El Borak's Myopia

El Borak's Myopia

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The only problem with the slippery slope

Is that the bottom eventually arrives:

A radical plan to improve the nation's health - including a workplace "exercise hour" - has been unveiled by a leading Government adviser.

New figures today show England is the fattest country in the EU. Now Professor Julian Le Grand, chairman of Health England, hopes to encourage people to improve their diets, give up smoking and exercise more.

He proposed the introduction of a smoking permit, which smokers would be required to show each time they bought tobacco. It is then their choice to go smoke free and not buy a permit.

Companies with more than 500 staff would have an " exercise hour". Employees would have to deliberately choose not to join in...

Not join in for now, they mean. It's easy to say that this is just England. And it's easy to note (as the article does) that this is still the opposite of current government policy. But the problem remains that it is still obscenely logical. And if it follows from the premise, it will eventually arrive.

Walk thru this with me:

a) Government is responsible for ensuring that people do not hurt themselves. This is the only the argument behind anti-smoking laws, drinking ages, seatbelt laws, and sin taxes. Why should the government punish you for not wearing a seatbelt? Because it does not want you to hurt yourself.

b) Not being healthy is one way of hurting yourself. Therefore it follows that Government is responsible for making sure that everyone receives proper health care. We will eventually get a "single-payer" plan* because everyone needs to be healthy, and unless government steps up, that won't happen.

c) He who pays the piper calls the tune. Therefore it follows that since the government will be paying for your health care, the government will have the final say over what care you get. It is a simple fact that even (maybe especially) if government runs health care, there will be rationing. It always and everywhere happens, and somebody has to decide who deserves** the scarce resources. They begin by denying care to the expensive***, but that still does not allow everyone to have all they want for free. They still must reduce costs, which always rise under socialism, there being no market incentive for keeping them down.

d) Unhealthy people cost more than healthy ones. Therefore it follows that the government can force you to exercise and eat healthy. They do not today, just like in the 60s when they demanded the surgeon general's warning on a pack of cigs they were not banning smoking in your own car. But it followed logically and therefore would eventually arrive.

The problem with the slippery slope is not that it's a logical fallacy**** but that it's an eventuality. As soon as you accept the premise that government exists to protect you from yourself, you have no argument against the government forcing you to exercise every day. The only question that remains is how long it will take for them to enforce it.

* Assuming, which I don't, that the dollar survives the first Rodham administration.

** Besides themselves, obviously.

*** It starts with the fat smoker and ends with the preemie, the aged, and the handicapped.

**** It only seems a fallacy because most people can't reason over time.

Labels: politics

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