In recent decades, the judiciary has been at the forefront of efforts to expand the power of government and to restrict the rights of the individual citizen. But today at least one judge has struck a blow against the nanny state and its billionaire advocate. Justice Milton A. Tingling of the New York State Supreme Court handed down a ruling today that prevents the city of New York from putting into effect Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s law banning the sale of certain sizes of sugared drinks. While Bloomberg’s administration plans to appeal the decision, for now the effort to prevent New Yorkers from making a choice about what kind and what amounts of drinks to consume has been shelved.
Tingling rightly blasted the law as “arbitrary and capricious” since the text of the law was a confused mess. Only some types of sugared drinks were targeted for the new rules and the sales would only be restricted in some types of establishments. The legislation seemed designed to mandate “uneven enforcement even within a particular city block, much less the city as a whole.” Moreover, the loopholes within the rule effectively defeated the purpose of the entire endeavor.
But Tingling’s critique was not merely about the poor drafting of the law. Far more important was the city’s decision to give itself far-ranging power to act in the name of public health. By saying it had the right to tell people how much soda they could drink in this manner it was establishing a government monster “that would leave its authority to define, create, mandate and enforce limited only by its own imagination.” The result would be to “create an administrative Leviathan.” In doing so, the judge highlighted the fact that this controversy isn’t about whether sugared drinks are healthy but whether the impulse to do good gives Bloomberg, New York or any legislature or government bureaucrat unlimited power to restrict individual rights.
Let’s specify that drinking large amounts of sugared drinks is unhealthy and that obesity has become a serious health problem in the United States. The government’s duty to protect public health does give it the right to ban certain types of dangerous substances. But even if the consumption of large amounts of sugar is bad for us, that doesn’t mean New York City, or any municipality that wants to turn itself into a nanny state, should have the ability to tell citizens how much of a legal substance they can or cannot eat or drink so long as doing so does not create an imminent danger to public safety–as with alcohol.
The soda ban was poorly drafted and created an inconsistent and hypocritical set of rules that wouldn’t have done much, if anything, to make anyone healthier. But the issue here is whether the desire to improve our health is sufficient to justify the abrogation of individual rights. The point is not so much the right to imbibe 32-ounce drinks at the movies as it is whether there is anything the government may not regulate in its zeal to become the food police.
The context for this battle is the shift in opinion in which health has replaced, or rather now serves as a substitute for, virtue in our public square. Smoking is a vile, anti-social habit that poisons the air we breath as well as the lungs of nicotine addicts. But it has now assumed an evil status that was once reserved for ethical or moral transgressions about which a culture of moral relativism now informs us we must be nonjudgmental. But anything that can be branded as unhealthy bears with it the mark of Cain today.
If we are now a nation that treats the fad of organic food as a religious obligation and worships health the way we once celebrated moral behavior or piety, so be it. But if we are to translate these beliefs into law then the same danger applies to other attempts to legislate certain types of morality.
A government that can tell citizens what to eat or drink or how much can be legally consumed is one in which individual liberty is now considered a less important value than the dictates of dieticians. Neither the obesity epidemic nor any other health issue based in individual choice can give New York City, or any other government, such power. We can only hope that Judge Tingling’s ruling stands and prevents further attacks on liberty in New York and any other place where politicians seek to use public health as a lever to abrogate individual rights.
see, this is one of the main reasons I continue to smoke cigarettes (aside from the fact that I'm completely addicted, of course). I do not want anyone telling me what I can put in my own body, or what I can do in my own car or home. n nI'm delighted this judge stood up to Nanny Bloomberg. "Arbitrary and capricious" is the best description of Bloomberg's overreaches I've heard. whether it's salt, smoke, Coca-Cola, or whatever, I want Bloomberg and his nanny pals OUT OF MY WORLD. n
"I do not want anyone telling me what I can put in my own body, or what I can do in my own car or home." n nI agree completely. But you should also have health insurance so that any illnesses that arise from your choices don't wind up being paid for by taxpayers.
It is only paid by the taxpayers because the government volunteers taxpayers to pay it. There is no intrinsic reason why it has to be paid by taxpayers and all proposals to cut Medicare (including by Obama) are to that extent proof that it needn't be paid by taxpayers.
"It is only paid by the taxpayers because the government volunteers taxpayers to pay it." n nWhat nonsense. If a person gets cancer and doesn't have insurance, in many cases the cost of hospitalization, medication and care will eat up all of his or her assets. And since we don't let people die in this country, taxpayers pick up the tab after the patient is reduced to penury. I wasn't referring to Medicare patients.
