Why The Government Needs To Get Out Of The Public Health Business
I was driving on Demers Ave. in GF, when I noticed a huge billboard informing minors that “It’s Not Not OK” to drink. How are people going to take this campaign seriously when the sign, [through] its use of a double negative, is actually telling minors that it is, in fact, OK to drink alcohol?
I wonder who comes up with this stuff, and how much of our tax money was wasted because of a pretty obvious error.
The people who come up with this stuff are self-important bureaucrats who are engaging in a good deal of mission drift in their public health assignments. I think we can all agree that government public health bureaucracies are ok when it comes to distributing vaccines and basic medical/health information, but I think we need to start drawing the line when it comes to telling citizens how to live their lives.
For one, outside of public health concerns (such as infectious disease outbreaks), my personal health isn’t anyone’s business but mine. If I want to smoke and drink and eat McDonald’s until one day I die a fat, hacking, middle-aged drunkard that’s my business. I fail to see why I need to pay the government taxes so that they can turn around and spend those taxes on preaching to me about my bad habits.
For another, these public health campaigns never work. Ask yourself, have you ever stopped smoking or went on a diet because you saw a billboard that told you to? Have you ever heard of a teenager reading a pamphlet on underage drinking and saying to themselves “Gee, I think maybe I won’t go to that kegger this weekend.” Of course you haven’t, because it doesn’t happen. Kids are most likely to act responsibly when they’ve got good parents who set a good example and force them to follow the rules. The campaigns launched by self-important bureaucrats have little or no impact.
I, for one, would be a lot happier if we could get our politicians to focus on things like, oh I don’t know, balancing the budget instead of telling me how to live my life.
