Here’s a bit of heresy: ban nothing. Did that raise the hair on your back? Did it strike a chord? Did you find yourself thinking “but Thales, that can’t possibly work!”
One of the more bizarre news items of the day relates to a continuing fetish of American municipal governments for banning plastic straws. Now, a liberal acquaintance of mine assured me that he was not inconvenienced by the use of biodegradable paper and wax straws, and plastic straws do have various environmental consequences. In this, my liberal acquaintance is entirely correct. Yet I still disagree vociferously with these straw bans.
To illustrate why, let us go back to the days of Prohibition. Take a gander at these propaganda posters from the period:
Alcohol had then, and still possesses, a number of terrible consequences for overuse. We have drunk drivers, alcoholics, violent drunks, and to say nothing of the things I see DJing the clubs. Yet Prohibition failed and was repealed. Why?
The usual argument is that banning doesn’t work because people will get what they want regardless. There will be speakeasies and bootleggers, organized crime and street thugs. That’s partially correct. But let’s be frank. None of those things will be a problem for banning plastic straws. Certainly, I don’t see organized crime selling crates of plastic straws out of the backs of sketchy minivans. So what’s the real issue?
Freedom of choice.
If the harm of alcohol was eventually outweighed by freedom of choice, then how can we justify banning plastic straws? Many of the same Leftists arguing for banning straws are, in turn, proponents of the legalization of marijuana. Any substance, device, or creation of mankind will have costs, that is to say negative effects. This applies to every single thing man creates. Automobiles have negative effects. Cubicles have negative effects. Medicines have side effects, or can lead to addictions. Those ugly, tacky garden gnomes have negative effects (the sight of them used to drive my dog into a rage for reasons that are clear only to him).
The trick of the Left is to focus on those negative things in an arbitrary fashion. For the things they like, they speak only of the positives. Weed will save lives, reduce pain, relax people. For things they dislike, they speak only of the negatives. Straws will hurt turtles, and won’t degrade for decades. Animals might ingest them. Ban straws. Legalize weed. Ban guns. Legalize gay marriage. There is no principle here, no overriding guidance they are following, only arbitrary emotions. These are the whims of a mob. If 50% + 1 don’t like something that you like, ban it!
What a lot of people don’t realize is that the mob is not necessarily consistent. 50% + 1 may be found to ban anything and everything, because a person may like ban A, but be against ban B.
Most Leftists are essentially reacting emotionally, not rationally. However, some attempt to rationalize it by amount of harm. They attempt to weigh all of the consequences and all of the benefits, and say that if the balance is more toward harm than good, we should ban it. This presumes that all the consequences and benefits are known (or a sufficient number of them to make a reliable decision). This tries to masquerade as principle.
A common example is when they argue that guns don’t have sufficient benefit to outweigh the harm, but automobiles do. So even though automobiles kill more than guns, we should ban the guns, but keep the automobiles (some other Leftists want to ban both, there’s ban A and ban B for you, again). However, what is accepted as a benefit is not consistent between proponents and opponents of the bans. For instance, a Rightist is likely to include incidents where a thug was discouraged from attack merely by the brandishing of a firearm (such events are common), whereas the Leftist generally only wants to include incidents of a bad guy with a gun, stopped by a good guy with a gun, where the good guy is not employed by the government (far less common).
Furthermore, the Leftist generally tries to include suicides, even though many other alternate (and just as easy) suicide methods exist. Japan has a higher suicide rate than the US, despite a robust gun ban. The Left artificially reduces the perceived benefit, and magnifies the perceived harm by some subtle manipulation with regards to which statistics are accepted, and which are dismissed.
This leads us right back to the lack of principle. What the Left doesn’t like must be banned. They are quite casual with bans, too. They’ll ban guns and plastic straws, both. I heard a tale once of a town in Texas which banned inflatable gorillas. While I’m sure there is an amusing story behind the ban, it illustrates that nothing is beyond the reach of the ban hammer.
This morning, a local community page was full of demands to ban fireworks on behalf of pets, veterans with PTSD, and idiots who hurt themselves doing dumb things with fireworks. The chief proponent of the ban rattled off statistics not unlike what you see in the Prohibition propaganda. 12,000 people annually are hurt by fireworks, she said, and we can’t even count the harm to pets and veterans. They should be replaced with laser light shows, she demanded.
Once you get into debating the pros and cons of a ban, you have already implicitly conceded that bans are justified given a certain harm/benefit ratio. At that point, you are now vulnerable to the manipulation and spin of said data, which is commonplace. It’s an endless rabbit hole, and debates like that spiral into infinity. We’re all caught over the event horizon of a singularity of stupid.
So I’ll repeat the heresy: ban nothing.
An opponent of this statement may attempt to bring extreme circumstances to bear. “Oh, you mean you wouldn’t ban crime? Murder? Theft? Rape?” Each of those things is a violation on the individual’s rights to life, liberty, and property. Those are the consistent principles. So what about extreme drugs like cocaine, heroin, etc… Well, never mind the notion that banning these things has objectively failed anyway, regardless of how much I might loathe them. In my heart, would I like to ban them? Sure. Do I think it’s practical to do so? No. Every attempt has failed utterly. And that circles right back to the original point. Just because I loathe something doesn’t mean it should banned. This is a truth the Left has utterly failed to grasp. To them, dislike is coextensive with “get rid of it, get it out of my sight.” It’s the mantra of tyrants.
