Do we really have a "choice" when it comes to our food?

[turd ferguson]

But your second statement is interesting - implying that the obstacle to banning something is primarly that they aren't capable of it, rather than that they shouldn't infringe on people's freedoms. To beat my email analogy to death:

Question: should we start reading everyone's emails?

Wrong answer: No. That would be very hard and take a long time.

Right answer: No. People are entitled to privacy.

I don't mean "not capable" as in "being too hard and taking a long time (or costing too much money);" I mean "not capable" as "would never be allowed since it's not the right thing to do."

Or, in the case of government, "haven't figured out a way of doing it without people catching us doing it and getting all upset about it, no matter how much we apologize and say that it will never happen again."

The next time we go out, and you order wine, I'm going to mumble something about health and take it from you and drink it. Because you're apparently okay with prohibition, you'll be happy. Because I'm freedom-loving, I'll be happy. So we'll both be happy.

[dgrant]

You're making my point for me. No one wants to ban beverage sales YET. This is how it starts.

Virtually every object I encounter every minute of my life is in some way regulated without my knowledge or consent. Yet those objects exist. Alcohol in Ontario is extremely regulated... the amount I can purchase, the composition of the product, the times of day I can buy it, the way it's marketed to me, the age at which I can purchase it, activities I can perform while enjoying it... yet there's no suggestion of banning alcohol. Building codes... speed limits... restaurant inspections... electrical and plumbing standards... workplace safety...what you can and can't feed the animals I eat... thank goodness nearly everything is regulated without my input. "Personal choice" is mostly an illusion in Canadian life, and it's going pretty well.

[Mark.AU]

You're making my point for me. No one wants to ban beverage sales YET. This is how it starts.

Virtually every object I encounter every minute of my life is in some way regulated without my knowledge or consent. Yet those objects exist. Alcohol in Ontario is extremely regulated... the amount I can purchase, the composition of the product, the times of day I can buy it, the way it's marketed to me, the age at which I can purchase it, activities I can perform while enjoying it... yet there's no suggestion of banning alcohol. Building codes... speed limits... restaurant inspections... electrical and plumbing standards... workplace safety...what you can and can't feed the animals I eat... thank goodness nearly everything is regulated without my input. "Personal choice" is mostly an illusion in Canadian life, and it's going pretty well.

So, because there's some control, it's okay to have more?

[Jwolf]

You're making my point for me. No one wants to ban beverage sales YET. This is how it starts.

Virtually every object I encounter every minute of my life is in some way regulated without my knowledge or consent. Yet those objects exist. Alcohol in Ontario is extremely regulated... the amount I can purchase, the composition of the product, the times of day I can buy it, the way it's marketed to me, the age at which I can purchase it, activities I can perform while enjoying it... yet there's no suggestion of banning alcohol. Building codes... speed limits... restaurant inspections... electrical and plumbing standards... workplace safety...what you can and can't feed the animals I eat... thank goodness nearly everything is regulated without my input. "Personal choice" is mostly an illusion in Canadian life, and it's going pretty well.

I agree Dave.

I don't think the slippery slope argument holds water in all cases.

My point about the alcohol was that there's no sign of banning it even though it's restricted. It's not legal because it's too hard to ban it (history aside, that's not the reason now). It's legal because as a society we know that in moderation it is beneficial for society, and we rely on societal norms with the help of regulation to keep it under control. I'm ok with that.

The other thing I don't like about the slippery-slope argument is that it assumes a one-way direction of increased regulation. Society is not that linear.

[turd ferguson]

You're making my point for me. No one wants to ban beverage sales YET. This is how it starts.

Virtually every object I encounter every minute of my life is in some way regulated without my knowledge or consent. Yet those objects exist. Alcohol in Ontario is extremely regulated... the amount I can purchase, the composition of the product, the times of day I can buy it, the way it's marketed to me, the age at which I can purchase it, activities I can perform while enjoying it... yet there's no suggestion of banning alcohol. Building codes... speed limits... restaurant inspections... electrical and plumbing standards... workplace safety...what you can and can't feed the animals I eat... thank goodness nearly everything is regulated without my input. "Personal choice" is mostly an illusion in Canadian life, and it's going pretty well.

