Thursday, May 31, 2012

the 'public good?'

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New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, age 70 and a man old enough to have some passing recollection of  Prohibition, plans to propose a municipal ban on the sale of large-size sugary soft drinks.

Prohibition (1920-1933) outlawed the sale of alcoholic beverages in the U.S. The law enriched criminals like Al Capone and the less-overtly criminal Joseph Kennedy and made scofflaws of enormous segments of the population that demanded a drink and went to illegal speakeasies in order to get one.

The point is, Prohibition didn't work. Its high-minded premises ran headlong into hard-shell facts. And if I had to guess, I'd say Bloomberg's virtuous and intrusive proposal will suffer the same fate.

People demand the right to their pleasures and to kill themselves as they see fit.
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