As many of you here know the “Nanny” Mayor of New York City recently proposed telling those of us who reside here we are too stupid to have large drinks like a Venti Frappucino in moderation. Therefore, he is going to force us (for our own good) to make the decision to have no more than 16oz at a restaurant or other establishment. However, I am not going to write about the stupidity of the ban, or the attack on personal liberty. No, I am going to write about the stupidity of my fellow New Yorkers who allow this crap to happen.
This morning a NY1/Martist poll came out and it said New Yorkers are against the ban 52-43%! How is it that close?!? HOW IS IT THAT FORTY THREE PERCENT OF NEW YORKERS THINK IT IS OK TO SAY TO THEIR NEIGHBOR THAT YOU ARE TOO STUPID TO MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICES!? The fact is, decades of utopian statism have taken their toll on this city and the residents are like lemmings following these statist decisions to their own doom. It is time to write NYC off and its citizens as hopeless and unworthy of being saved or felt sorry for. If they want to live under tyranny, let them.
Bloomberg would not have proposed this if he did not think he had a near majority support for this. He knew that he had beaten down the citizenry into accepting draconian measures. From his smoking ban to his calorie boards, the citizens of New York quietly go along with it. Whether it is amassing outside bars, smoking and littering the sidewalks or squinting at the menu boards at a Burger King to see how many calories is in a Whopper meal, the citizens no longer complain. If and when this 16 oz drink measure gets passed, there will be moaning and groaning from the regular people still left in some of the boroughs like Queens and Staten Island. But give it a year and it will be the new “normal.” People will either order 2 drinks from McDonalds or just be content with their 16 oz drink. Businesses like Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts will comply like the citizenry, and remove their large cups and nay a stink shall be made. In that lies the problem.
We get all riled up when issues like this emerge, but we do not sustain the outrage while it is going on. There are no protests of smokers, there are no companies suing the city for telling them to change their menus to comply with a stupid rule. The cigarette companies just keep allowing their products to be demeaned and punished like no other, yet if their product were to be banned, the tax revenues of many of these states would dry up. When McDonalds tweeted Friday that it thought it’s customers could make an informed decision and did not need Bloomberg to tell them what to do, well that tweet was a start. However, will McDonalds sue the city if the ban takes effect? Will Wendy’s, Burger King, KFC, etc. join them? Will citizens support them? To fight utopian statists you must hit them as hard as they hit you. Too long, have we been hit and turned away. Maybe, just maybe this cup ban will turn the tide. Maybe this ban will encourage businesses with pockets just as deep as the city, to fight them tooth and nail. Bloomberg is hoping they all roll over. If he sees a true sustained fight, he will be shocked, he will be angry, and he will lose.