McD's Contribution to a Heathier You

[j_b]

same canard that was flung at us several pages ago: nobody here is arguing for prohibition. I am not for prohibiting the use of drugs but I certainly don't want to have them advertized on Tv and if their use proves prohibitively costly to health care, I am for recouping the money from anyone enabling these destructive behaviors to make a buck. Same for tobacco, alcohol, junk food etc. Nothing really different from what we are already doing for nasty products, only accounting for epidemics that are costing us dearly and will ultimately destroy public health care. Not that you would care about that.

[JayB]

I think charging the obese more for health insurance is a perfectly reasonable idea. Or, assuming public healthcare, charge them a "fat tax."

 

But if we do this, I think we need to put in place regulations on selling certain types of foods. We can't allow a completely unregulated market to provide easy, cheap and toxic choices to the ignorant while taxing them for their mistakes at the same time.

 

I don't know how this would work. Tax food that is too calorie-dense, or too much saturated fat per serving? Put a warning label on it? I dunno. But it seems weird to do nothing. I think the FDA has a responsibility to ensure that we have reasonable protection from dangerous products. When I consider how enamored Americans are with junk food, and how they seem to just eat themselves straight into disease, I wonder if maybe they're not being taken advantage of by corporations that don't really care about their well-being. Isn't that the point of government -- to protect the vulnerable from the predatory?

 

$0.02

Ka-ching!

 

But as long as we're on the topic - what kind of restrictions, constraints, and enforcement apparatus would you like to see put in place to keep a Kentucky Bucket, snickers bar, or tin of cream cheese out of the wrong hands?

 

[rob]

[

For real? If you were the kind of guy that supported the "War on Drugs" then I'd be able to detect a thread of logic connecting the desire to have the state supervise what sane adults can ingest - whether it's hashish or hash-browns.

 

Drinking too much, having sex with too many people, travel to regions with endemic disease, participation in risky activities in the outdoors, eating rare meat, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc - basically every sphere of activity that functioning societies have both entrusted sane adults with, and *required* of them since the beginning of civilization carries with it certain risks and responsibilities.

 

Any society in which adults require an bureaucratic apparatus to supervise *eating* is a society that is already circling the drain. It's over.

 

Good time to invoke one of the better passages on the hazards of another kind of prohibition:

 

"In the United States, the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages are prohibited. Other countries do not go so far, but nearly everywhere some restrictions are imposed on the sale of opium, cocaine, and similar narcotics. It is universally deemed one of the tasks of legislation and government to protect the individual from himself. Even those who otherwise generally have misgivings about extending the area of governmental activity consider it quite proper that the freedom of the individual should be curtailed in this respect, and they think that only a benighted doctrinairism could oppose such prohibitions. Indeed, so general is the acceptance of this kind of interference by the authorities in the life of the individual that those who, are opposed to liberalism on principle are prone to base their argument on the ostensibly undisputed acknowledgment of the necessity of such prohibitions and to draw from it the conclusion that complete freedom is an evil and that some measure of restriction must be imposed upon the freedom of the individual by the governmental authorities in their capacity as guardians of his welfare. The question cannot be whether the authorities ought to impose restrictions upon the freedom of the individual, but only how far they ought to go in this respect.

 

No words need be wasted over the fact that all these narcotics are harmful. The question whether even a small quantity of alcohol is harmful or whether the harm results only from the abuse of alcoholic beverages is not at issue here. It is an established fact that alcoholism, cocainism, and morphinism are deadly enemies of life, of health, and of the capacity for work and enjoyment; and a utilitarian must therefore consider them as vices. But this is far from demonstrating that the authorities must interpose to suppress these vices by commercial prohibitions, nor is it by any means evident that such intervention on the part of the government is really capable of suppressing them or that, even if this end could be attained, it might not therewith open up a Pandora’s box of other dangers, no less mischievous than alcoholism and morphinism.

