Some case studies
in nanny state
name-calling:
what can
we learn?
Roger S. Magnusson
Professor of Health Law & Governance
Sydney Law School
Case study 1: Christopher Hitchins’
in Mayor Bloomberg’s New York City
“Nanny state
name-calling”
The reflexive tendency to
label new policy
interventions within the
health sector as “nanny
state”, usually without
proposing any real test for
balancing any apparent
tension between public
health, and opposing public
interests or private interests.
“[w]e prefer to take our chance
with cholera and the rest than
be bullied into health”.
Rosen G. A history of public health. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins Press; 1993, at 224.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/what-did-sandra-fluke-reallysay/article/1158191
Case study 2: Rush Limbaugh and
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/08/1229638/-RushLimbaugh-Claims-3-Day-Slutzkrieg-on-Sandra-Fluke-was-an-Accident#
the American right
• “Now, let me just say something. This is something that
may not seem like a big deal to a lot of people. "Oh, the
first lady just wants to help." Let me tell you the
truth of the matter. This is none of her
business. The free market takes care of
this stuff. On what basis is the unelected Michelle
Obama empowered to control American manufacturing
and advertising? This is how, by the way, we eventually
get advertising bans on products that were seen as
dangerous.”
•
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/09/18/food_marketing_and_advertising_is_none
_of_michelle_obama_s_business
• When you have the first lady calling you in, complaining about what
you're doing, there's an implied threat, and these people are totally
comfortable using this kind of statist power on people. This is
where, folks, you and I, we conservatives, this does not interest us
at all. We believe in the free market. We
believe in life. We believe in people having
choice, to live their life as they choose. CocaCola, Twinkies, don't kill anybody. It's none
of our business.
•
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/09/18/food_marketing_and_advertising_is_none
_of_michelle_obama_s_business
“The war on
fat…reflects an anticapitalist perspective
that views people as
helpless automatons
manipulated into
consuming whatever
big corporations
choose to produce.
The anti-fat crusaders
want to manipulate us
too, but for our own
good”.
Source: Jacob Sullum, “The War on Fat: Is the Size of Your Butt the Government’s Business?”
Reason 2004; 8: 20-31, at 23.
• This is how this slow creep happens: The good
intentions of a supposedly nice woman who's a
great mother with a great garden who really
cares about people. At the root of it is her
belief that you are too stupid to know what's
good to eat and drink and what isn't. You are
too stupid to know how to best take care of
and look out for yourself. You are too stupid to
do what they want you to do on your own, and
because you're too stupid or because you are
too resistant, they are going to use force.
•
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/09/18/food_marketing_and_advertising_is_none_of_michelle_obama_s_business
Case study 3: Plain tobacco packaging,
and other sins of the National
Preventative Health Taskforce
Plain packaging in Australia –
front of package view
Imperial Tobacco
Australia takes on
the Tobacco Plain
Packaging Act 2011
(Cth)
MJA 2014; 200:29-32
Jim Beam’ bourbon, and Bondi beach
International Journal of Pediatric
Obesity 2006; 1(3):133-138
Today the “war on
tobacco” has been
joined by the “war on
obesity” and the “war
on binge drinking”.
What we are
experiencing today is
not a “nanny state”. It is
nothing less than a bully
state.
“…moments of
conversation,
perfumed with
ashtrays and decent
company, which I
would not have
exchanged for a year of
ordinary existence”
Source: Christopher Hitchens & Simon Hoggart, “Is the Smoking Ban a Good Idea?”
The Guardian, 14 May 2007.
Dead man talking…
“In whatever
kind of a
“race” life
may be, I
have very
abruptly
become a
finalist”
See further, http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/09/hitchens-201009
…diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus
“I've came by this particular
tumor honestly. If you
smoke, which I did for many
years very heavily with
occasional interruption, and
if you use alcohol, you make
yourself a candidate for it in
your sixties.“
"It would be very idle to
deny it, and I might as well
say to anyone watching, if
you can hold it down on the
smokes and the cocktails
you may be well advised to
do so," Hitchens said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/17/christopherhitchens-desp_n_685021.html
Christopher Hitchins, 1949-2011
Jim Bacon, former Premier of Tasmania (19982004), died 20 June 2004