I agree Dave.

I don't think the slippery slope argument holds water in all cases.

Okay. When doesn't it?

[Jwolf]

You're making my point for me. No one wants to ban beverage sales YET. This is how it starts.

Virtually every object I encounter every minute of my life is in some way regulated without my knowledge or consent. Yet those objects exist. Alcohol in Ontario is extremely regulated... the amount I can purchase, the composition of the product, the times of day I can buy it, the way it's marketed to me, the age at which I can purchase it, activities I can perform while enjoying it... yet there's no suggestion of banning alcohol. Building codes... speed limits... restaurant inspections... electrical and plumbing standards... workplace safety...what you can and can't feed the animals I eat... thank goodness nearly everything is regulated without my input. "Personal choice" is mostly an illusion in Canadian life, and it's going pretty well.

I agree Dave.

I don't think the slippery slope argument holds water in all cases.

Okay. When doesn't it?

sorry- you replied too quickly, and I modified my post above. Maybe that's enough clarity?

[turd ferguson]

You're making my point for me. No one wants to ban beverage sales YET. This is how it starts.

Virtually every object I encounter every minute of my life is in some way regulated without my knowledge or consent. Yet those objects exist. Alcohol in Ontario is extremely regulated... the amount I can purchase, the composition of the product, the times of day I can buy it, the way it's marketed to me, the age at which I can purchase it, activities I can perform while enjoying it... yet there's no suggestion of banning alcohol. Building codes... speed limits... restaurant inspections... electrical and plumbing standards... workplace safety...what you can and can't feed the animals I eat... thank goodness nearly everything is regulated without my input. "Personal choice" is mostly an illusion in Canadian life, and it's going pretty well.

I agree Dave.

I don't think the slippery slope argument holds water in all cases.

Okay. When doesn't it?

sorry- you replied too quickly, and I modified my post above. Maybe that's enough clarity?

I see your change.

I guess my experience is that regulation is almost always linear in the direction of more regulation. Laws get added, regulations get lengthened, new things get regulated. Governments very rarely say "you know what, this isn't a space we need to be in, let's back off". When that does happen, its notable and exceptional.

[dgrant]

You're making my point for me. No one wants to ban beverage sales YET. This is how it starts.

Virtually every object I encounter every minute of my life is in some way regulated without my knowledge or consent. Yet those objects exist. Alcohol in Ontario is extremely regulated... the amount I can purchase, the composition of the product, the times of day I can buy it, the way it's marketed to me, the age at which I can purchase it, activities I can perform while enjoying it... yet there's no suggestion of banning alcohol. Building codes... speed limits... restaurant inspections... electrical and plumbing standards... workplace safety...what you can and can't feed the animals I eat... thank goodness nearly everything is regulated without my input. "Personal choice" is mostly an illusion in Canadian life, and it's going pretty well.

So, because there's some control, it's okay to have more?

As Jennifer says, I just don't believe that it's a slippery slope. I think most of the evidence in our everyday lives suggests this. Requiring a driver's license hasn't been the first step to banning cars. Requiring (expensive) sprinklers in certain buildings hasn't led to banning large buildings. Making sure Subway keep cold cuts at a certain temperature hasn't led to anyone saying "Y'know what, let's just shut 'em all down and be done with it." Modern life thrives on regulation and imposed standardization, and I think for the most part our society is good at finding the sweet spot between the wild west and absolute lockdown.

[dgrant]

Governments very rarely say "you know what, this isn't a space we need to be in, let's back off". When that does happen, its notable and exceptional.

Particularly in the US, isn't industry self-regulation a very popular and practiced concept... usually in hindsight with "how could we have thought this was a good idea?" consequences? (Environmental practices, financial markets, etc...)

We need drghfx in here to complete our annual libertarian (Mark and turd ferguson) vs pinko commie (dgrant and drghfx) tradition!

[La]

We need drghfx in here to complete our annual libertarian (Mark and turd ferguson) vs pinko commie (dgrant and drghfx) tradition!

