for the life of me, i can't remember the last time any elected official, agency or governing body at any level of our government did anything purely for the good of the governed--you know, without there being an ulterior motive in the form of wildly-inefficient wealth redistribution and/or--as is the case with this latest bullshit--a power grab.
consider for a moment: you're an elected official faced with the fact that two-thirds of the citizens who entrusted you with some measure of their welfare are obese--a national phenomenon that wasn't even a blip on the public radar screen 40 years ago.
in order to "solve" the problem, do you look at what's changed since then, try and weigh the myriad factors which went into its creation--such as the fact that the rise of obesity in this country precisely coincides with the mass introduction by the food industry of (a) addictive, mind-altering excitotoxins in the guise of "flavor enhancers", and (b) a cheap, frankenstein's-monster corn-based sweetener which demonstrably and effectively turns off the "i've had enough" switch in the human body, may be two to three times as fattening as natural sugar, and has replaced said substance in virtually every product on american shelves? or the fact that, between the two of 'em, the average american trying to maintain a healthy weight by eating in moderation what's offered up to him by the food industry in his country doesn't stand a goddam chance in hell?
or do you merely isolate the most obvious symptom of what is a far deeper problem--overindulgence--and pounce on it as a excuse to clamp your iron fist of benevolence around the throats of your subjects?
well, for the paternalistic billionaire asshole who runs new york and knows what's best for everybody, the choice was a no-brainer. so from now on, new yorkers, you wanna buy a soda or any other sweetened beverage that's bigger than your mayor deems proper or necessary? well, you're shit outta luck--but all for your own good, of course.
it's not what this guy and all the others just like him across the country at every level of government are trying to do that bothers me so much--hell, power-junkies have existed as long as humans have walked on two legs. it's the fact that we're collectively lying back, spreading our legs and letting 'em do it that makes me glad i lived the better part of my life back in an america in which individual freedom still sorta mattered, and any politician who even dreamed of such an overreach of power would've been tarred, feathered and run outta town on a rail.
welcome to the new nanny state, america--have a (small) coke and a smile.
5 comments:
This is tyranny my friend! PLAIN AND SIMPLE! The TSA body searching us at airports, the PATRIOT ACT, being detained if you are suspected and tortured, etc.
It's all happening! And like you said, we are taking it! OUR FREEDOMS ARE BEING DESTROYED!
Just read my latest blog post.
Thanks oh wise one.
xoxoxoxoxoox
This is rich.
Coming from guttermorality -- the very definition of sugar addiction.
Most public health officials believe it is going to be only a matter of time before we label sugar an addictive substance like tobacco and regulate its consumption heavily.
So, what is the solution?
If two thirds of Americans are overweight, with a significant number "morbidly obese," isn't that a public health problem?
Knowledge and education are important. But the problem is particularly the most acute right in middle America where waists are the biggest. Take a look at this diagram:
http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html
Texas -- that great bastion of liberty -- has the fifth highest obesity rate in the country. If people are going to continue to eat and eat and eat until they are fat, clearly this is a public health problem that is going to require some sensible steps to change behavior.
What does Guttermorality propose to do about it?
Guttermorality -- criticism is easy, it's solutions that are hard.
Maybe Bloomberg's idea is not perfect, but it is at least an attempt to work on a very serious issue.
wat: "wise one", huh? i like that. perhaps, ahem, other commenters here could learn from your example.
noblesavage: as is usual with my posts of this kind, you completely (and probably deliberately) missed my point, which is that, up to 35 or 40 years ago, americans ate and drank pretty much anything they wanted--well before the days of government's dire warnings and strictures concerning food--and not only were very few of us moved to overindulge, VERY FEW OF US WERE FAT.
but i knew you'd gloss over this little detail, because, in your view, any simplistic solution involving more government control over our lives and individual freedoms is just moving us further toward that utopian goal when we're all good, perfectly-behaved little citizens of the world--and god knows these wise statesmen we elect to watch over us know better what's good for us than do we.
thing that scares me so much is that there are so many smart, smug people out there who think just like you.
[oh, and my solution to the problem, since you ask, is for the government to do its goddam job: i.e., isolate and rigorously and dispassionately test those new, unnatural test-tube food ingredients that have come into common usage in the days since we were all thin, determine once and for all if they contribute to and/or cause overindulgence and obesity, and then ban them if they do.
and then sit back and watch for a few years, see if that solves the problem. and if it doesn't--if it turns out that, even with non-addictive foods, americans are getting fat simply because we've become the lazy, complacent, entitled pigs the government has designed us to become--THEN we can look at freedom-restricting measures such as the one this asshole is proposing. but that should be the last resort, not the first.
of course, none of what i propose will ever happen, because monsanto and conagra would never permit it, but that is the solution, since you ask.]
Guttermorality writes:
up to 35 or 40 years ago, americans ate and drank pretty much anything they wanted--well before the days of government's dire warnings and strictures concerning food--and not only were very few of us moved to overindulge, VERY FEW OF US WERE FAT.
Well, yes and no. Forty years ago, the "quarter pounder" was released with great fanfare.
The big gulp from 7/11 was considered massive when it was introduced in 1980 -- 30 years ago.
Now look what has happened since: Bigger and bigger serving sizes and portion control has gone out the window. The quarter pounder seems quaint in the era of massive burgers.
So, yes, there was less of a problem with obesity 30 or 40 years before, but there was also some concept of how big a meal should be.
One of the biggest sources of empty calories in the American diet is soft drinks.
While you may point to high fructose corn sweetner, I would point to the size of a Coca Cola (8 ounces) then, versus now (2 liter).
noblesavage: ok, lemme try this a different way.
in my original post, i alluded to the myriad of factors which went into the fattening of america, but mentioned only one--frankenstein food additives--because i wanted to keep it short and, uh, sweet.
but you're right--portion sizes of food and drink have grown substantially since the early 70's (i.e., 40 years ago), mainly because, in addition to uncritically permitting the food industry to use all their fancy new science to doctor the food supply with stuff calculated to increase consumption (and thus, their profits), that was about that time the government began doing something else else, too: under the aegis of nixon's agriculture secretary, earl butz, the massive farm-subsidy program kicked in, thus artificially lowering the price of such previously-expensive items as beef and cheese.
oh, and corn.
the reason there was no big gulp in the 50's, noblesavage, was because natural cane sugar was (and still is) a relatively expensive commodity--it took the simultaneous advent of HFCS and the taxpayer-supplied subsidization of its principal ingredient to put that little bit of marketing genius into the hands and waistlines of americans.
(i've written about this before, remember?)
bottom line: the reason so much fattening, unhealthy-in-quantity food is available to americans so cheaply today is because it is artificially inexpensive; and (i believe) the main reason americans so obligingly stuff themselves with so much of it is because it's been engineered, priced and advertised in such a way as to be made irresistible.
if HFCS was banned tomorrow, and all the farm subsidies vanished and prices of foodstuffs allowed to rise to reflect their actual costs of production--oh, and if their food suddenly became less artificially tasty and seductive--americans would scream in outrage, would spend a far higher proportion of their take-home pay at the grocery store then they presently do, and would be forced by natural economics to make better choices.
but, as michael pollan so astutely points out, we can either pay more for good food now, or pay much more for bad healthcare later.
it really is that simple: government allowed this to happen to us, and government could fix it--in a far healthier and less freedom-attacking way than mayor bloomberg proposes.
but again, it'll never happen. it's gonna play out this way instead, because, when it comes to finding ways of increasing its stranglehold on its citizens by capitalizing on problems it created in the first place, government never lets a good crisis go to waste.
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