First, it is fact, not nonsense. It is only because that quasi or full socialist medical care is offered via national legislation that "the taxpayer" is ever on the hook for someone else's medical care. It may be unpleasant or unfair or whatever, but is just a simple fact. Same reason why "the taxpayer" is on the hook for someone's lack of housing, a job, etc. National legislation, mostly from the New Deal or Great Society, is why. Before those laws were passed (a) society was not some beastly Hobbesian world and (b) "the taxpayer" was generally not on the hook for other people's housing, health care, job status, etc. n nSecond, there are market driven ways of preventing the parade of horribles you list (but fail to recognize were almost entirely caused by the very thing you believe to be the solution).
Right, there are tons of market driven ways to secure health care for those reduced to poverty by medical bills. Tons!
There are market driven ways to prevent that eventuality for probably 95% of the country. For the other 5% you can give them healtcare for free. But insane to provide free healthcare to 100% of the country.
The point is that "we don't let people die in this country" is a matter of law, and law can be changed–and, in this case, it ought to be. There's no Constitutionally guaranteed right to have someone else pay your medical bills.
Hey Skippy, the Government has no right to tell me how much pop I can drink…
no intrinisic reason? the plague, tuburculosis, and the flu. there are the first three reasons i thought of
smoke to your heart's desire ndear ol' Dad smoked for 80 years and lived till almost 95, with never a cancer or heart attack. nhe was into vitamins, though nit's mostly genetic, anyway
WHAT — dear ol' Dad smoked and lived till almost 95?!?! Well I guess that means that all those warnings about smoking and cancer are nonsense.
Cigarettes = BAD n nMarajuana = GOOD n nThis is another hypocrisy of the left.
The truly scary thing is that roughly half of New Yorkers say they support Bloomberg's ban. As the saying goes, everybody gets the government they deserve…
Do those who don't support deserve Bloomberg for not opposing him more effectively, or for not moving elsewhere? I'm trying to figure out how I deserve Obama. Then again, maybe I deserve him due to any number of sins having nothing to do with politics. n nAs another saying goes, Woe to the wicked; woe to his neighbor!
Too bad the US Supreme Court did not have the wisdom of Justice Tingling when they were faced with a very similar power grab by Obama's EPA on carbon. Really the same issue.
Or the equally outrageous power-grab of Obamacare.
Samuel Butler described this particular dystopia in his novel Erewhon.
what docile new yorkers! rudy had respect not to pull this crap.
Not to worry the obesity epidemic will in the very near future be resolved when this overbearing government will nationalize, regulate, or tax out of existence the very best food producing industry in history. People are going to get very skinny very quickly through that tried and historically proven weight loss program called famine.
I'm glad the regulation was thrown out. it was a well-intended overreach. n nAdults have a right to make stupid choices and if rulieg wants to ingest the hideously addictive and quite poisonous nicotine smoke and die some painful protracted death that's just fine with me. n ni might suggest that it's best avoided, but it ain't my body.
The law did not prevent anyone from consuming as much sweet soda as they choose however, Commentary hyperbole deemed it as such! n nNotice the completely false heading, "Soda Ban and the Government Leviathan." n nThere is/was absolutely no ban on soda – none! If someone wished to consume gallons of the stuff they could, they just had to do so in smaller serving sizes! Reminds me of Arab Propaganda, "The Israeli's are stealing ALL of our land!" n nThe American Diabetes Association predicts that within ten years 50% of Americans will have diabetes or pre-diabetes! The increased cost TO US ALL is estimated to be 3.3 Trillion dollars increasing the annual cost of healthcare by $500 Billion/year which will be paid directly by us to our insurance companies. The average annual health care costs in 2009 for a person with known diabetes were about $11,700 compared with about $4,400 for the non-diabetic however those costs nearly double to $20,700 for a person with complications related to diabetes. WE ALL PAY FOR THAT in our insurance premiums. So either we allow insurance companies to drop patients who develop diabetes (not likely), end Medicare coverage for it (not likely) end Social Security Disability for it (not likely) or our health care costs will more than double in the next ten years (most likely). n nSo all those people now gulping down a quart of sugar at a time expressing their "freedom" to do as much damage as they choose to their body – all of you/us will be paying the bill for that "freedom" for the foreseeable future. n nWe can now add another unique distinction we can all be proud of as Americans, we are the most obese nation in the world and growing larger every day with Kuwait and Croatia coming up as a distant second and third!
yes, you’ve successfully disposed of the hyperbolic “ban” nonsense, but it remains that NYC hasn’t really the authority to control apportionment of beverage servings.
the aim is an improvement in public health but the regulation isn’t proportionate to the aim.
