While checking out the special offers that British supermarkets have on at the moment, I found myself at Somerfield‘s website a few minutes ago. Despite all of the nonsense that has come from the British government over the years, and especially in recent months, I was still shocked when I read a link asking Somerfield customers to register their views on the government’s plans to ban buy one get one free offers. Surely even this nanny government would not come up with so ridiculous and controlling a measure, I thought.
Well, I thought wrong – they are indeed that mindbogglingly dumb and power-mad, and plan to do exactly that. So, businesses can forget being free to offer their customers bargains on foods the government deems ‘unhealthy’. (The state apparently has no idea that it is possible to consume those evil ‘unhealthy’ foods in moderation and still be a healthy individual. Not that it matters, since the state has already decided that the average citizen is too stupid to choose what to put into his or her own mouth, and that our entire society should be dumbed down in order to compensate it, no matter the effects on commerce and personal liberty.)
I am in general an optimist, but when it comes to the government’s fetish for domination of individuals, I am nothing but a pessimist. In the mind of our legislators, the opinion of the average voter (voter, not person) seems all too similar to this parody by frequent Samizdata commenter Chris Goodman:
Food ought to be banned, or at least rationed by trained medical staff in public service centres, since people are not rational enough to use it properly. At the very least food should be labelled “Food can be bad for you”. Those who make billions of pounds growing and distributing food should not be allowed to give people what they want. It turns my stomach to think of all those multinationals making money out of producing delicious food. There ought to be a march against it. Think of the children! In a modern society politicians have a democratic mandate that decide what we should have for tea each day. I vote for the party that raises taxes in order to pay for more regulators.
As Dr Sean Gabb, a guy who says much I disagree with but who hits the nail on the head on this issue, puts it:
Whenever the government does something for us, it takes away from our own ability to do that for ourselves. This diminishes us as human beings. Better, I suggest, a people who often eat and drink too much, and who on average die a few years before they might, than a people deprived of autonomy and shepherded into a few extra years of intellectual and moral passivity.
At the rate Britain is going, you might think we have a large crop of intellectually and morally passive octogenarians to look forward to in a few decades’ time. Sadly, I have no confidence whatsoever that these restrictions on personal and commercial freedom will produce the results desired by the government – except, of course, for more power in the hands of the state. Woe betide the fools who vote for these people, and those of us who will not but who will suffer at their hands regardless.
Every good farmer takes very good care of his cattle. If a person is willing to be a social asset, as opposed to an independent human being, then he shouldn’t be surprized when “milking” time comes around.
When you belong to society, you are not allowed to run up any extra “social costs”. Just say, “Yes, boss”, and hand over your wallet.
This is quite ludicrous.
“Buy one, get one free” offers are harmless, especially because the items normally included in such offers are the kind of items that people would buy more than one of anyway.
The government has no business regulating this kind of thing, and I can only hope that this idea will be killed off before it can be put into practice.
After much run-time on my cray cluster (i keep pet crayfish in the local pond) I have discovered that ‘buy one, get one free’ offers could be replaced by ‘50% off’, thus avoiding jail time for shopkeepers throughout the land.
I don’t know why I continue to be shocked by the ideas this government comes up with, but I am. They’re certainly very imaginative.
I filled in the survey. I think questions 9 and 17 are tellingly worded:
“At the rate Britain is going, you might think we have a large crop of intellectually and morally passive octogenarians to look forward to in a few decades’ time”
Not if the NHS has anything to with it we won’t.
If obesity, smoking, lethargy etc don’t kill you, a combination of MRSA and various other forms of institutionalised neglect almost certainly will!! That should take care of any of the those extra ‘social costs’ incurred by forced feeding. ‘England for all thy faults I love thee still?’ er..hmmm
“At the rate Britain is going, you might think we have a large crop of intellectually and morally passive octogenarians to look forward to in a few decades’ time”
Not if the NHS has anything to with it we won’t.
If obesity, smoking, lethargy etc don’t kill you, a combination of MRSA and various other forms of institutionalised neglect almost certainly will!! That should take care of any of the those extra ‘social costs’ incurred by forced feeding. ‘England for all thy faults I love thee still?’ er..hmmm
Hah. Here’s a nice bit of synchronicity:
I read this article in Feedreader, and in my setup I go from Samizdata to Seth Godin’s blog who links to this:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6498304
Land of the free and home of the VERY brave.
Well said Jackie. I see the govt. is determined to reduce us all to the status of kiddies.
As I said a few days back on the blog, if we are so unhealthy, how come we are living longer lifespans?
Maybe the whining Dems in the US can change places with Anti-Nanny State Brits, and everybody can live happily ever after.
That’s pretty worrying, especially considering the real benefit that my household gets from two-for-the-price-of-one offers are things which we buy and keep for a while. Things like washing powder or light bulbs or dog food. Perhaps the government are worrying that I might decide to snort my discounted Fairy liquid and become an anti-social lout.
Wait a second… This can’t be real. It’s too fucking stupid even for the government to do.
Tom, it’s my understanding that for now, this ban will apply strictly to those foods which the government deems evil and unhealthy and devoid of any place in a superior diet. Exactly the kind of thing we desperately need our government to be dictating on our dime, eh?
Wow… you’d almost believe she was parodying herself…
“The nanny state is the good state. A nanny is what every well-off family hires if it can afford it. So why do the nanny-employing Tories use the word as an insult?”
BECAUSE POLLY, NANNIES ARE EMPLOYED TO LOOK AFTER THE CHILDREN NOT THE GROWN UPS.
She doesn’t often manage to get me riled, but that’s seriously done it. The blindness behind those two simple sentences…. bloody hell.
Surely this has to be one of the best arguments ever against publicly-funded health care. I realize these ersatz Soup Nazis would probably still think of the same silly ideas without it, but doesn’t the existence of publicly-funded health care turn what ought to be an issue of principle into an issue of money — about which people tend to be pragmatic rather than idealistic?