In any event, the principle of banning nothing need not necessarily be adhered to 100%. It’s probably impractical, just as my support for limited government does not necessarily imply that I think no government whatsoever can work practically (however much I’d like that). We might say we want to get as close to that principle as is possible and practical. Certainly we do not violate the principle for something as trivial as drinking straws. If you’re going to disobey the rule, you better have a damned clear, concise, and dare I say obvious reason for doing it. And even then, be exceedingly cautious.
Ah, but am I being arbitrary, even with that small concession? Maybe. I’d at least admit that I am, instead of trying to spin the argument otherwise. However, even those things I find incredibly distasteful, I would still not ban. The principle overrules my desires in all but the most extreme of cases – and possibly not even then, if the concerns of practicality can be addressed.
Don’t get caught in circular arguments about the harm and benefits of each thing the Left desires to ban. Instead, respond to the ban demand with some heresy. Tell them you want to ban nothing, and watch their heads explode with anger. For you have just dismissed the core of their entire worldview: that their subjective like or dislike of a thing should be taken seriously and given real weight.
Interesting argument. It’s an argument against utilitarianism, which conservatives as well as liberals often appeal to. When is utilitarianism justified? Never? Even if I build a toxic waste dump right next to your house? Because that’s what the straw argument is about. If we fill the oceans with plastic, we don’t have another planet to go to yet. The Prohibition comparison is not relevant, except in the sense that most plastic straws are acquired by consumers.
As I said near the end of the post, “never” is too strong, from a dialectical perspective. “Ban nothing” is rhetoric.
Cases where utilitarianism can and should be invoked are few, and very extreme. We should be exceedingly cautious to invoke it, and only in cases where it’s very clear cut. The base of popular support for it should probably be far greater than a mere simple majority, either in the voting public, or a legislature. Consider the difficulty of amending the Constitution. Banning a thing via a utilitarian argument should probably be at least as difficult as that.
Weak statement.
Banning straws in a few American states is nothing compared to the plastic dumped in the oceans by Asia and Africa. 10 rivers in Asia and Africa account for 90% of the ocean’s plastic.
Your argument, in fact, is a ‘strawman.’ See that? I said ‘STRAWMAN.’ I made a funny! Yuck yuck! Haaar deee Haaaarrrrr!
And the Prohibition comparison IS the point.
I ban you from stating anything to teh contrary.
(I made another funny, herrr deee herrrr!)
😉
I was wondering when the strawman pun was going to make an appearance. Perfect timing, TSW.
In any event, the whole affair is silly. Those plastic 6 pack holders were probably much worse for wildlife than the straws anyway.
Really showing your age with those old school laugh lines. Now I don’t feel so alone.
“Even if I build a toxic waste dump right next to your house?”
This isn’t an argument in favor of banning anything. It’s purposefully silly argument to explain how property rights can be perverted to ban things. Obviously, protecting property rights is legitimate and a valid action of government. The crux of property rights, though, is for property owners to show clear and demonstrable harm. Using straws, nor toxic waste dumps, per se, cause harm. That you don’t like what your neighbor does with his property IS NOT HARM.
Grow up.
Thales and the Neimoller problem!
http://www.maddogslair.com/blog/thales-and-the-neimoller-problem
Let’s head down to the local doggery for a tipple!
“Here’s a bit of heresy: ban nothing. Did that raise the hair on your back? Did it strike a chord? Did you find yourself thinking “but Thales, that can’t possibly work!”
One of the more bizarre news items of the day relates to a continuing fetish of American municipal governments for banning plastic straws. Now, a liberal acquaintance of mine assured me that he was not inconvenienced by the use of biodegradable paper and wax straws, and plastic straws do have various environmental consequences. In this, my liberal acquaintance is entirely correct. Yet I still disagree vociferously with these straw bans.
To illustrate why, let us go back to the days of Prohibition.”
Plastic straws are not alcohol prohibition; they will not create a black market in plastic straws! No …
But it does create the Neimoller problem, and that is a slippery slope which always ends with a rapidly spiraling loss of individual rights, liberty, and the elimination of personal responsibility.
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
First_they_came_…
The authoritarians start small with plastic straws, plastic bags, but never end there. The bans continue, and slowly but surely, the authoritarians shift to the issues they are interested in which always erode individual liberty.
The best thing to do is just say no! It is time to let the pendulum swing back from the excessively authoritarian position we find it in today to a position less authoritarian and more liberal.
An election looms, choose wisely.
Mark Sherman
The authoritarians wish for the world to conform to whatever worldview they hold. I.e. if they want to smoke pot, but hate alcohol, they’ll legalize the former and ban the latter. Or ban both, but give themselves an exemption or immunity. Whatever. Since, naturally, everyone’s positions will be different… it becomes essentially arbitrary.