let’s treat it as an attempt that served to publicize a problem
So the law is okay because by your own admission it doesn't work? And it's okay to ban personal choice if you think that making the wrong choices may cost the rest of us money? n nOkay, great idea. Let's ban any poor choices that are unhealthy, especially if the choice may cost society money. n nTell me, doc, how do you feel about banning sex between men? Between people who are not married to one another? After all, the restraint on personal freedom is surely worth saving the cost to society in AIDS and HIV, and in broken families. n nHow about a ban on having kids out of wedlock? Look at the reduction in crime, in school dropout rates, and subsequent unemployment? n nHow about people who choose not to go to church? Or to go to the wrong church? Or who choose to go to church? I'm sure all of these are also correlated to health and income statistics. n
Your arguments are ridiculous because you ignore one significant fact and that is sugary drinks were NOT banned at all so your entire discussion of other behaviors/choices is of little or no value. BTW, all of those behaviors combined don't even come close to the horrific consequences of one out of every two Americans having diabetes within the next ten years, it will literally bankrupt the country. n nUnder the new law you could still drink gallons of the stuff but had to do it in smaller serving sizes – big deal. It is amazing to me how a law that limits serving size to 16 oz with no limitation on the number of servings is an assault on personal liberty. It would seem that to some, personally liberty uber alles, even when one persons choices definitely impinge upon the personal liberties of others. Now if these people assumed complete financial responsibility for their "liberties" and paid ALL their medical expenses themselves I would have no problem with it. If they assumed complete responsibility for the consequences of their actions, let them drink themselves to death but when I and everyone else get stuck with the bill, that isn't fair either.
Dr. does that not raise the question: why is the society at large responsible for paying the healthcare costs for OTHER people? Until THAT breach of civil liberties is addressed, your argument is moot — it is derivative of having acquiesced to the denial of the other right.
I am not referencing moral responsibility but rather the reality of the situation. If you buy health insurance, your rates are based upon the financial exposure of the insurance carrier, the more sick people there are (insured or not insured) the higher the rates. If you choose not to buy insurance then you better be able to pay the hundreds of thousands of dollars a single illness can cost in these times. Someone has to pay for the "free care" the uninsured receive and health care costs are rising because we as a nation are getting sicker. n nI was hospitalized for two hours a few weeks ago and just received a copy of the bill yesterday. Aside from the fact that with "good" insurance, I owe over a thousand dollars, two acetaminophen (generic) cost $44.27, why – someone has to pay for the "free" care others receive. Those costs are also passed along to insurance companies in the form of much higher fees for everything a doctor/hospital charges for. I was sent home with an ice pack and the insurance company was charged $58.71 for what was essentially a zip lock bag with plastic tabs to attach a piece of tape (cost of tape $19.88 for about ten inches). You would faint if you saw the price I would have paid if I was a cash pay (uninsured) patient. n nWhether you like it or not – WE ALL PAY for the right of others to exercise their civil liberties. If you don't want to, then just never get sick. We could of course do what the Nazis did and just let those who we deem as no longer "useful" to society be euthanized or just establish "dying centers" where people could bring their sick relatives to suffer a horrible death, no care – just a place to die at no cost to society, then no one's civil liberties would be breached. n
" We could of course do what the Nazis did and just let those who we deem as no longer "useful" to society be euthanized or just establish "dying centers" where people could bring their sick relatives to suffer a horrible death, no care – just a place to die at no cost to society, then no one's civil liberties would be breached. " n nNot unlike what the UK is doing now with their Orwellian named Liverpool "Care" Pathway, precisely because their public health system has run out of money. n nBut never mind, you have certainly proven that anyone who thinks that that government provided health care results in greater cost, worse care, more inefficiency, and fewer choices — or that government has no business telling people how large a cup of soda they can buy — is no better than a Nazi. n nDo you actually read what you post? Listen to yourself!
" It would seem that to some, personally liberty uber alles, even when one persons choices definitely impinge upon the personal liberties of others." Yeah, like the huge cost they impose on you by buying a large soda instead of buying it one 16 oz cup at a time. Or buying a 64 oz soda for their family of 8 and splitting it up at the table instead of buying 8 smaller and more expensive sodas. Or buying it at a fast food joint instead of a supermarket. n nAnd you call MY arguments ridiculous?
