I'M OK WITH CULTURAL TABOOS as long as they're my cultural taboos. Marc Ambinder on Nanny Bloomberg's soft drink ban:

After thinking it over, though, I became less and less uncomfortable with the idea. For one thing, social experimentation on this level, on this scale, has not been tried in the United States. It's not a off-one stab into the heart of the problem; it embeds into a framework of other interventions that Bloomberg has pursued. It is transparent: It seeks to change behavior and draw attention to a source of empty calories. It does not, at least to me, unreasonably restrict the purchase of soda itself. And obesity is not an individual problem that calls for individualized solutions. To reduce obesity in New York City, large-scale interventions now may pay off in decades, when habits are changed. Bloomberg is absolutely making a moral judgment about the consumption of certain drinks, and people might be hurt by the government's sudden disapproval of their choices. They won't be harmed by it, though, and if over-consumption of sugary drinks is indeed a major contributor to a problem that has widespread, distributed social effects, even the "hurt" might be mitigated by the benefit.

Armbinder is clearly too young to remember the counterculture 60's, which brought us AIDS, unwed mothers, an explosion in teen pregnancies, abortion on demand, and the welfare state. The cost of those 'culture changes' is incalculably higher that the expected cost of treating obesity (which, by the way, is part and parcel of the 60's liberal culture change).

History repeats, the first time as a tragedy, the second as a farce. May the farce be with you....