With La sitting comfortably on the left side of the fence (except when it comes to the food industry).

[Mark.AU]

We need drghfx in here to complete our annual libertarian (Mark and turd ferguson) vs pinko commie (dgrant and drghfx) tradition!

[La]

I guess one of the reasons I lean toward pro-regulation (where it makes sense) is because I have people in my life who are horribly gullible, believing all kinds of claims made by producers and sellers of various products. I worry that the libretarian approach (could we even call it Darwinian?) tends to be favoured by intellegent, well-educated, rational, skeptical people. Not everyone is like that, so that's why I think controls are important, even if it appears to ingfringe on people's freedom of choice.

[Mark.AU]

So the people too stupid to make their own decisions have their freedom of choice removed by regulators to protect them from their bad choices - but it's okay because they're too dumb to realize they've lost that freedom of choice; and the people smart enough to make the right choice in the first place have their freedom of choice removed because they are a minority anyway. That about it?

[La]

First of all, I never said stupid. If you think that people who are easily manipulated by companies making false claims, or just don't have the resources available to them to know any better, are stupid, then that's your judgment, not mine.

Second of all, if you think everyone should have the freedom to drive a car without wearing their seatbelt (or ride a motorcycle without a helmet), to consume as much alcohol as they want before getting behind the wheel of a car, buy products that haven't been tested according to standards to ensure they are safe (not to mention making false claims about the efficacy of the products), because, heck, people should know better and if they don't, then it's their own fault, is that really very smart?

I sound like a broken record here, but the proposed legislation doesn't say anything about limiting how much SSBs a person can buy at once, it simply controls the size of package that the manufacturer can sell. How is that taking someone's personal freedom away? It's like requiring that cigarettes have to be kept behind cover in stores that sell them - it doesn't remove people's freedom to buy cigarettes, just that the sellers/manufacturers have to comply with some controls to prevent the advertizing of their product.

And to say it's a "slippery slope" is not a valid reason not to do it, since it's based on a condition that may never come to fruition.

[Spirit Unleashed]

I don't think pop should be considered in the same regulation category as cigarettes, cars, helmets, alcohol, firearms, pharmaceuticals.

[ultraslacker]

I don't think pop should be considered in the same regulation category as cigarettes, cars, helmets, alcohol, firearms, pharmaceuticals.

we've already banned trans fats... so that door is already wide open!

[turd ferguson]

I sound like a broken record here, but the proposed legislation doesn't say anything about limiting how much SSBs a person can buy at once, it simply controls the size of package that the manufacturer can sell. How is that taking someone's personal freedom away? It's like requiring that cigarettes have to be kept behind cover in stores that sell them - it doesn't remove people's freedom to buy cigarettes, just that the sellers/manufacturers have to comply with some controls to prevent the advertizing of their product.

And to say it's a "slippery slope" is not a valid reason not to do it, since it's based on a condition that may never come to fruition.

That's just this proposal. That's how it starts. They don't start with a proposal that takes away all of your freedom at once, they start with a proposal that takes away just a little bit of your freedom in a way you won't notice, and then a little bit more, and a little bit more. And each time they ratchet it up, they point to the fact that they've already taken away a bit of freedom and not much changed. By the time you've given up the first few bits of freedom, its too late to draw a line and say "here and no further" because the freedom-haters have momentum.

You can see that logic in this thread. We've already banned trans-fats so the door is open, let's ban sodas. No, wait, people will notice if we do that. Let's ban big sodas, people won't complain, then in a couple of years we'll declare great success and ban medium sodas. Then we'll ban all sodas.

The problem with prohibition in the 1930s was that they bit off too much at once. If they'd done it gradually, they might have gotten away with it.

So I disagree that the slippery slope argument is invalid. What's invalid is arguing that "I'm just going to take one step down that hill, but I'm not going anu further that one step".

[turd ferguson]

We need drghfx in here to complete our annual libertarian (Mark and turd ferguson) vs pinko commie (dgrant and drghfx) tradition!

I'll bring the unpasteurized cheese, lawn darts and homegrown bud.

