bryan hasho

Bloomberg’s Soda Ban

I’ve been considering the recent debate on Bloomberg’s proposed ban on unnecessarily large sodas.  There’s some insight to be had here as to the usefulness of our ideology when discussing potentially practical policy.

Banning big sodas is unlikely to make a significant difference, but if it worked, it would certainly be a positive step.  That said, telling us what we can put in our bodies is, for freedom-loving Americans, rightfully appalling.  

I like this problem because it highlights how painfully irrelevant our socioeconomic principles can be in context.  It’s not just our bodies at stake here. The cost of healthcare is, due to existing government involvement, of our most pressing collective finance issue.  Whether we like it not, one person drinking a huge Mountain Dew is bad for everybody.

But layering on more statutory influence is, for the greater good of furthering conservative principles, not a positive thing.  I’d rather take a fork in my eye than vote for the state telling me what to eat with it after, but I need to at least accept that this is a comically simplistic view.  Since unraveling 80 years of regrettable healthcare legislation is proving rather difficult, improving it in the meantime might be, at least, a reasonable idea.