* * * * *
                                        
                                  Leviathan II
                                        
> Finally, you have to guess what the law is. There is so much “discretion”
> [3,4] afforded to regulatory agencies that the threat of fines and seizures
> over bizarre interpretations of the law by a Carmen Ortiz- style ambitious
> regulator is never far from your mind. Example [5]:
> 
> > [Newsweek:] What exactly would constitute a “medical claim?” Would
> > pointing people to medical research papers [qualify]?
> > 
> > [FDA]: It depends. There are rules as to how one can do that … Those
> > rules are actually worked out pretty well, and they just would need to
> > make sure they’re staying within the rules.
> > 
> > [Newsweek:] Are those rules on the Web?
> > 
> > [FDA]: I don’t know where the policy is. I would have to get it for you.
> > It’s an agencywide policy. I would have to find it for you. And it won’t
> > be that easy for people to follow it …
> > 
> > …
> > 
> 
> Look, finally, how they claim in an official court filing against family
> farms producing raw milk that you have "No Generalized Right to Bodily and
> Physical Health" [12], where they approvingly cite the case of Cowan vs.
> US, where a terminal cancer patient was denied access to experimental
> medication, denied the right to opt-out of the FDA:
> 
> > There is No Generalized Right to Bodily and Physical Health.
> > 
> > Plaintiffs' assertion of a “fundamental right to their own bodily and
> > physical health, which includes what foods they do and do not choose to
> > consume for themselves and their families” is similarly unavailing
> > because plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food
> > they wish. In addition, courts have consistently refused to extrapolate a
> > generalized right to “bodily and physical health” from the Supreme
> > Court's narrow substantive due process precedents regarding abortion,
> > intimate relations, and the refusal of lifesaving medical treatment.
> > 
> > …
> > 
> 
> I know it sounds surreal, but they are arguing here that you only control
> your own body with respect to abortion, intimate relations, and euthanasia.
> Everything else is controlled by the FDA, yea even unto your death from
> cancer.
> 

“Comment at Hacker News [1]”

The whole comment should be read, if only to read the extensive footnotes
provided in the comment (those numbers in brackets). But it does show just
how nanny-esque (and not to mention risk-averse) our government has become.

I'm telling you—Leviathan, peak government.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5089359

Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org

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