The Slippery Slope Cuts Both Ways

So in 2006, New York City's Board of Health voted to ban trans fats in city restaurants. That ban took effect in 2008.

Next up? Salt. A bill has been introduced in the New York State Assembly to forbid chefs in every restaurant in the state from using any salt at all in food preparation.

So.

Clearly, the first ban must be struck down.

Clearly, legislators are fucking morons, with all the discipline and self-restraint of diaper-crapping toddlers. They are incapable of NOT taking a bad precedent and running with it. Once you've set the precedent, to the freaks who live only to control the actions of others, the thinking always becomes: "Victory! We banned this! So - why can't we ban this?" "We restricted this - why can't we restrict this?"

We must come up with a new "proper response" to this tactic. Every single time this argument comes into play, we must eradicate the idea that it is a proper response to take a look at extending the restrictive principle. The proper response must be rather: to take a look at obliterating the bad precedent. The pertinent question isn't: "If we can ban trans fats, why can't we ban salt?" The pertinent question is: "If we can ban trans fats, why can't we un-ban trans fats?" Nothing's stopping us!

A bad precedent is anything that encourages cowards to expand their dominion over your life. A bad precedent can be struck down. The slippery slope was once level ground. If the fetishests of public-sector intrusion can't seem to know when they need to stop tilting, still the tilt of that slippery slope can be arrested. It can be seized by the downward-tilting end, it can be lifted back up to level. It can be titled back in the other direction. This not only can be done, it should be done. The greater good at stake is in fact, the greatest possible public policy good of all: To Teach Those Pricks A Fucking Lesson.

Fat will kill us? Salt will kill us? Heck with it - Life will kill us. Whether we live free or enchained, life will kill us! If I must die by living free, "Live Free and Die" applies. We are all going to die, regardless.

I'm happy enough with the current status quo of some limited restriction and control, I suppose. I don't mind letting them sit on the status quo of prohibition's gains made. But that's a provisional approval. I don't mind, just as long as it's not pushed further. If the control freaks can't bring themselves to heel, then it's time to start tilting the slippery slope back the wrong way - by their way of thinking. Criminalize tobacco? Oh, naw. Now that you mention it, let's legalize marijuana. Or if you want to keep pushing? Then let's legalize cocaine & heroin as well. Wanna save lives? Get these dangerous drugs under FDA regulation and produced only by GMP manufacturers!

Freedom stings a bit, but it's ultimately worth it.