The lawsuits that have been popping up recently against fast food companies have been an obvious attempt to follow the path laid down in the last decade’s crusade against the cigarette companies. Most people haven’t taken them very seriously, because, after all, what have the food companies done that was so scandalous? The cigarette people were supposed to have knowingly sold a dangerous product while making it as addictive as they possibly could, right? But food companies? Laughable.

Well here it comes. Shannon Brownlee, in The Washington Post, writes the first (that I’ve seen) of what is sure to be many arguments that attempt to give some intellectual covering fire to the plaintiff’s attorneys. She argues that the food companies have in fact been guilty of cynically manipulating the average American into becoming a porker. The food companies are perpetrating this nefarious plot by, get this,…selling food cheaply. Those sneaky bastards!