 

Whoever is convinced that indulgence or excessive indulgence in these poisons is pernicious is not hindered from living abstemiously or temperately. This question cannot be treated exclusively in reference to alcoholism, morphinism, cocainism, etc., which all reasonable men acknowledge to be evils. For if the majority of citizens is, in principle, conceded the right to impose its way of life upon a minority, it is impossible to stop at prohibitions against indulgence in alcohol, morphine, cocaine, and similar poisons. Why should not what is valid for these poisons be valid also for nicotine, caffeine, and the like? Why should not the state generally prescribe which foods may be indulged in and which must be avoided because they are injurious? In sports too, many people are prone to carry their indulgence further than their strength will allow. Why should not the state interfere here as well? Few men know how to be temperate in their sexual life, and it seems especially difficult for aging persons to understand that they should cease entirely to indulge in such pleasures or, at least, do so in moderation. Should not the state intervene here too? More harmful still than all these pleasures, many will say, is the reading of evil literature. Should a press pandering to the lowest instincts of man be allowed to corrupt the soul? Should not the exhibition of pornographic pictures, of obscene plays, in short, of all allurements to immorality, be prohibited? And is not the dissemination of false sociological doctrines just as injurious to men and nations? Should men be permitted to incite others to civil war and to wars against foreign countries? And should scurrilous lampoons and blasphemous diatribes be allowed to undermine respect for God and the Church?

 

We see that as soon as we surrender the principle that the state should not interfere in any questions touching on the individual’s mode of life, we end by regulating and restricting the latter down to the smallest detail. The personal freedom of the individual is abrogated. He becomes a slave of the community, bound to obey the dictates of the majority. It is hardly necessary to expatiate on the ways in which such powers could be abused by malevolent persons in authority. The wielding, of powers of this kind even by men imbued with the best of intentions must needs reduce the world to a graveyard of the spirit. All mankind’s progress has been achieved as a result of the initiative of a small minority that began to deviate from the ideas and customs of the majority until their example finally moved the others to accept the innovation themselves. To give the majority the right to dictate to the minority what it is to think, to read, and to do is to put a stop to progress once and for all.

 

Let no one object that the struggle against morphinism and the struggle against “evil” literature are two quite different things. The only difference between them is that some of the same people who favor the prohibition of the former will not agree to the prohibition of the latter. In the United States, the Methodists and Fundamentalists, right after the passage of the law prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, took up the struggle for the suppression of the theory of evolution, and they have already succeeded in ousting Darwinism from the schools in a number of states. In Soviet Russia, every free expression of opinion is suppressed. Whether or not permission is granted for a book to be published depends on the discretion of a number of uneducated and uncultivated fanatics who have been placed in charge of the arm of the government empowered to concern itself with such matters.

 

The propensity of our contemporaries to demand authoritarian prohibition as soon as something does not please them, and their readiness to submit to such prohibitions even when what is prohibited is quite agreeable to them shows how deeply ingrained the spirit of servility still remains within them. It will require many long years of self-education until the subject can turn himself into the citizen. A free man must be able to endure it when his fellow men act and live otherwise than he considers proper. He must free himself from the habit, just as soon as something does not please him, of calling for the police."

 

 

 

 

 

tl;dnr.

 

However, regarding your comment on the war on drugs: I think drugs should be legal, and should also come with a warning label. Sounds pretty consistent to me.

 

I'm not talking about prohibition, so I don't know what relevance that long-ass ramble had.

[j_b]

the relevance was to pull the usual strawman: If you are for regulating industries and consumer protection, you must be against FREEDUMB and Libertarian ponies.

Edited May 25, 2011 by j_b

[JayB]

same canard that was flung at us several pages ago: nobody here is arguing for prohibition. I am not for prohibiting the use of drugs but I certainly don't want to have them advertized on Tv and if their use proves prohibitively costly to health care, I am for recouping the money from anyone enabling these destructive behaviors to make a buck. Same for tobacco, alcohol, junk food etc. Nothing really different from what we are already doing for nasty products, only accounting for epidemics that are costing us dearly and will ultimately destroy public health care. Not that you would care about that.

