Crush Liberalism

Night and Day, “Bloomberg’s definition of nanny state NYC” edition

NYC mayor Bloomberg on why gay marriage in NY is a good thing:

In voicing his support for same-sex marriage, Mayor Bloomberg has mentioned — and appeared with — his niece Rachel, who is lesbian. “It brings it home,” he told me on the phone this week, though he added that beyond his desire for her to have everything she wants in life, “Government should not tell you what to do unless there’s a compelling public purpose.” He sees no such purpose in blocking same-sex marriage.

Always the supporter of individual liberty, that Bloomberg!  Some of the “compelling public purposes” with which Bloomberg thinks that NYC should concern itself:

Banning things, or trying to, is what the [NYC] council does best.

Here’s the list from 2006.

• Trans-fats.
• Aluminum baseball bats.
• The purchase of tobacco by 18- to 20-year-olds.
• Foie gras.
• Pedicabs in parks.
• New fast-food restaurants (but only in poor neighborhoods).
• Lobbyists from the floor of council chambers.
• Lobbying city agencies after working at the same agency.
• Vehicles in Central and Prospect parks.
• Cell phones in upscale restaurants.
• The sale of pork products made in a processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C., because of a unionization dispute.
• Mail-order pharmaceutical plans.
• Candy-flavored cigarettes.
• Gas-station operators adjusting prices more than once daily.
• Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
• Wal-Mart.

More:

If you had to think of one city on earth where the rulers should not try to impose a standard of ‘good behaviour’, it would surely be New York. Who in their right mind would seek to sanitise this concrete jungle, to sedate the city that never sleeps, to demand conformism and obedience from the inhabitants of a place which, in the words of a popular tourist T-shirt, is known as ‘New York F**kin’ City’?

You’d be surprised. New York is currently governed by a gaggle of health-obsessed bigwigs who believe they have a duty to grab New Yorkers by the scruffs of their outsized necks and drag them towards lives of bicycle-riding, non-smoking, booze-avoiding, fruit-snacking conformity. City Hall, under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is awash with that new breed of psycho-politician known as the ‘nudger’, who believes that he has the right to use psychological techniques and brute censorship to manipulate and ‘improve’ human behaviour.

The Bloombergers have become world-beaters in the banning of public smoking and the demonisation of junk food. It is testament to their successful colonisation of these islands that the banning of smoking in all public parks, pedestrian plazas and beaches passed without incident, and even without much angry commentary, on 24 May. Under the Smoke Free Air Act (it is clever, in an Orwellian kind of way, to use the word ‘free’ in an act of law that diminishes freedom), New Yorkers can no longer light up in Central Park, Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Promenade, the Coney Island concrete walk or even Times Square, that flashing, noisy advertisers’ paradise where you can still watch naked cowboys play guitar and buy Sarah Palin condoms from streetsellers — so long as you don’t puff on a ciggie at the same time. ‘Where can I smoke now?’ one New Yorker said to a newspaper. ‘In an underground fortress of shame?’

…

Not content with policing what New Yorkers puff, the Bloombergers want to control what they scoff, too. City Hall banned the frying of food in transfats in all restaurants in 2007, which was bad news for those of us for whom half the attraction of visiting NYC was to tuck into the deliciously unhealthy fare served up in its diners. And in 2008, the city forced all chain restaurants and foodsellers to publish the calorific information of their food, in the same-sized font as the label for the food itself. Walking down Fifth Avenue, I saw a huge poster in a Burger King window advertising two burgers for the price of one, alongside an equally huge notice saying: ‘1320 CALORIES.’ Even the temporary stalls that hawk hot dogs and ice-cream in Central Park and elsewhere display calorific facts. That salted pretzel you buy as you stroll back to your hotel (‘500 CALORIES’) now comes with a side order of inner turmoil and gym fantasies.

So, if you’re a homosexual in great shape who wants to wed his beau, NYC wants to “live and let live” with you.  If you’re an overweight straight guy who wants to buy cigs and HoHos from Wal Mart, you can look forward to the heavy hand of Nanny York City crushing you…for your own good and for the “compelling public purpose” of New Yorkers.

June 29, 2011 Posted by crushliberalism | big government, Bloomberg, hypocrisy, New York, Night and Day | 6 Comments