Goodbye straws. Hello Tyranny.
Starbucks recently announced that it is going strawless. The iconic green straws will be replaced with sippy cup style lids. Treating grown adults like infants incapable of making their own decisions is symbolic of how virtue signalers with manufactured straw outrage are foolish, making decisions based on insufficient data and treating consumers like babies with sippy cups.
According to National Geographic, eight million tons of plastic enters the ocean every year, yet straws comprise just 0.025 percent of that. Yes, that’s less than 1%. So, why are straws the primary focus of nearly every recent environmental crusade?
The basis for the plastic straw ban bandwagon movement is shocking: a nine-year-old Vermont boy named Milo Cress. In 2011, he sought to raise awareness about plastic waste and launched “Be Straw Free”. Mass media coverage ensued, and here we are.
The problem is that this whole movement is based on suspect statistics. Well-intentioned Milo found actual straw data challenging to find, so he called a handful of straw manufactures and asked them what they estimated to be the straw market in the United States per day. Some gave him a yearly estimate, which he divided by 365. Viola, Americans use 500 million straws a day!
Now, these suspect statistics have been published internationally, quoted politically, and adopted factually. We are in the midst of a full-blown policy movement solely based upon random phone calls made by a child.
The movement is filled with fervent supporters within corporations, restaurants, and society at large. They are angry, even outraged. Plastic straws are ruining our world, and if you use them, you are complicit in the destruction of the world. When you stop and look at this manufactured outrage, it’s almost comical. No one within the movement stopped to think, research, or ask. Instead, they bow their head in unison with the virtue signaling straw mob. The rest of us are stuck drinking 10$ artisan water from the rim of a filthy glass. We sip kale smoothies from the lip of a plastic bottle and are forced to use sippy cups like the subservient babies.
Being a subservient baby should scare any free thinker. In a National Geographic article about straws, the author says, “For most able-bodied people, the straw is something you can easily do without. Eliminating plastic straw usage rarely requires a drastic behavior change.” This is the terrifying part—why is it the decision of a journalist, a corporation, or even a well-intentioned nine-year-old to tell us what we can “easily do without”? Who is to tell us what constitutes a “drastic change in behavior”?
This is all a level of subjective control. When we relinquish control without independent thought, it is a slippery slope. When we bow our heads in unison, without research, it’s dangerous. If a nine-year-old is capable of controlling us, a government can do far worse. Goodbye straws. Hello, tyranny.