yes, you've successfully disposed of the hyperbolic "ban" nonsense, but it remains that NYC hasn't really the authority to control apportionment of beverage servings. n nthe aim is an improvement in public health but the regulation isn't proportionate to the aim. n n nlet's treat it as an attempt that served to publicize a problem
It is an interesting discussion with many ramifications. "Does society have to be responsible for your actions?" n nWhat if it irrevocably, already is? n nYou mention seat belt laws and reference the loss of liberty one suffers in being denied the choice not to wear them in exchange for the "right" to be treated at public expense without ever being asked if they are willing to relinquish that right. n nThis is an excellent "slippery slope" argument and there are many other factors to consider. Auto insurance is mandatory in most states if only to protect the property rights of others and as we know, property rights are very important. If I choose to exercise my liberty not to buy it and I smash into your Mercedes totalling it and injuring you and your family and don't have the funds to cover your losses, aren't you directly impacted by my choices? In states where there is active enforcement of seatbelt laws the insurance rates are lower due to the lower incidence of bodily injury claims. Another factor raised by the National Highway Safety Administration is the lower overall rate of accidents because people who wear their seatbelt are statistically less likely to cause an accident. So without even considering the fact that the person may be willing to relinquish his right to treatment at public expense which he couldn't do even if he wanted to because we don't let people die on the road, we all pay higher premiums when that person gets to choose whether to wear a seatbelt or not. nIn a modern society our actions in many cases directly effect the rights and liberties of others. If we went back in time and returned to an agrarian society where everyone fended for themselves, lived off the land and by necessity were totally responsible for their own actions without affecting their neighbors, it would be different. So the challenge is to find some way to balance personal liberty with the reality that some of your choices may limit mine. n nMy uncle lives in Ohio and his next door neighbor breeds German Shepherds. Now they make a lot of poop and they bark a lot. His neighbor uses the dung for compost and he has huge piles of it as dozens of dogs produce a lot of waste. In the summertime, my uncle can no longer use his backyard due to the terrible stench in fact, he and the neighbors have gone to court to force the guy to clean up the poop but he has steadfastly refused claiming that he has the right to use his property as he chooses. So far the courts have sided with him stating that to do otherwise would be abridging his rights. My uncle and his neighbors have tried to sell their house but no one wants to live next to this guy and because they took him to court, he piles the dung right next to the fence between their properties making conditions even worse. Now some would argue that the guy can do as he chooses, it's his property and his activity has been found to be lawful in Lucas County – to do otherwise would be restricting his personal liberty, so who is right? n nIt is the vast grey area that is so difficult to navigate that challenges us and the fact that when we are personally impacted and it's not some "faceless other" that we are forced to confront the paradigm. n
"This is an excellent "slippery slope" argument and there are many other factors to consider. Auto insurance is mandatory in most states if only to protect the property rights of others and as we know, property rights are very important. If I choose to exercise my liberty not to buy it and I smash into your Mercedes totalling it and injuring you and your family and don't have the funds to cover your losses, aren't you directly impacted by my choices?" n nYou are confusing auto liability insurance with auto medical insurance. The former is there to pay third party victims of your carelessness, and is required by most states as a condition to be permitted to drive on public roads. The latter pays you for medical care that you need as the result of an accident, regardless of who is at fault, and is usually optional. A handful of states require no fault insurance, where you pay for insurance to protect you from the consequences of the accident, regardless of who caused it. n n" In the summertime, my uncle can no longer use his backyard due to the terrible stench in fact, he and the neighbors have gone to court to force the guy to clean up the poop but he has steadfastly refused claiming that he has the right to use his property as he chooses. So far the courts have sided with him stating that to do otherwise would be abridging his rights. " n nThat's interesting, given several centuries of English and American common law dealing with the concept of nuisance — use of one's property in a way that unreasonably interferes with your neighbor's reasonable use of their property. So either the courts involved are consistently wrong, or you have misunderstood their rulings, or there are facts that you are not telling us (e.g. if the breeder was breeding these dogs before your uncle bought the property, or if the property is in a rural area or being maintained in accordance with law, etc.) Or maybe your uncle just needs a better lawyer, because the reason you attributed to the court is nonsense.
Michael Bloomberg is the face of tyranny, this is what a tyrant looks like, this is an over stretch by government.
Hugo Chavez got re-elected too. So did Huey Long, Richard J. Daley, Marion Berry, and Barack Obama.
that's as stupid an overreach as one is likely to hear, baldduck. n n ngive me a half-gallon of Pepsi at the movies or give me death? n
The nanny state is a predictable outcome of Medicaid, Medicare and publicly funded healthcare in general. Once the government is paying for your healthcare instead of you paying for it, they have a big interest in controlling your behavior as it contributes to your health. They are paying the piper, so they want to call the tune. While Mayor Mike Bloomberg is a little extreme, the general attitude is that experts know better than you do, so they want to tell you what’s good for you. Also, they want to save on paying for your healthcare. So progressives/liberals think they must be able to control your activities, for your own good.
Stand-up and fight back; do not give an inch to the Marxist anti-freedom Democrat Party!