We already have such a government, and I think most consumers are glad for it. How do you feel about e.coli tainted spinach? Personally, I’m pretty happy that I don’t have the “liberty” to buy it.

The question at hand isn’t whether or not the government should regulate food; it’s already done that for decades. The question is whether fast food (or trans fats, re: the recent NYC legislation) is sufficiently dangerous to warrant restriction.

I like an assertive government on public health issues.

You also seem to feel that others have the burden of proof. For example, the unintended consequences thing. Okay, there’s a possibility of it out there. I don’t know what the probability is. I don’t think that you do, either. Whose job is it to get some actual data? It may not be yours, but I don’t see any reason to believe that it must be mine.

I also think that you’re obfuscating the point. The notion that there is a single probability that this law will lead to others may be true on some sociological level, but it creates the impression that it’s some mysterious constant, set by god-knows-what. I think that the probability is a function of how well this behaviour that we’re discussing generalizes to the next situation. “We should outlaw labor by children” generalizes to “We should outlaw labor by women” rather poorly, for reasons I have already discussed. I submit that “We should disincent unhealthy eating” generalizes very well to “We should disincent unhealthy sex,” or “We should disincent unhealthy purchase decisions,” or “We should disincent unhealthy travel decisions.”

If you are 99.999% confident (which is pretty impressively confident) that the majority of people who find the argument that we should disincent unhealthy/heavily advertised eating decisions compelling will never find compelling the argument that we should disincent unhealthy/heavily advertised decisions about entertainment or childrearing or travel or who to associate with, then surely you can articulate some actual reason to support your certainty?

Slippery slopes do exist. But it is a logical fallacy to argue that once you’ve identified a POSSIBLE slippery slope that you’ve shown that the first step should not be taken. The key difference here is between possibility and probability. Asserting that A could lead to B does not in any way show that A will actually lead to B.

What is the probability that restricting fastfood establishments will lead to a wholesale restriction of other choices? I’d say about 0.001%. You seem to be implying that the probability is high enough (5%?, 40%?, 90%?) that we should not take that first step.

I won’t pursue you unintended bad consequence argument as it also assumes that possibility implies a high probability. It doesn’t.

Which diet should the government force on everyone?

Not every slope is slippery, of course. Your example of “outlaw child labor leads to outlawing women’s labor” does not follow precisely because it leaps across several lines: I can draw the distinction that children are presumeably incapable of making good decisions on their own, while women are not, and also that it is to the good of society for children to go to school, while adult women do not have something that is incompatible with work that they must do for society to function (well, actually, they do to a certain extent, and that’s why we demand that they be given maternity leave).

So there’s a line—the break in the slippery slope, if you will. If you give me some situation which is about “should we outlaw this kind of labor,” I can use these distinctions to decide, in a coherent manner, where I stand on it. If you come to me and say, “Mike, I want to outlaw labor by furry green aliens,” I can say, “Well, can furry green aliens make responsible decisions on their own behalf?” And “Is there something that it is critically important for furry green aliens to do that is incompatible with working, in order for society to function?” And then I can come up with a position on whether or not I agree with you that we should outlaw furry green alien labor.

So, I ask you, what are the lines you’re drawing? How are we supposed to generally distinguish between “good” incentives meant to save us from our own poor decisions about our health and our susceptibility to media, and “bad” incentives meant to save us from our own poor decisions about our health and our media? This is a serious question: I’ve never heard anyone be able to articulate anything better than, “Pshaw, we’ll just know!”

I agree: once they outlaw child labor next they’ll tell you women can’t work.

That’s why I stand up proud when I say “Let all 5 year old kids work in factories if they want!”

Slippery slopes; they are everywhere.

Some practical objections to this scheme:

1. Is It Well-Conceived?

Do we know that this law will have its intended effect? Will it in fact reduce (at the margin) obesity/poor eating? Will it give rise to other negative behaviors which will counter-act its benefits?

Is there a compelling reason to believe that if you make Whopper Jr.’s unavailable, that those who formerly ate fast-food will now turn to healthy food, and not, for example, microwaveable junk food like Hot Pockets or whatnot from the supermarket? If I may cite Fast Food Nation, I seem to recall that one of the attractive things about fast food for the working poor was that it was, well, fast and conveniant… Which suggests to me that replacing fast food with sit-down restaurants may simply mean empty sit-down restaurants.

Fast food restaurants are also a regular source for jobs (yes, yes, I know—very low paying jobs) and regularly employee teenagers. Will whatever replaces the fast food restaurants also employee people? Will anything replace the fast food restaurants? Could we agree that teenagers earning some cash at jobs they by and large like (again, my source for this claim is Fast Food Nation) are more in society’s benefit than idle, non-working teenagers? Can we also agree that vacant buildings in urban areas do not have a great track record for breeding perfect societies?

I am not stating with any certainty that the zoning laws would produce no skinnier people living in a less safe environment, mind. I’m simply asking if anyone has actually researched these possibilities at all.

2. Will It Be Subverted?

What defines a fast-food restaurant? Is it possible that the definition will end up being favorable to large chains (which have the resources to lobby politicians or pay lawyers) and unfavorable to their smaller competitors (who don’t)? How will the zones of “no-fast-food” be defined? Again, if McDonald’s lobbies, will the zone end at their doorstep, making the local government their cat’s paw in removing their small competitors without noticeably inconveniancing the larger businesses?

If I may bring a personal anecdote to the table, my friend is an urban planner in a town in the silicon valley. There, at least, zoning rules are bent or frankly excepted all the time—often over the protests of the civil servants—by politicians acting at the behest of developers. Almost invariably, it is the larger developers, who can argue effectively that they will be a tax asset to the city.

Even if the laws will not be immediately subverted, will they quietly be co-opted into instruments attacking their original purpose a few years down the line, once the public’s eyes are off this matter?

And now, the philosophical objections to zoning for obesity. Those constitutionally opposed to libertarian arguments may wish to avert their eyes.

Here’s the scare argument for the liberals: Gay bars are unhealthy. Frequenting bars with a largely homosexual male clientele is correlated—strongly and very likely causally—with an increased incidence in a variety of health complaints, most notably a number of “social diseases,” including, of course, HIV.

I believe it would be uncontroversial here to say that the government should not attempt to deter gay men from meeting, congregating, and ultimately deciding on their own whether they would like to accept into certain orifices objects which have attendent health risks.

How then could I claim it is an appropriate function of government to attempt to deter fast food patrons from deciding on their own whether they would like to accept into certain other orifices objects which have far smaller health risks?

The less glib version of this same argument concerns boundaries. The right to eat fast food may not be an important right to you or me (personally, I eat fast food about once every two or three months). But the arguments that suggest that the government should insert itself into your decision as to whether or not to eat fast food—even if it does so gently and unobtrusively—apply equally well to every aspect of your life. Are people coerced to eat fast food via advertising and social conditioning? Of course they are. Similarly, people are coerced into decisions about their clothes, their sub-culture identification, how they raise their children, how they vote, where they travel, and a million other things via advertising and social conditioning.

Does fast food affect your health, and do other taxpayers often pay for your poor health decisions? Of course it does, and of course they do. But again, everything in your life affects your health.

If you don’t draw the line here, where do you draw it?

So let me be the first: I call for high taxes on soda!

It is now being claimed that we have a choice between: (1) do NOTHING at all or (2) permit the government to tell us what to eat.

Somehow I think that the policy options go beyond these two options, no?