Banning Skittles Might Seem Trivial. It's Not

“The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best,” the bestselling economist Thomas Sowell has observed.

Source: Banning Skittles Might Seem Trivial. It's Not - Foundation for Economic Education

The simple reason this isn't trivial is that government does not and should not have the authority to ban whatever it feels like. I'm sure that if you are slamming down a bag of skittles every day than it is probably quite bad for your health. A few every now and then isn't likely to kill you. By the logic of such bans, you might as well ban food since eating too much of it is bad for you. Either way, the choice should not be for the government to make for you. The government of California frequently feels otherwise. There are tons of things far more dangerous than Skittles so what is the real motivation here? Who votes for the idiots coming up with this stuff and why? Do the majority of people in California feel incapable of making their own decisions?

Skittles are hardly the most significant thing being banned or considered for a ban. The article points out things like gas powered cars, plastic straws, gas stoves, and meat among other potential things. The problem is that even if you could conclusively prove that any of these things are "bad", it does not necessarily mean that banning such things would have a net positive effect. Prohibition has consequences. Just look at crime and drugs. Or crime and alcohol when that was banned. Also, while economic consequences may seem trivial in the face of "saving the planet", these can in fact be quite dire. Banning skittles probably won't have such an effect (except for maybe the company that makes Skittles) but banning things like gas cars could. Such consequences inevitably affect the poor the most but could be non-trivial for billions of people in the world.