On the NYC Trans-Fat Ban

I discuss, and (support it) here, and Ezra joins the discussion here. Having slept on it, I think that, if anything, I was too qualified. I was sort of making the same mistake that some liberals who were more ambivalent about the war than they should have been–because some supporters of the bill (as well as its opponents) are using the bill to push asceticism and their aesthetic disdain for fat people is really neither here nor there. What matters is whether a slippery slope, and I think Saletan is wrong to think that such bans will extend to saturated fats. I mean, does he think that cities will ban butter? Bacon? Chicken sold with skin on it? Salmon? The more I think about it, the sillier the slippery slope argument seems in this case.

This is clearly a good law–it bans an unhealthy practice in ways that will have no impact on important individual freedoms (although it may have some impact on companies poisioning their customers for profit.) I would also urge people to remember the predictions of catastrophe for restaurants and bars in light of the ban on indoor smoking, which didn’t happen.