Soft drinks and soft despotism: Bloated government won’t make thinner people

Mayor Michael Bloomberg sent shockwaves throughout the world last month when he announced plans to ban oversize government in New York City. Acknowledging that governmental obesity across America has grown to alarming proportions, with rates of administrative fatness reaching gargantuan sizes, Mr. Bloomberg promised to ban all legislation in New York which required more paperwork than could comfortably fit into a 16-ounce cup.

Speaking from the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, Mayor Bloomberg announced, “In New York City, as throughout the United States, government is overweight or obese, and there are real-world consequences. … We are absolutely committed to doing everything in our power to help government get on track and stay on track to maintain a healthy lifestyle. … Government flab is the only major public issue we have that is getting worse and New York City has the courage to stand up and do something about it.”

OK, OK, so he didn’t really say any of that. What he actually proposed was to ban the sale of sugary drinks of more than 16 ounces in restaurants, delis, sports venues, movie theaters, and street carts throughout the five boroughs of New York—sugary drinks being defined as those which contain “more than 25 calories per 8 fluid ounces and contain less than 51 percent milk or milk substitute by volume as an ingredient.” In other words, Mayor Bloomberg believes that fatter government can make thinner people.

George Orwell once said that some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals could believe them. The idea of tackling obesity by banning people from sitting in delis drinking 20-ounce sodas sits comfortably in this category. The idea is risible for a whole host of reasons, some of them minor and some of them major. The minor quibbles include the following questions: Why the entirely arbitrary level of 16 ounces? Why restaurants and not grocery stores? Why soft drinks and not sugary junk foods? Are they next on the Bloomberg ration list?

Quite apart from any other objection, the ban is so unworkable that it could end up causing more of that which it is supposedly trying to stop. Any astute businessman out there could not merely get around the ban, but indeed profit from it. Don’t be surprised if you see something like this: “New to Marco’s Deli—The Bloomberg: A 15 oz. Undersize Soda With Free 5 oz. Top-Up.” There is such a thing as the law of unintended consequences and it could be that certain restaurants and delis end up finding audacious ways of selling more, not less, high-sugar drinks to their customers than before the ban.

There are some more fundamental objections, though. The first is related to health and “obesity.” Those in favor of the ban point to the fact that Americans are generally overweight and their logic tells them that something must therefore be done to fix the problem. But the questions “Are Americans overweight?” and “Does America have an obesity problem?” do not necessarily produce the same answers, as is glibly assumed. The answer to the first question is clearly yes; Americans are on average flabbier than is good for them. But does this actually constitute a problem? If so, why is it a problem and whom is it a problem for?

Sure, if extra weight actually does lead to a serious health condition, then certain individuals should be concerned, and it might also be a problem for the person’s family and employer if his level of health is such that he is unable to do the kinds of things that a normal active sort of person might reasonably be expected to do.

But is it a problem for America? Well, it could only be a problem for America if “America” had to pay the medical bills. That is, weight and health problems only become a problem for America if health care has been socialized and is funded by the taxpayer via the government.

Now even if “obesity” is a problem for a significant number of Americans, the government couldn’t prescribe a one-size-fits-all solution anyway. “Obesity” is notoriously difficult to measure, its causes are hotly contested, and even the claims about the links between obesity and health problems have often been exaggerated.

And what if government itself is part of the problem? American obesity rates have been on a steep upward curve since the 1970s, and tinkering with the standards and statistics aside, it probably does boil down to a decline in good eating habits and knowledge of nutrition. But this decline also corresponds with a change in official nutrition recommendations from the federal government, which many commentators say exacerbated the problem. Furthermore, the era of American obesity also happens to be the period in which socialized health care really began to take off. Could this be a contributing factor? Yes, it could, simply because socialized health care removes much of the incentive and need to exercise self-control over what we put into our mouths.

