KFC's "bunless" sandwich

[MadImmortalMan]

I disagree.  I think there are certain things government should do because they are better for society.  For example I think it's right that benefits should encourage people into work, I think we should encourage marriage because that has social benefits, I think we should discourage smoking and drinking because they have negative social and health effects for which government ultimately pays.  We tax cigarettes a huge amount, at the same time we don't tax childrens' books at all - but we do tax video games and kids' DVDs.  All of these actions make judgements about morality and try to change individual behaviour.  So I don't think food necessarily should be separate from those attempts.

My only worry is that what all this ultimately leads to is a victimisation of the poor.

I think that when society takes on the role of caring for peoples' health and whatnot, it must do so with the understanding that that does not give it the right to use that as an excuse to start using state power to control peoples' personal choices. Taxing certain behavior because you don't like it or want to discourage it is a repugnant practice, even if it's done for the good of society as a whole. What would we have said if Brown decided to tax voting Tory because he thinks it's bad for society, for example? It can lead any ridiculous place.

[Brazen]

The Tories are spouting "Nudge principle" left, right and centre, so it just may be evil.

[Malthus]

To my mind, adding some sort of calculation of the relative "morality" of various lifestyle choices to the mix of what ought to be publicly safety-netted  is a legal, ethical and accounting morass which we would be well advised to avoid. Particularly as the desions are bound to be made on political grounds and not on any hard-headed objective basis.

I disagree.  I think there are certain things government should do because they are better for society.  For example I think it's right that benefits should encourage people into work, I think we should encourage marriage because that has social benefits, I think we should discourage smoking and drinking because they have negative social and health effects for which government ultimately pays.  We tax cigarettes a huge amount, at the same time we don't tax childrens' books at all - but we do tax video games and kids' DVDs.  All of these actions make judgements about morality and try to change individual behaviour.  So I don't think food necessarily should be separate from those attempts.

My only worry is that what all this ultimately leads to is a victimisation of the poor.

A selective tax on certain activities raises quite different issues than deciding whether or not to fund healthcare based on the victim's past lifestyle choice.

The latter strikes me as leading into a morass of mostly pointless micro-management. How, practically, would it work? Someone gets sick or injured, and you send out private investigators to determine whether or not they were living an "approved" lifestyle? Would the "savings" in terms of punishing those who ate fritos rather than carrots as a snack by depriving them of healthcare costs on the public dime really be worth the expense of rooting out such food criminals?

A tax on certain goods (such as cigarettes) is simplicity itself compared to this. That's saying nothing of the sense in having our political overlords dictate nanny-state-wise what's good for us.

[Sheilbh]

Well the nudge idea is largely about benign and almost unnoticeable changes - not sin taxes.  For example the stimulus tax cut not being heralded as tax cuts normally are (a cheque in the post, I'd guess) but just people receiving a larger paycheque so that, instead of saving it, they spend it because they don't entirely realise.  Similarly the phrasing of government adverts about obesity.

We have the health costs of obesity.  So why not tax certain foods?

[Sheilbh]

A selective tax on certain activities raises quite different issues than deciding whether or not to fund healthcare based on the victim's past lifestyle choice.

Oh no, I mean that's madness. 

[Ed Anger]

Give me Shoo Fly pie or give me death.

[MadImmortalMan]

A selective tax on certain activities raises quite different issues than deciding whether or not to fund healthcare based on the victim's past lifestyle choice.

Oh no, I mean that's madness.

It's basically the same thing as making them may for it in the form of sin taxes beforehand.

[Sheilbh]

It's basically the same thing as making them may for it in the form of sin taxes beforehand.

Not at all.  The smoker pays a bit more for a packet of ciggies, but goes to hospital and gets treatment for lung cancer.  That's very different from having cheap cigarettes, but not being given treatment for lung cancer.  I mean the big difference is that in the former the state exacts an extra amount of money for the future cost of illness, in the latter because someone smokes the state allows them to die.  I think a sin tax is inconvenient but it doesn't turn the government into an Old Testament God.

[MadImmortalMan]

I mean the big difference is that in the former the state exacts an extra amount of money for the future cost of illness, in the latter because someone smokes the state allows them to die.

That's a difference without a distinction. In the former, it's charging more due to the fact that the patient smokes. In the latter that is substituted for simply not treating because the person smoked. In either case, the state is attributing the monetary value of the person's medical care on the lifestyle choice of the smoker and acting accordingly. The difference between "we won't treat you because you smoke" and "you have to pay more if you want to smoke and also be treated" is in practical terms only a difference of degree---and in moral terms no difference at all.

[MadImmortalMan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjnh1I5k-jM


Lard? Man, that's gross.

[Caliga]

Give me Shoo Fly pie or give me death.

Do you have ANY IDEA how many Amishmen had to die so you could enjoy this delicious piece of Shoo Fly Pie, soldier!? 

[Ed Anger]

Give me Shoo Fly pie or give me death.

Do you have ANY IDEA how many Amishmen had to die so you could enjoy this delicious piece of Shoo Fly Pie, soldier!? 

As long as the supply of shoo fly pie continues, I don't care.

[Grey Fox]

Someone really needs to go & try this.

[garbon]

Do you have ANY IDEA how many Amishmen had to die so you could enjoy this delicious piece of Shoo Fly Pie, soldier!? 

Shoo, fly, don't bother me.