A friend of mine was recently quoted in the Generic Good Morning Message as saying, "It's like a Noah Riner speech just exploded all over my life." Not being particularly clever myself nor able to pass up a great mental image when I stumble upon it, I must paraphrase and adapt it to a feeling I got recently while getting my news junkie fix. One of the great values of a Dartmouth education -- and bear with me for a moment while I let the Reviewer inside me see the light of day -- is instilling in us a solemn respect for the veritable sanctity of our great Western tradition. It is precisely this tradition, upon reading that New York City is now looking to ban partially hydrogenated oils from its restaurants, that has exploded all over my life.
You see, doughnuts, pastries, cakes, French fries, fast food and many other tasty delectables contain something called trans fatty acids. Through the marvels of modern medicine, it is now clear to us that these fats are peculiarly bad for us. As a result, the New York City health department is attempting to rule that all of the city's 24,600 food servers must stop using this most offensive ingredient because, according to Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden, there are tasty alternatives that are far better for us.
Let me be the first to say: thank God that Mr. Frieden and his associates are looking out for our health. Perhaps that's an unfair criticism, as this seems to be his job; maybe the fault lies with the city government itself, or perhaps the population at large that permits its government to do things like this. For it is not restricted to New York and fatty acids; nay, France has a similar relationship with cigarettes.
In the writing of this piece, I mentioned New York City's proposition off-hand to my roommate, who has spent a decent amount of time, given our years, in France. His response was, "But... the French smoke like chimneys." Indeed, despite vast popularity of this rather disgusting habit, their Health Minister has started testing the waters for a nation-wide ban on smoking in public places. These two specific examples are not the only ones cropping up. Even Greenleaf, Idaho is recently throwing their take on this type of action into the mix: requiring every household to own a gun. Talk about turning the Second Amendment on its head. This state-enforced-preference movement has obviously gained widespread acceptance in Western culture; otherwise New York, France and Idaho wouldn't be wasting their breath on ridiculous measures.
And now we come full circle, to the copy of John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty" that just jumped off my bookshelf and exploded in my face. Western civilization, more so than any other, has come to dominate our world today. Despite some of our current enemies' claims, I don't put much faith in the belief that we got here with Lucifer's guiding hand. I would instead argue that the greatness of this civilization we call home -- even here in bucolic Hanover -- owes homage to thinkers like Mill, Locke, Montesquieu and Smith, and documents like Magna Carta, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, the Declaration of Independence and countless other men and ideas that have built a solid framework in which our culture nestles, allowing individuals to pursue what they may at the benefit of all.
Standing on the shoulders of such giants, we are now beset, as we have always been and will always be (too many people at too many times before me have thought they were at the dawning of a New Age and have been wrong for me to follow suit) by people who want to destroy this legacy. This destruction, or at least discussion of its destruction, is made possible by We The People -- citizens who have lost interest in the political process, who turn to other careers instead of civic duty, who fall prey to antiquated notions of morality -- from both "sides" of the aisle.
Unfortunately, there exists a large enough number of people whose reaction to a trans fat ban is "well, people shouldn't be fat, so..." to ensure that it is not tramped out as the bizarre, Orwellian thought control that it is. Enough people think of smoking bans in restaurants and say, "damn, I really hate inhaling that crap," and fail to take note of the lack of the gun to their head when they walk into said restaurants. We have become hypnotized by the idea of a nanny state who will do all our hard work for us and have tossed our lofty forefathers' ideals to the lions. Whatever happened to the pursuit of happiness? Last I checked, that great document did not conclude, "except for fatties."
