Child Obesity “Crisis” Tightens the Noose
Sometimes liberals are bold, ham-fistedly commandeering whole sectors of the economy, like healthcare and the auto industry. But they may do the most damage to liberty when they attack it more insidiously, in ways too absurd to arouse our ire until we wake up to find that every conceivable aspect of our lives is dictated by bureaucratic decrees.
When conditioning the public to accept total domination by Big Government, it’s best to start young:
Ten-year-old Leighann Adair came home in tears, terrified to tell her parents she’d been slapped with a week’s worth of detention for possessing a contraband substance:
The forbidden fruit: a piece of Jolly Rancher candy.
A teacher at Brazos Elementary School in Wallis, Texas, took the unopened piece of candy away from the third-grader two weeks ago after a friend handed it to her.
Both Leighann and her friend were ordered to serve detention during lunch and recess, and they had to write an essay about what they did and why it was wrong.
Draconian measures are required, because according to our rulers, child obesity is a crisis, just like global warming.
That was Texas; California is infinitely worse:
California teenagers may be in for some big changes in the way they live their lives, with a slew of restrictive bills pending.
St. Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, who is also a child psychologist, says they need help to make the right decisions.
“What we’re trying to do is just empower our parents to help them help their kids,” Yee said.
Yee and other petty tyrants plan to “empower our parents” by banning, among many other things, Gatorade — “to help fight obesity.”
Meanwhile, the Bitter Half is taking this preposterous yet alarming crusade against gastronomic liberty national:
A White House report warns, “The childhood obesity epidemic in America is a national health crisis.” … The task force is a key part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s campaign to solve the problem of obesity within a generation. President Obama ordered the comprehensive review of the issue.
The report … calls for some new and dramatic controls on the marketing of unhealthy foods. …
It says media characters that are often popular with kids should only be used to promote healthy products. If voluntary efforts fail to limit marketing of less healthy products to young viewers, the task force suggests the FCC should consider new rules on commercials in children’s programming. It also challenges food retailers to stop using in-store displays to sell unhealthy food items to children.
The Founding Fathers never would have left us with the First Amendment if they had known it could lead to a crisis like childhood obesity.
The study also suggests that restaurants should re-evaluate portion sizes [i.e., be coerced to give us less food for our money], improve kids’ menus and list more healthy food choices.
No doubt the appropriate political donations will help food manufacturers to have their products deemed as “healthy.”
But don’t worry, Big Government is here to make our lives better. It will even save us money:
The task force also sees a potential pocketbook approach to keep people from buying unhealthy foods. It calls for analyzing the effect of imposing state and local sales taxes on less healthy products.
When our nanny state rulers tax and regulate the foods we like beyond our reach, we’ll save money by not buying them. Then they can save us even more money by doing the same to firearms, then automobiles, then whatever else they decide to take away. If Jolly Ranchers are a menace, they’re not likely to leave us with much. Think of the savings!
The task force concludes that strategies listed in the report “should” achieve the goal of solving the childhood obesity problem within a generation. It concedes it won’t be easy.
Take heart, bureaucrats. Success can be attained. In communist North Korea, where government slaves are reduced to attempting to eat grass, childhood obesity is officially under control.
On tips from TrickleUpPolitics, Son of Taz, Wiggins, Muddypaw, and Jenn. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.
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Posted by Van Helsing on May 11, 2010 2:15 pm
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, Anti-Americanism, Bill Of Rights, Domestic Enemies, Education, Fascism, Fox News, Gov.Censorship, Government corruption, Government malfeasance/misfeasance, Government tyranny, Homeschooling, Indoctrination, Nanny State, News, Parenting, Political Correctness, Political terrorism, Social Engineering, State Government, Stupidity, Totalitarianism, U.S. Constitution, Unconstitutional, Where's the ACLU, anti-Liberty/Freedom, elitism, liberalism
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5 Responses to “Child Obesity “Crisis” Tightens the Noose”
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Syndicate Me
The real reason the government is so into the food business these days, with MEchelle at the helm, is to get the power to put SEIU members into place, then unionize the whole thing. Always, always, always follow the money.
It is about gleaning taxes from you at every turn. Just like cap and trade, you’ll be able to consume sugar and such, just with an added tax.
This is about finding ways to continue the current method of heavy government with elite leaders making millions. They need to be able to tax us for about everything (maybe all of us around 90%?) No upper mobility unless allowed by the ruling class, no school without approval, etc.
Kings, Dukes, Earls and us drones.
I fail to see the link between the kid getting detention for eating candy and big government.
By the way, they’ve been placing extra taxes on unhealthy substances like tobacco and discouraging its use for years.
-NJK-
from my website about this issue. Add Bloomberg’s vision of video taping your every move and they have the thing pretty much covered.
http://truthandcommonsense.com/2010/05/11/two-examples-of-the-nanny-state-and-the-desire-of-elites/
Dangerous times.
NJK fails to see the link between punishing a kid for simply POSSESSING a piece of candy and big government. NJK apparently isn’t looking very hard. That’s no surprise though, since liberal Democrats are living in a fantasy world and can’t see the very society they live in crumbling around them…. The double standards they use always amaze me. In one breath, they’ll fight for the right to smoke pot or use their cell phones while driving, and at the same time they’ll willfully give the government the right to control their diet or force them to quit smoking cigarettes.
While this candy incident may not be a direct result of any federal law banning candy, it’s indicative of the mindset of the liberal nut jobs that have infiltrated our educational system. These same nut jobs will certainly march in lock-step with the Obama administration when they come out with their anti-obesity rules, and rest assured, that will just be the BEGINNING of the rules. They have many more health related rules in store for us, and they will be oppressive.
All through the health care debate, the alarm bells were ringing, warning of the dangers letting government have a stake in our health care. This is just one of many examples of what we can expect as their plan unfolds. Just as they did with the banks, they plan to make maximum use of the overused argument that “when “federal money” is involved, we have the right to make all the rules”.
We fear and resist big government at all costs, because unlike the “fantasy world dwellers” who make up the left in this country, we don’t believe that government is the solution to our problems, we believe it is the cause of them. We don’t want, or need an arrogant self-serving government to tell us how to live, what to eat, what to think, or anything else.
Yes, NJK, our government has been using taxes to discourage a multitude of behaviors for years. That doesn’t make it right. In fact, it’s unconstitutional and it’s another great reason to reign government in and put it back in it’s place as defined by our Constitution.