Surprisingly it’s not in The Quotable Mises, and I don’t remember what it’s from (I think the one I’m looking for might have also been used by Rothbard).
It seemed like it was a whole paragraph, also. It was along the lines of some agency dictating what we consume, etc etc.
It’s from Liberalism.
Whoever is convinced that indulgence or excessive indulgence in these poisons is pernicious is not hindered from living abstemiously or temperately. This question cannot be treated exclusively in reference to alcoholism, morphinism, cocainism, etc., which all reasonable men acknowledge to be evils. For if the majority of citizens is, in principle, conceded the right to impose its way of life upon a minority, it is impossible to stop at prohibitions against indulgence in alcohol, morphine, cocaine, and similar poisons. Why should not what is valid for these poisons be valid also for nicotine, caffein, and the like? Why should not the state generally prescribe which foods may be indulged in and which must be avoided because they are injurious?
That’s not it, and that one is actually in The Quotable Mises.
That’s the only one I know of.
Human Action
Self-styled “realistic” people fail to recognize the immense importance
of the principles implied. They contend that they do not want to deal with
the matter from what, they say, is a philosophic and academic point of view.
Their approach is, they argue, exclusively guided by practical considerations.
It is a fact, they say, that some people harm themselves and their
innocent families by consuming narcotic drugs. Only doctrinaires could be
so dogmatic as to object to the government’s regulation of the drug traffic.
Its beneficent effects cannot be contested.
However, the case is not so simple as that. Opium and morphine are
certainly dangerous, habit-forming drugs. But once the principle is admitted
that it is the duty of government to protect the individual against his own
foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments.
A good case could be made out in favor of the prohibition of alcohol
and nicotine. And why limit the government’s benevolent providence to the
protection of the individual’s body only? Is not the harm a man can inflict
on his mind and soul even more disastrous than any bodily evils? Why not
prevent him from reading bad books and seeing bad plays, from looking at
bad paintings and statues and from hearing bad music? The mischief done
by bad ideologies, surely, is much more pernicious, both for the individual
and for the whole society, than that done by narcotic drugs.
These fears are not merely imaginary specters terrifying secluded doctrinaires.
It is a fact that no paternal government, whether ancient or modern,
ever shrank from regimenting its subjects’ minds, beliefs, and opinions. If
one abolishes man’s freedom to determine his own consumption, one takes
all freedoms away. The naive advocates of government interference with
consumption delude themselves when they neglect what they disdainfully
call the philosophical aspect of the problem. They unwittingly support the
case of censorship, inquisition, religious intolerance, and the persecution of
dissenters
Self-styled “realistic” people fail to recognize the immense importance
of the principles implied. They contend that they do not want to deal with
the matter from what, they say, is a philosophic and academic point of view.
Their approach is, they argue, exclusively guided by practical considerations.
It is a fact, they say, that some people harm themselves and their
innocent families by consuming narcotic drugs. Only doctrinaires could be
so dogmatic as to object to the government’s regulation of the drug traffic.
Its beneficent effects cannot be contested.
However, the case is not so simple as that. Opium and morphine are
certainly dangerous, habit-forming drugs. But once the principle is admitted
that it is the duty of government to protect the individual against his own
foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments.
A good case could be made out in favor of the prohibition of alcohol
and nicotine. And why limit the government’s benevolent providence to the
protection of the individual’s body only? Is not the harm a man can inflict
That’s the one I’m looking for.