Libertarians have long warned that the war on cigarettes and smokers was just the first step in a coming nanny-state attack on our freedom to choose what to eat and drink.

Unfortunately, we continue to be proven right. This item from the “Business” section of the Atlantic called “Lessons from Cigarette Policy for Obesity” happily anticipates (and offers suggestions for) this next war on personal choice.

Of course, for the sort of aspiring central planners who write in the Atlantic, everything in our lives is the appropriate subject of national “policy.” The concept of individuals with rights controlling their own lives and futures is not considered.

The item does endorse one good idea, though: abolishing corn subsidies. But the reason to do this isn’t because it will serve a national policy of reducing Americans’ girth to that which bureaucrats deem to be ideal. The reason to do it is because it’s wrong to steal (directly and indirectly) from you and me to make agribusinesses rich. But that’s another concept foreign to the sort of people who write about “public policy.”

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