A quote from a piece on Mayor Bloomberg at Pajamas:
Since he took office six years ago, Mike Bloomberg�s record is, among other things, a study in finicky prohibition. Not only is Bloomberg certain of what�s best for you, he knows you to lack the good sense to choose it. In order to ensure the well being of his charges, the Mayor has instituted a few laws about which he has said, �People will adjust very quickly and a lot of lives will be saved.� Has an American politician ever expressed a more vitally un-American sentiment? Dubious claims of life-saving aside, American citizens aren�t to be schoolmarmed into compulsory purification.
This connects with a piece from Wilkinson linked at Overcoming Bias. A quote:
I say, again and again, that it is an embarrassing non-sequitur to argue that people are "irrational" and then leap to the conclusion that they need benevolent paternal guidance from the state. After all, if people are irrational then voters are irrational, politicians are irrational, bureaucrats are irrational, etc. ... There is no way to wriggle out of the fact that people who win elections are just like the rest of us. ... I don't doubt that non-terrible policies are sometimes successfully enacted. To doubt that would be a bit like a market skeptic doubting that anyone ever succeeds in buying a candy bar. That would be terrifically dense. What I doubt, very strongly, is that the discovery of "irrationalities" undermines the authority of market institutions more than it undermines the authority of government institutions.
Well said. Serious adult�people are not interested in controlling other adult�people (unless they're married, of course).