Health regulations: You have the freedom to decide what I tell you to decide.
In Council’s Need to Stop Leading I objected to Dietician Brendan Pearson’s call for local government to act in preventing the expansion of fast food in our communities.
Pearson has responded to both the comments of the Border Mail (in an editorial in which they claimed that the consumption of good or bad food was a personal decision) and Keith Barber’s comments in the article. His letter is here.
If every person was the same age, had the same education, income, working conditions, social support, access to transport, and early years nurturing we could then expect everyone to make better choices around their health.
Unfortunately this isn’t the case so others in our community need to take up this responsibility.
Is it more important that people be healthy, or that they be free?
Pearson says people are making bad decisions about their health, and thus local government must act.
But under what circumstances would Pearson agree that it is unnecessary to act? Should freedom be respected only when everyone has “the same education, income, working conditions, social support, access to transport, and early years nurturing”? When we are all the same?
Freedom requires the freedom to make bad decisions, eat unhealthy foods, and willfully destroy our lives over the objections and well informed advice of others.
If freedom is to be abrogated when people make bad decisions, then there is no freedom.
I don’t object to Pearson’s suggestion that council’s hamper the expansion of fast food because I like fast food. I agree that it is unhealthy, I agree that our society would be better off if people ate less junk. I agree there are things a bloody minded council could do if it set it’s mind to hampering the development of fast food businesses.
But I cannot countenance the notion that any government has any business, directly or indirectly, in governing how people treat their own bodies.
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on Aug 11th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
I read Pearson’s letter and I’ve followed that story. He comes across as rather patronising of those who don’t have the same “education, income, working conditions, social support, access to transport, and early years nurturing” as him.
It’s like he thinks the plebs are incapable of making even mildly informed lifestyle choices.
on Aug 12th, 2008 at 8:07 am
[...] einen bestimmten Lebensstil vorzuschreiben gehört nicht dazu. Kieran’s Commentary - Do not regulate what people do to themselves [↩] « Uri Geller und höllische Löffelbieger This post was written by [...]
on Aug 15th, 2008 at 11:01 am
*cheers*
Yup, totally agree.
I am constantly amazed at how people on the right seem to believe that Only They are capable of Real Understanding, and thus making choices.
on Aug 15th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
I don’t think it’s limited to “the right”, Ryan. That type of ‘we know best’ attitude is fairly prevalent on the left as well. In fact the anti-fast food groups like Cittaslow & Slow Food clearly stem from fairly extreme left wing origins.
on Oct 15th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Hi guys, I have just picked up on this site and noted your comments on my piece in the Border Mail a few months ago. I just wanted to get my point across a little differently perhaps to redeem myself?
Firstly I just wanted to say how much I agree with Kieran’s statement about freedom. I too think all people should have the freedom to make choices when it comes to health, housing, politics - anything. Yes it would be great if everyone made good, informed choices all the time, but alas that is not the case. Despite the knowledge of the damage, consequences etc, people speed, drink drive, take drugs, steal, smoke, pollute our atmosphere etc. Would we as society be right to simply let those things happen and not act against these, and allow people to freely go about their business because one should be free to make those decsions, at the expense of society?
Society will then pick up the bill for the injury rehab, improving roads, drug rehab, the insurance claims, the cancer treatment, climate change etc - is that fair for all?
Ray, I never meant for my article to come across as though I was patronising people for making their decisions, but simply making it a little more explicit to other people in our community that not everyone does have the ability or support to make good choices all the time (be it about nutrition or other things). I understand that everyone needs to make a few bad decisions in order to learn. But surely you all understand that governance is needed sometimes and we do need some boundaries to live within otherwise our lives would be somewhat chaotic!
I’m interested to hear your thoughts on this, because my intention when I was writing this piece was that I was advocating for disadvantaged in our community, and had a more social view on this issue. It actually surprised me that Greens would be inopposition to what I had to say (or is that more your opinion Kieran?)
Cheers,
Brendan