David Harsanyi has a piece over at Reason that observes how the government often gets it wrong when putting forth health-related guidelines. Among others, the government got it wrong on cholesterol, saturated fat, salt, second-hand cigarette smoke, eating breakfast in the morning and the number of people who die each year due to obesity.
I understand why politicians and bureaucrats might have a propensity to tell us how to make ourselves healthier, and to try and force the matter if we don’t voluntarily comply by restricting what we’re allowed to buy. People who want to leave other people alone aren’t likely to be drawn to public service or politics, meaning that there’ll be a greater likelihood that those roles will be filled up by nannies, do-gooders, control freaks and smarter-than-thou types. They are put into positions of power by people who have a desire to tell others how to live their lives but can’t be bothered to do so directly. The fact that they get it wrong so often doesn’t seem to trouble them very much, and we might surmise that this lack of remorse for past errors lies in the notion (observed by Hayek, Sowell and others) that good intent is the only metric that really matters to them.
This basis, this notion that good intentions alone are sufficient to both justify interference and absolve error, gives rise to a behavior I find absolutely infuriating: telling lies to achieve a goal. I first experienced this phenomenon when I embraced environmentalism in my early 20s. Stories of Amazonian deforestation and species loss, in particular, filled my mind with outrage. The focus for that outrage shifted when I found out that one of the lead figures in that movement freely admitted he made up some of the statistics that had gotten me riled. By this thinking, it was both acceptable and noble to spread falsehoods if they advanced the cause.
This moment of clarity ended my memberships in those enviro groups and established a permanent sense of suspicion of any advocacy group that supports noble causes. Liars don’t invalidate the quality of the causes they support. Those stand or fall on their own merits, and I remain environmentally aware. But, they do cause real harm when their lies are exposed. Not among the true believers, of course – those folks are similar to the people who vote nanny politicians into office – but among the swing crowd i.e. the people who aren’t fully invested.
Harsanyi’s article unsurprisingly calls out Michael Bloomberg, a man who seemed to be obsessed with nannying New Yorkers into lifestyles he deemed more appropriate and “better for them.” Most recently (in)famous for his failed fight to limit the size of soda cups, he presided over crusades against trans fats, salt and secondhand smoke. While current science has bad things to say about trans fats (color me skeptical, of course – it doesn’t seem that outright bans are warranted), the salt crusade was simply wrong.
And then there’s secondhand smoke.
We’ve been told that exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke is bad for us. We’ve been told this repeatedly, loudly, vociferously and authoritatively. We’ve been told that it’s such a threat that the government is justified in banning smoking in public places (even outdoor ones), in private businesses (even those that don’t cater to the public), in cars when children are present, and in publicly owned housing (presumably, they haven’t figured out how to extend the ban to privately owned apartment buildings yet). It is taken as such an incontrovertible fact that even daring to question it draws immediate suspicion of nefarious intent. But, it’s a lie.
I’ve never smoked anything in my life. I dislike (hate, loathe) being around smoking. I don’t like smoky bars or smoky restaurants.
I dislike lies and liars imposing policy on everyone else just as much.
Smoking is bad for you. Very bad for you. Secondhand smoke, however, is not. Don’t take my word for it, do your own reading (and stay away from the government’s reports – they’re the leaders of the liar brigade on this and countless other things). Here’s a start:
Secondhand smoke is the poster child for lying in furtherance of a desired end. Smoking is a (forgive me, smokers) nasty and unhealthy habit. This makes it a very easy target for behavior regulators. They dared not try to ban tobacco, of course – there’s too much money in it for the government. But, they needed a way to keep it away from themselves and from the people that vote them into office. They latched onto some junky science that claimed a link between second hand smoke and cancer, and turned it into a public health AND an individual rights issue. The former enables them to regulate where smokers can smoke, and the latter extends their purview into private spaces under the premise that someone should not be forced to choose between his job and his health. As a further “benefit,” theses bans help marginalize smokers and smoking, an effect that itself may induce some to quit. While the last (people quitting tobacco) is a positive outcome, telling lies to achieve it falls into the same category as all the other lies (and, of course, infringes on individual rights without just cause).
With the growing social dislike for smoking, especially in certain geographical areas and in certain demographics, these government interventions aren’t hard to impose and maintain. Smokers who argue their rights are being violated are easily accused of base self interest, as are bar and restaurant owners who argue that they should have the right to manage their businesses and clienteles as they wish. And, how many non-smokers want to take smokers-rights up as a cause? How many people are quite happy not being around cigarette smoke, even if it infringes on others’ rights?
I know this is an issue that some readers will have little sympathy or affinity for, which is what makes it such an uphill battle. But, really, are you happy having lies be the basis for social policy? What happens when they tell lies in order to violate YOUR rights?
If lying to achieve an end is tolerated, it encourages more of the same, and after a while, we won’t believe anything the government tells us. THERE’s a goal worth lying for…
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Lies told so as to push ‘good ends,’ whatever they are, are common in our political culture, more than should be by far, but these lies told to serve our ends are more fundamentally a psychological tendency, a failing in how we tend to manage how we come to ‘know things.’ We like to trust our visual impressions, as if seeing is the same as believing. That is why the ‘news’ media and the political advocates post pictures to focus our attention and to support their advocacy. Even if the pictures are faked! As responsible citizens, we need to recognize that every verbal or visual claim of fact is, in point of fact, a claim, subject to testing, needing support–and subject therefore to dispute, even rejection. Ultimately, we are the ones who must exercise the brakes of scepticism and investigation on the political and popular rumor mills of our own culture.