[Jwolf]

Who is the "we" that have already banned trans-fats? Denmark?

[dgrant]

We need drghfx in here to complete our annual libertarian (Mark and turd ferguson) vs pinko commie (dgrant and drghfx) tradition!

I'll bring the unpasteurized cheese, lawn darts and homegrown bud.

I'll bring Lysol wipes and my self-righteousness.

[dgrant]

That's just this proposal. That's how it starts. They don't start with a proposal that takes away all of your freedom at once, they start with a proposal that takes away just a little bit of your freedom in a way you won't notice, and then a little bit more, and a little bit more. And each time they ratchet it up, they point to the fact that they've already taken away a bit of freedom and not much changed. By the time you've given up the first few bits of freedom, its too late to draw a line and say "here and no further" because the freedom-haters have momentum.

When specifically, in America, has this happened? I can't really think of a case where top-down limitations have led to an outright ban. In the US, even the most basic regulation moves at a glacial pace... resisted at every turn.

Prohibition maybe, although that was more of a hundred year-long grassroots movement that got traction in government after it was widely popular with the public. Not really congress saying "Here's how it's gonna be."

[turd ferguson]

That's just this proposal. That's how it starts. They don't start with a proposal that takes away all of your freedom at once, they start with a proposal that takes away just a little bit of your freedom in a way you won't notice, and then a little bit more, and a little bit more. And each time they ratchet it up, they point to the fact that they've already taken away a bit of freedom and not much changed. By the time you've given up the first few bits of freedom, its too late to draw a line and say "here and no further" because the freedom-haters have momentum.

When specifically, in America, has this happened? I can't really think of a case where top-down limitations have led to an outright ban. In the US, even the most basic regulation moves at a glacial pace... resisted at every turn.

Prohibition maybe, although that was more of a hundred year-long grassroots movement that got traction in government after it was widely popular with the public. Not really congress saying "Here's how it's gonna be."

Smoking. First they banned it in labour and delivery rooms, then in airplanes, then in restaurants, then in bars, then in cars with children. At the same time, they gradually restricted advertising and packaging and increased taxes. The anti-smoking advocates got it right - if they'd started off asking for a complete ban on all smoking everywhere, there would still be smoking on airplanes and in movie theatres today. Its a perfect example of how to chip away until you get the ban you want.

Not that I'm arguing against smoking bans - I'm just using it as an example. If your goal was to (say) ban refined sugar, would you start advocating for an outright refined sugar ban, or would you start with labelling and very modest restrictions?

[Jwolf]

Is smoking really a good example? There you are balancing personal freedom vs. the rights of others (i.e., second-hand smoke). The bans are not about restricting personal choice by "freedom-haters", they are about your personal choice infringing on others rights.

[turd ferguson]

Dave was looking for an example of something that was gradually banned.

The bans are not about restricting personal choice by "freedom-haters", they are about your personal choice infringing on others rights.

In my experience saying that "This is not about X" usually means that its about X. Smoking bans are about restricting personal freedom. There's probably a pretty good argument that the restrictions are reasonable, but let's not be intellectually dishonest by pretending that its not about that.

[dgrant]

Smoking. First they banned it in labour and delivery rooms, then in airplanes, then in restaurants, then in bars, then in cars with children. At the same time, they gradually restricted advertising and packaging and increased taxes. The anti-smoking advocates got it right - if they'd started off asking for a complete ban on all smoking everywhere, there would still be smoking on airplanes and in movie theatres today. Its a perfect example of how to chip away until you get the ban you want.

Smoking is not banned in America, and I can buy and use cigarettes in every single county. Smoking in America proves there is no slippery slope... it takes foooorrrrrreeeevvvverrr to get the most basic common sense limitations enacted (you could still smoke on airplanes as recently as 15 years ago), and there are so many political roadblocks to resist regulation that you can still smoke almost everywhere in red states. We've known for what - 3 (4? 5?) generations that second hand smoke is dangerous, but only 5 out of 50 states have laws regarding smoking in cars with kids. American governments are allergic to regulations.