Healthcare Matters

Lending credence to the old adage that the only true communists are the ones who can afford to be one, Mayor Bloomberg, the billionaire autocratic mayor of New York City, has struck again. He is proving that there are, in fact, ways to make Rosie O’Donnel appear erudite.

Bloomberg, who embodies C.S. Lewis’ observation (see below) that “those who torment us for our own good torment us without end,” has successfully banned smoking in bars and restaurants, public parks and on private terraces. He has gone after salt and he has banned trans fats in restaurants. He is America’s leading proponent of using punitive measures to dictate perfectly legal habits.  And now he’s succeeded in getting his health commission to pass a law that will prove to be nothing more than a silly inconvenience.

I’m sorry, but I can’t get rid of this image of a Don Quixote-like-Bloomberg flailing away at some “unsweetened truth” that only he can fully appreciate.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” CS Lewis

—Tom Finn