Odds 'N Ends (And Insertions)

I think Dan Munz might be misinterpreting me. I said, in re: boob jobs, "Obviously, as a libertarian, I think people should be free to insert anything they want into their bodies." He writes:

Okay, if the original ban was bogus, than I’m glad to see it undone. But is he really suggesting that banning these products is an infringement on our freedoms in any meaningful way? The FDA did not say, “No putting damaging substances in your body.” What they did do is make it illegal for companies to pass off damaging substances as non-damaging ones. The reason they did this, of course, is that we’re not all scientists, and we don’t have the time to be. We have to rely on someone to interpret the innovations of modern science, and the government, being a neutral third party with a vested interest in the general welfare of the citizenry, seems like as good a choice as any. Is this a cession of autonomy, in some sense? Sure, in the sense that “freedom” includes the freedom to be lied to. But that’s no way to run a society.

Not in spite of my libertarianism, nor because of it, but completely independently of it, I don't think that companies should not be able to defraud the public and/or pass off products they know to be harmful without disclosing potential risks of use. I do think though, that on general principle, provided that consumers are fully informed (and responsibility for that is divided between consumers and producers) there should be essentially no restrictions on the transactions they can enter into.

More concretely, I think we should be wary of attempts by the FDA, especially when governed by a theocrat-symp administration, to ban pharmaceutical products for the good of the public. This is the same rationale that's keeping EC and birth control pills on a prescription-only.

Also via Dan Munz, in my opinion as a philosopher, Tom Delay is an absolute shithead.