has a good goal. The second step is to know–because it’s the truth–that every mandate takes someone’s freedom away and that most of them have unforseen side effects.

The third step? I don’t know. Maybe it’s getting more media out there skeptical of government intrusion. More blogs. More newspaper stories. More TV programs.

As a former newspaper journalist, I can tell you J school taught me, incorrectly of course, that every problem needed a government solution.

Just wait till some kid loses his hand in a freak accident in Iowa. You’ll see headlines and Op-eds crying for the federal government to protect children from farm work.

And so, the slippery slope gets slipperier.

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