OK, he didn’t call him a freak.
Bloomberg is an authoritarian. He’s not an authoritarian in the way Josef Stalin or Pol Pot was authoritarian, but every instinct tells you he’s a man who would use any power given to him to govern every aspect of public and private life whenever necessary — or, more precisely, whenever he finds it necessary, which is frequently. All said, he’s exactly the type of person who makes the Constitution a necessity.
Anyone who believes your caloric intake is government’s prime concern should be watched carefully, of course; but no matter what crusade the man’s on, his rationalization for limiting personal freedom is a dangerous one. Some of his proposals are popular (smoking bans), and others are less so (limiting portion sizes and banning ingredients), but all of them set precedents that distort the relationship between government and citizens. The jump from minor infringements on personal liberty to giant ones is a shorter one than you think. Allow a politician to tell you what your portion sizes should be and the next thing you know you’re letting Washington force you to buy insurance you don’t want.
When the nicest thing you can say about a guy’s governing style is “Hey, at least he’s not a mass-murderer,” you know you have a problem on your hands. What’s most disturbing about Bloomberg is the fact that he’s a billionaire megalomaniac who truly believes he can run your life better. There is no reason to believe this is the final political office he wants to hold. He changes political parties on a whim to suit his needs and he may begin looking very attractive to nanny state Democrats when they realize the folly of running Hillary Clinton in 2016.
If there’s anything to be learned from the last five years it’s that just because a disturbing statist shouldn’t be elected doesn’t mean he won’t be.
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