Don’t misunderstand me; I am not saying that socialized health care has caused the American people to become fat. What I am saying is that it is at least a contributory factor. Some might dispute this, given that in most states Medicaid rules stipulate that treatment for obesity is not covered. But this is beside the point. Medicaid does cover treatment for a multitude of conditions related to and exacerbated by obesity. This explains why the obesity measures used indicate that Medicaid enrollees have the highest prevalence of obesity compared with those who are uninsured, privately insured, or in Medicare, with 11 percent of U.S. adult Medicaid expenditures going to treat obesity-related medical conditions. Research has also found that children covered by Medicaid are nearly six times more likely to be treated for severe obesity than children in families with private insurance.

Because the standards and measures are so problematic, I wouldn’t recommend that any attempt be made to measure the “obesity” of Samaritan members, but my hunch is that they would be far lower than the general populace simply because every member knows that they are accountable to someone else and must look after their health as other members of the body of Christ may at some point have to pick up the tab for their medical bills.

This is far different from what happens when health care is socialized. In the state system, true accountability is impossible. And so what we get is a fake, manufactured attempt at accountability, where the government plays Daddy to us all but does so in an overbearing way, forcing and cajoling people into changing their behaviour under the pretense of looking out for our interests.

Which brings us to the second major objection to Mayor Bloomberg’s soda ban, which is that of liberty. America in the early 21st century is fast becoming what Alexis de Tocqueville admired about it for avoiding; what he called Soft Despotism. His description of this in Democracy in America is so accurate a picture of what the likes of Mayor Bloomberg are proposing that it is well worth quoting in full:

Thus, after having successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. (Alexis de Toqueville, Democracy in America, Volume 2, Book 4, Chapter 6)

But surely Mayor Bloomberg couldn’t be accused of acting like a Soft Despot, could he? After all, he claims to be a supporter of “liberty” in many different areas. For example, he is a supporter of abortion, stating that “Reproductive choice is a fundamental human right, and we can never take it for granted,” and he is also a supporter of same-sex marriage, once saying, “Government shouldn’t tell you whom to marry.”

But it all hinges on what your definition of liberty is. It just so happens that Mayor Bloomberg wants liberty in areas where God says there is none, and he wants to curtail liberty in those areas where God grants it, such as the right to buy big, fizzy drinks. So New Yorkers have the “fundamental right” to cull the unborn and the “liberty” to “marry” whomsoever they please, but will soon be denied the freedom to drink more than a pint of Coca Cola in a restaurant. This is the mark of a Soft Despot. There is something faintly absurd about this, and our response to such back-to-front, upside-down thinking should probably resemble the little boy’s response upon seeing the Emperor parading down the street wearing his “new clothes.”

We should also recognize that this encroaching Soft Despotism is a judgment upon the nation for its sins. Proverbs 28:2 says, “For the transgression of a land many are the princes thereof: but by a man of understanding and knowledge the state thereof shall be prolonged.” In other words, there is a connection between New York legalizing same-sex marriage and its impending ban on the sale of large soft drinks. As the transgression of a land increases, as it flagrantly violates God’s laws, inevitably God sends big government with its bureaucratic regulations to strip away freedoms in the way described so well by de Tocqueville. This is why America is now moving toward a government-controlled health care system, with the Supreme Court effectively granting the federal government the right to do whatever it likes in the lives of American citizens.

Don’t think that Soft Despotism can be fixed by voting out a single political figure like Mayor Bloomberg as mayor of New York. Soft Despots have become pervasive throughout all levels and parties in America and represent a judgment of God upon America. We must begin by stopping our own participation in Soft Despotism and cry out to God to turn the nation away from the path towards tyranny. We must recognize that His Word indicates that He will continue to send such men to rule over us, until such time as the nation repents. Only then will we know what it means to be ruled by “a man of understanding and knowledge.”

Rob Slane is the author of The God Reality: A critique of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. A former atheist, Slane is now a member of Emmanuel Church in Salisbury, England, where he and his family live.