Protecting Us Out of Our Rights
By Walter Williams
[Reprinted from Issues & Views Summer/Fall 1999]
Worrying about bacteria, New Jersey banned restaurants from serving eggs
sunny side up. The ban has since been lifted. Some New Jersey localities have a
ban on people pumping their own gasoline.
Policemen issue citations for driving without a seatbelt. By law, new cars
must be equipped with air bags. Federal law mandates that all new toilets flush
using a paltry 1.6 gallons of water. Georgia's governor mandates that classical
music be given to all new mothers so as to aid infant I.Q. development.
California has banned smoking in bars. President Clinton wants a law passed
banning smoking within 100 feet of a federal building. In parts of Ohio,
children going trick-or-treating must obtain a special permit.
These intrusions and more were revealed by television journalist John
Stossel on ABC's 20/20. The stated motivation behind this gross intrusion and
criminalization of private behavior is to protect us from making unwise
choices. Stossel asked Ricardo Martinez, head of the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration, why can't people at least have air bag on/off switches.
Martinez responded by saying that society makes decisions about what benefits
most people, and most people benefit from air bags.
Stossel interviewed Yale University's Professor Kelley D. Brownell, director
of the Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, who thinks Americans eat too
many hamburgers and French fries. Brownell wants government to tax fatty foods
and those with little nutritional content and use the proceeds to subsidize
fruits, vegetables and other nutritious foods. He's suggested that some of the
tax proceeds be used to build bike and hiking trails.
I'm wondering just when Americans are going to decide that we've had enough
government meddling in our lives. It is nobody's business whether I eat eggs
sunny side up, drive without wearing seat belts or pig out on hamburgers and
French fries. I'd like someone to show me Congress' constitutional authority
for the government protecting me from making unwise choices.
Those who believe government should be in the business of making us take
care of ourselves should tell us where it all ends. Should government decide
what time we go to bed? After all, sleep is vital to good health. Should
government force us to exercise, read wholesome literature and bathe regularly?
The people who advocate a nanny government (a better term is Nazi government)
are cowards. You say, "What do you mean, Williams?"
Take Brownell. If he doesn't want me to eat that Big Mac and French fries,
let him walk up to my table and remove them from my plate. He wants no part of
doing that because he doesn't want to meet his maker this year, so he prefers
using the brutal forces of government.
When I was young, bullies use to pick on me, take food off my lunch tray and
otherwise harass me. That's until I followed the advice of my stepfather, who
told me that if you let a bully get away with one thing, the next day it's
going to be something else and the following day something else again. He told
me that the bullying won't stop until I decide to stand up and fight. He said
that even if I lose the fight, the next time I'm bullied, stand up and fight
again. Let the bully know that when he bullies, win, lose or draw, he has a
fight on his hands. Eventually he will stop.
I think Americans should employ my Dad's advice. As long as we stand as
lambs before the slaughter, you can bet that there'll be no end to Congress'
bureaucratic stooges bullying us.
-- Walter Williams is Chairman of the Department of Economics at George
Mason University (Fairfax, VA) and author of The State Against Blacks
(McGraw-Hill). Do The Right Thing: The People’s Economist Speaks
and More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew this Well
(Hoover Press) are collections of his syndicated columns. ©1999
Creators Syndicate, Inc.
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