Do you see the connection?

An executive-branch agency announces that it will launch a totalitarian intrusion into the personal and economic lives of Americans.  Sadly, that's nothing new anymore.

In this case, the FDA is moving toward banning trans fats in our nation's food.  As I say, it's the kind of thing that's done all the time by our overlords.

But why is it more frequent, and destined to keep getting more frequent?

FHer-care.

In any interpersonal dynamic where money is involved, the party paying for whatever is in question gets to call the shots.   It's true for employment, for loans, and it's true for socialized areas of our economy. If government is destined to be paying for upkeep of our bodies (and, it looks like, our minds as well), it will want a lot of bang for its buck.  The masses must not clog their arteries or otherwise fall below regime standards for healthiness, thereby becoming high-maintenance and possibly a subject for discussion at IPAB death-panel meetings.

Never mind the fact that, when this was America, we used to set our own priorities, and even reserved the right to readjust them at will, as in the decision to eat some trans-fat onion rings precisely because they were bursting with that crunchy, greasy pub-food allure.  Alas, that was long ago, when we were each the sovereign masters of our own lives.