We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Warning: The FDA may be Hazardous to Your Health So, a company notes that its natural food product has scientifically documented positive health effects… and a bunch of underhanded bureaucrats underhandedly silences them:
Quote of the Day: “Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent.” – Justice Louis D. Brandeis
Only an organization as evil as the FDA could manage to harm public health, free speech, and due process, with a single action.
The sample letter to Congress below explains how the FDA accomplished these things in the name of protecting you from . . .
Wait for it . . .
Walnuts!
But hey, is that not what we pay them for via our voluntary tax system?
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The world as we know it is going down in a basket, and these idiots worry about illegal walnuts. Un-dirty-word-believable.
When the words “regulate interstate commerce” were chosen rather than “ensure free trade between the States” such absurdities as this became very likely – if not inevitable. True for a very long time these words were not exploited – but the chance of exploiting them was understood from the start. They were like an unexploded bomb in the Constitution of the United States – and with first the Progressive Era, and then the New Deal – Great Society era, the bomb went off.
On top of the regulations of the various States – comes the vast (so vast that no one could ever read them all – especially as they are endlessly increased) regulations of the Federal government.
If someone does not like the regulations of Maine they can go to New Hampshire – but if someone does not like the regulations of the Federal government they have to leave the whole country (and, to escape taxation, formally renounce citizenship).
This unlimited Federal government does not work it is insane – even by the standards of government.
To prove that just compare the forms a person (or a business) has to deal with at State level (which are bad enough) to the forms and so on they have to deal with from the Feds.
This is a systematic problem – it can not be solved by voting for “pro business” people and kicking out Comrades (much though I would like to see Comrade Barack litterally kicked out).
Either changes needed to be made to the Federal Constitution – and there need be only two changes, remove the words “regulate interstate commerce” and remove the words “and general welfare” (yes I know the words “general welfare” were the PURPOSE of the various specific powers – but they have been “interpreted” into a catch all “general welfare spending power”) or……
“Impossible Paul – these few words can not be removed from the Constitution, it is politically impossible”.
Very well then I will complete the “or……”
Or States will have to go their own ways.
For the breakdown will be a lot sooner than most people think.
Both the FDA and the American Medical Association need to go. Doing so would do more to bring down medical costs than any recent efforts.
I’m always interested in learning more about how good ideas were intentionally perverted in the forming of the American constitution. Paul Marks gives a perfect example with the interstate commerce clause. Another might be the changing of “Life, Liberty, Property” into “Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness“. It was “property” in the federalist papers, and the writings of Locke (I believe), but then something changed.
Ultimately, the Feds power will only be broken when it cannot afford to enforce these regulations, and the States decide to assert themselves.
Mosse, i think the change was a good one! I read an interesting comment on that sentence- the author pointed out that having an inalienable right to property might be construed as never being able to sell property or give it away, under any circumstances (except death, when your heirs would then be burdened with things they can’t get rid of!). We all know lawyers have field days with words.
Sorry, for all those who don’t know their DofI. The original phrase was something like ‘an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…’ If they had simply used ‘inalienable right to life, liberty, and property’, inalienable would have attached itself to all forms of property.
As it is, lawyers have no leeway. I suppose it also means the Fed has the right to ban fun things- you’re only allowed to pursue happiness, not actually attain happiness.
Alisa, you are confusing cause and effect. It is because idiots in power worry about walnuts (and ignore big problems) that the world is going downhill, fast! At least we won’t need to worry about a peanut addiction on top of all our other problems!
It will, no doubt, shock many to learn that narcotic painkillers are often abused. So much so, that some of the more-potent (oxycodone in particular), when pressed into tablet form, are pressed in slow-release formulations to limit both their addictive properties and the overdose risk.
It will also shock many to learn that some people will crush said oxycodone tablets to eat or snort the powder, in order to get a bigger and faster high.
So, drug makers (AKA pharmaceutical companies AKA the evilest worstest people on the planet) are constantly trying to reformulate pain pills to make them harder to crush without becoming harder to digest.
And every time they do achieve something, the FDA makes them test it again from scratch. Because, apparently, just because oxycodone causes sleep, addiction (sometimes), respiratory depression, and death from respiratory depression in large doses doesn’t necessarily mean that evil drug companies are allowed to act like they already know this.
It’s almost like the FDA is opposed to efforts to make un-abusable pain pills.
Whose side are they on?
Lying to customers is illegal. Who knew?
You want to go back the good old days, where carpetbaggers sold potions of alcohol, ethylene glycol and morphine as ‘cure alls’?
If someone you loves gets cancer, can you help them figure out which drug is real and which is a counterfeit? Going by side-effects won’t help: the fake drugs sold through Mexico and Canada are loaded with cheap poisons, carefully calibrated to mimic the side-effects. Lead instead of platinum-based therapy will make you sick, but won’t cure your cancer.
By Samizdata forbid the government should limit companies to the truth when they advertise their products as drugs.
What on earth are you going on about, dustydog? Certainly nothing in either this post or the article to which it links. There’s no discussion of cancer, and no “lying” is alleged. The walnut company makes reference to several dozen peer-reviewed studies, all maintained on a government website, attesting to some health benefits of walnuts, whereupon the FDA then threatens to classify walnuts as a “drug” and thus forces it to remove the entirely truthful information. Where is the “lie” here? (Other than by the FDA, of course. Oh, and by you.)
Get your facts straight.
Dustydog is confusing the issue. He thinks the FDA is a guardian of truth. Actually, it is just a bureaucracy, and it is on its’ own side. People could find out the truth of things before the FDA existed, and could use private laboratories, and, if the FDA were disbanded, they would do so in the future.
Actually the big drug companies support the existance of the FDA – because it makes research and development so expensive only they can afford if.
No competition from from “upstart” drug companies.
And (increasingly) less and less competition from natural alternatives either. Due to FDA and other regulations.
dustydog is what is known as a “useful idiot”.
Useful to the government machine.
And useful to the big pharma companies he thinks he is an enemy of.