They might call your bluff and up the ante. Commenting on Wil Wilkinson's post about food nannyism, Eric Crampton writes:
Wilkinson is right to use the reductio. But that can be dangerous; not long after I used mandatory ski helmets as reductio, I started seeing proposals entreating that mandatory helmets would save lives. When I wrote [PDF] in the NZ Med Journal about the logical end of seeing public health costs as being basis for policy - bringing one's sex life from the private to the public realm - earnest healthists replied that they've happily prescribed subsidised condoms. Setting up signposts about what's logically implied by positions might well be taken as suggestions of where to go next...
It took me a couple of years to figure out why nanny statists miss the humor of the reductio. Instead, they agree and amplify the argument in all seriousness. I believe that this is because the nanny statist has no problem with using violence to control the behavior of other people. Whereas the libertarian believes that aggression -- i.e., the initiation of violence against innocent people -- is always immoral, the nanny statist believes that violence is an amoral means to an end. For the nanny statist, the reason to initiate violence might or might not be immoral in her mind.
For example, most modern day nanny statists abhor African slavery. The reason is not because they are against slavery as such. That is, nanny statists have no problem with using violence to force people to live as they want them to. However, they believe that the enslavement of people on the basis of race is immoral. This is an important point to recognize. In several past debates with nanny statists, I assumed that if could point out that they were arguing for the initiation of violence against innocent people, their moral conscience would finally awaken and they would realize that their means were immoral. However, I never witnessed such an epiphany during any of my debates. Some interlocutors would say in essence, "Yes, I know that, but this is the outcome I prefer."
Nanny statists truly believe that they should control the lives of others. If we engage in debate with them on a specific topic, such as a fat tax, we should heed Crampton's warning about using the reductio. We might give them specific ideas as to other facets of life they think they should control.
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