If we admire Niemöller, let’s at least spell his name right. Niemöller was not talking about the exercise of any kind of authority anywhere at any time. He was talking about a government (which most people forget he initially supported) that deprived its citizens of their right to life and liberty.
Prohibition might conceivably be a Niemöller problem (“first they came for the alcohol”) but I don’t think most people think of alcohol and human beings as being in the same category. Whatever Prohibition was, though, it was certainly not utilitarian. It was a moral issue through and through, advanced by the SJWs of its day.
Environmental issues are not Niemöller problems or moral crusades. Whatever SJWs or libertarians try to turn them into, they are utilitarian calculations based on the fact that we have a finite amount of clean air, water, land, etc. So which comes first: my right to eat fish without plastic or your right to consume beverages through plastic straws? I’m not an environmental scientist, so I don’t actually know the answer to that calculation. For all I know or care, the studies that indicate that plastics are building up in fish could be faked:
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/08/ocean-life-eats-plastic-larvaceans-anchovy-environment/
My main point was actually to see if Thales passed Intro Philosophy and can tell the difference between a utilitarian calculation and a moral crusade like Prohibition.
Prohibition was shades of both. Masking a moral crusade with a utilitarian argument is as old as time. Note the first of the Prohibition posters in this post. Statistics are used to bend it into a utilitarian argument even though the impetus is still coming from a moral crusader source.
Modern day SJWs likewise have shades of both. They’ll have some superficial utilitarian argument about racism, sexism, or some other such thing. But underneath it is a moral crusade. Underneath *that* is a desire for attention, and for a scapegoat. Whatever.
Either way, I do not go in for utilitarianism unless it’s a very extreme problem. And if it is such a problem, the ‘fix’ ought to be confined to a narrow band. I.e. if the problem is that straws are getting into fish, and if we judge this to be an extreme problem (I have no idea if that’s true or not, but whatever), then confine the fix to dumping or throwing straws into the ocean, not a blanket ban of the straws.
Also, why do you care if it’s Niemöller or Niemoller? The character in question is not supplied on an English keyboard, and the casual commenter on a blog can be forgiven not getting the ASCII code for it.
It wasn’t the umlaut, it was the spelling “NEI-” that got to me 🙂
Ah. Didn’t even notice that. Whatever, an easy slip up to make. Side note: you know, if you jumble up the letters of various words – but keep the first and last the same – the human brain usually registers it anyway.
I dno’t konw waht yu’ore tlaknig aobut.
FOURTH!
Perhaps there’s an argument to be made that democracy – even the republican form we have – tends to give arbitrary power to control freaks.
No question about it – the arbitrariness of these bands must be resisted to the utmost.
Think I’ll drink a soda with a PLASTIC STRAW now……. 😉
If you are old enough to remember we went to plastic straws and bags to save the trees before the whole planet became a desert or some such. I myself prefer paper over plastic, except when you get a really thick shake and they give those half inch diameter straws, especially since I forget to take the cloth shopping bags in.
Ban nothing? I agree in principle with a few exceptions. Which I will be happy to discuss if anyone is interested.
Well Thales,
You covered this topic so well that even a world class gas bag such as myself cannot add anything to it.
I can agree with “ban no thing”, which is very different than “ban no act”. Perhaps “regulate harmful things” will work for the items that can cause harm. Even straws have to be manufactured from a material that is not harmful to the consumer – so they are already regulated.
Also, wrt the straws themselves, I follow this mantra: “Technology created the problem, technology can resolve the problem.” There is a way to treat straws pre-landfills that will bio-degrade them quickly. It will require technology and investment, which could be implemented via the regulation route.
I freely admit that my belief that hard drugs like cocaine and heroin should be outlawed is only partly rational. It’s based on having seen the effects of addiction on my best friend. Quite frankly, on my worst days I would be perfectly happy with making trafficking in certain narcotics an execute-on-discovery crime.
However, I would also argue that there is a utilitarian component to this belief: If freedom of choice is to be held as the greatest good, then by definition we have to maximize the capacity for those choices to be rational and informed; and addiction, by definition, reduces that capacity and takes freedom of choice away from its victims. Therefore those who deliberately foster destructive addiction in others for their own profit are actively working against society’s interests — and if you can’t ban that, I don’t want to live in that society.
The best thing about Texas is that you can do anything on your land. The worst thing? So can your neighbor.
In my heart, would I like to ban them? Sure. Do I think it’s practical to do so? No.
And here’s the problem – our current culture. To get to a “ban nothing” point you have to have a culture where the people govern themselves. For something like drugs, you have to have a culture that frowns upon losing control of yourself (which, btw, is also necessary to mitigate the problems with alcohol consumption) because you’re high/stoned/drunk. The culture has to hold to such principles as “you did this to yourself, and I’m not going to penalize everyone else for your poor choices.”
If we ever want a gov’t that governs least, we have to have citizens who govern themselves pretty thoroughly.
(The progressives have done a pretty good job of destroying that, and we have to get it back.)