They shut down our jobs, locked us in our houses, drove us out of our churches, destroyed our favorite restaurants, crushed our favorite live music venues, delayed Wonder Woman 1984 (again), won’t let us trick-or-treat — and now some government bureaucrats are trying to limit men to just one drink a day?
Are you kidding me?
Insert slightly maniacal, vaguely menacing chuckle.
You say you want a revolution? That’s how you get a revolution.
Unsatisfied with regulating all those other things that once made up a normal life, our betters in Washington are shifting their all-knowing minds to your and my little daily life choices. And yet again, they’re doing it without the facts being on their side.
Despite the overwhelming scientific consensus being against them, they’re now targeting grown men’s booze.
Are we adults in this country anymore or not?
The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee’s latest “scientific” report, which slipped out in August, uses a single study to justify recommending cutting the alcohol consumption limit for men to a single drink per day. They recommend this limitation based on the findings of one study within the committee’s review process, despite the dozens upon dozens of other studies reviewed by the committee offering little to no justification for the move.
The DGAC’s report leaves a lot to be desired in the rationality department.
Going with one report against a stack of others isn’t science; it’s a sham. Forbes questions the whole thing, even raising the specter of “stealth prohibition.” The Hill took them to task too.
Who do these people think they are?
While there has always been debate about the best ways to use scientific findings, the idea of how to conduct “sound science” is relatively settled. A theory needs to be repeatable with consistent results and receive rigorous testing within the scientific community. Has that happened here?
When cherry-picking occurs to bias the result, you get something, but it’s not science.
Sadly, selection bias is growing all too common with big-government bureaucrats. Wittingly or unwittingly, they continue to use studies — and in this instance, just one study — that sets them up to make proclamations, laws, and official government policy — even when it conflicts with other overwhelming evidence.
It’s just a recommendation, you say. Nothing to worry about.
Look at how even absurd clickbait studies turn into real-world -policy if it conforms to the busybody bureaucrats’ control-first worldview.
Cow farts have become a source of concern trolling dressed up as policy on the left. They arrived at the demand to limit cattle flatulence from a study of animals’ carbon footprints in the U.S. agriculture industry. The issue made its way into major legislative proposals sponsored by Kamala Harris (of the “Harris-Biden” ticket) and even onto the floor of the U.S. Senate, with Democrats advocating for a significant reduction in American cattle numbers to protect the environment for the American people.
They came after your grill. Now they’re coming for your drink.
As a fifth-generation Texan, I’m acquainted with a history of tyrants trying to take precious things from the common folk. See: Gonzales, October 1835. Come and take it.
As if that’s not enough, the musings of a 9-year-old who determined plastic straws are “a waste” have morphed into plastic straw bans by cities and major corporations like Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Alaskan Airlines.
Remember this next time you get one of those paper straws and it turns into disgusting mush.
The loose science problem worsens when you consider that many political actors have been arguing that lawmakers reject “the science” on various issues. The hypocrisy is becoming so common that the American people are beginning to tune scientists out completely. This is dangerous, but science has itself to blame. (Bill Nye is not actually a scientist, he just played one on TV. On a kids’ show, for crying out loud.)
The Trump administration, long skeptical of the left’s disingenuous “science” card, can fix this. It can start by ignoring the DGAC’s new booze recommendations and sticking with what’s been on the books for decades. While the country’s Dietary Guidelines should be taken seriously, peddling a single study cloaked under the guise of science is a recipe for ensuring we all toss them quicker than the directions on the back of Hot Pocket boxes.
Beyond the Dietary Guidelines, this mindset should be restored in the rest of the federal government too. Legislators and regulators have to bring back faith in the scientific process by basing their decisions on actual science where there is real consensus as opposed to political orthodoxy, and not the latest clickbait-hyped study of the day. Only then will science regain the respect that it once had.
I’m not a big drinker and don’t have a personal dog in this particular fight. But science is worth defending for its own sake. Unscientific big government diktats are worth opposing for their own sake. Because freedom, personal choice, and individual responsibility are still things in my book.
Stay in your lane, bureaucrats. And have another drink.
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