Education and full disclosure are not bad things in themselves, but the movement will be to restrict the availability of these pleasurable foods. Some govt. official in LA was quoted in the Wall St. Journal article about a law proposing that in some part of LA, fast food restaurants be KEPT OUT; for the good of the people, since this area was full of obese folks with “no other choices”. Uh huh. Well, and this diktocrat said it was HER prerogative as a gov. official to do these things “for the people”.
Education and full disclosure are just fine, it does help those who want to make informed decisions, but the inevitability is that the State will not know when to quit taking freedoms away, including the choice of business owners and their customers, where to open a business and what to buy or eat there.
And where does it end? Can’t go skiing. Too dangerous, will cost the country too much (though most folks going skiing are insured). Outdoor sports of any kind? Same thing. You, rock climber…down. No more. Driving more than a few miles away from home? Accident rates go up…uh uh, Grandma, get out of the car. Gardening? Heck, we see a lot of heat-related illness, cuts and scratches, and other injuries from gardening, so it’s out. Heck, we’re all sharing the costs, let’s all get our own personal bubbles and live in ‘em and not ever get hurt. In fact, if we’d all be issued HAZMAT uniforms, masks and gloves…bet it would do a lot better than just mere handwashing.
Yes, this is an absurd ab absurdam argument, but can we trust these know-what’s-best-for-the-rest-of-us MORONS to know when to stop?
If anything, I fully believe that these kinds of little Stalins stress the rest of us out very badly, increasing our stress eating (wait; outlaw 7-11 and similar stores everywhere, so I couldn’t run out now and get some chips and beer and smokes at 2 am!). The increase in stress leads to higher blood pressure, increased cortisols and the entire cascade of metabolic syndrome. Less sleep too, as I sit and chew my nails (hopefully not to be banned), which leads to a predilection towards type 2 diabetes…and it goes on and on.
A little information is fine. Disclosure? You thought the slice of flourless chocolate cake was a guiltless pleasure, or did you really need the little signe to announce that there were enough calories in that one slice to get you through a 20 day hunger strike on its own?
WE KNOW what’s fattening and what’s not. Leave us to eat and yes, get fat if we do too much of it. If it’s bad for our health, so be it. It’s MY LIFE and not yours, and to declare war on obesity will end up about as well as the war on drugs or poverty. More choices is fine. I’m happy with fast food places feeling the need to at least try salads and whatnot. But let the customer decide, not a bureaucrat. And if the customer is that dumb that they can’t figure out the salad fixings are gonna add up…that the dresings are full soybean oil fat, and the light ones full of sugar…
One final thought: I took an Amtrak train in the Midwest, sat across from a morbidly obese woman eating a Sam’s club supersized bag of Cheetohs, by herself, and she did not stop for 250 miles. Guess what? The information was right there on the package: CHEETOS FULL OF FAT AND SALT AND ARTIFICIAL WEIRDNESS AND A LOT of calories!
Ok, it didn’t say exactly that. But this woman didn’t stop to read the info. even while sucking each finger to get all that orangey dust off them. Full disclosure. Yup. I guarantee the area around the part of LA where no fast food may be served, if this bill passes, will be filled, right over the border where legal, with fried anything and everything stands…and people will walk, cycle, take a bus, get a ride with a friend, rickshaw, donkey or elephant or camel, and get over to the closest Fried Food’s R Us. And they will be sneaking these goods right back over the border into the FastFoodFree Area of LA
