Dr. Walter E. Williams has weighed in on the New York City trans fat ban. This is a great man. On the occasions I’ve heard him on the radio, I have found him compelling, entertaining and downright wise. His response to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s claim that they’re “…just trying to make food safer…” is this:

“These people are cowards, and here’s why: If Mayor Bloomberg and other food zealots think I’m eating too many trans fats, let them personally come and take fatty foods off my plate or remove them from my shopping cart. Since they don’t have the guts to do that, they correctly deem it safer to use the brute force of the state to control what I eat.”

One gets the impression that it would be very a very unsound move to attempt to curtail Williams’ eating choices! The thought of someone snatching food from a man’s plate in order to fulfil a law making that food illegal is ridiculous enough that it casts the entire idea of government interference in our diet as pathetic, bizarre, abominable and absurd.

And that’s precisely the point Williams makes so perfectly.

John Wright

johnwright@libertarianreason.com