 

One of the many reasons why I oppose single payer is lever it gives ideologues to turn your lungs, liver, etc into a de facto ward of the state. Anyone who wants to keep abortion safe and legal, and has been using the "Keep the state out of my uterus" as an argument should bear that in mind.

[ivan]

the relevance was to pull the usual strawman: If you are for regulating industries and consumer protection, you must be against FREEDUMB and Libertarian ponies.

perhaps b/c your regulations sound likely to be draconian?

 

"hashish or hash-browns" great bit of poetry there jay!

[rob]

well, your lungs and liver are either a de facto ward of Blue Cross, or of the State. What's the diff? It's not like I can afford to go without health insurance, so functionally it doesn't really matter who I answer to, does it?

 

Oh, wait. LIBERTARIANISM!!!!!

[ivan]

"we card under 35 for cheetoes"

[rob]

the relevance was to pull the usual strawman: If you are for regulating industries and consumer protection, you must be against FREEDUMB and Libertarian ponies.

perhaps b/c your regulations sound likely to be draconian?

 

"hashish or hash-browns" great bit of poetry there jay!

 

Are warning labels on cigarettes draconian? The tobacco industry sure thought they were, when they were first suggested. "It's all about choice!!!!"

[rob]

I mean, Lucky Charms are part of a nutritious breakfast. It even says so, right on the box!

[j_b]

the relevance was to pull the usual strawman: If you are for regulating industries and consumer protection, you must be against FREEDUMB and Libertarian ponies.

perhaps b/c your regulations sound likely to be draconian?

 

That's what smokers thought as little as 20 years ago. Do you think the cost of having to accommodate the morbidly obese in a health care setting isn't draconian on your health care bill?

[rob]

[ivan]

trying to parse everyone's every single habit into a proper health price is quixotic and somehow distinctly nazi-ish. fuksakes, let people live their lives how they want w/n very broad, reasonable parameters and stfu up about everything else, eh?

[prole]

If obesity is largely (ha!) an education, health-care, and nutritional access issue, as experts on the issue recognize, then the focus should be on addressing those inequalities. Meeting the challenge would actually be an expansion of freedom. The spectre of "Big Brother" deciding what we eat is, as usual, a red herring.

[j_b]

One of the many reasons why I oppose single payer is lever it gives ideologues to turn your lungs, liver, etc into a de facto ward of the state. Anyone who wants to keep abortion safe and legal, and has been using the "Keep the state out of my uterus" as an argument should bear that in mind.

 

How are they wards of the state everywhere else in the developed world beside in your fertil imagination? In the meantime, there are 50 millions without access to health care and many more without adequate access to health care in this country alone. Who are the ideologues who refuse to draw the lessons of what they preached?

[ivan]

Are warning labels on cigarettes draconian? The tobacco industry sure thought they were, when they were first suggested. "It's all about choice!!!!"

i'm not the cigarette industy, but i have smoked off and on throughout my adult life - i think most of the current regs are reasonable, but i think the level of taxation has passed sanity in most states, as well as some of the regs - new york says you can't smoke on a beach now?!? hello, the whole place is an ashtray!

 

it is not for society or the gov acting on their behalf to tell me what to do w/ my body beyond no-shit basics like don't kill people - it is also not for those same folks to de facto force me by excessive taxes or regulations.

 

at any rate

[rob]

trying to parse everyone's every single habit into a proper health price is quixotic and somehow distinctly nazi-ish. fuksakes, let people live their lives how they want w/n very broad, reasonable parameters and stfu up about everything else, eh?

 

Not sure how taxing big macs (or labeling them) equates to "parsing every single habit," let alone "nazi-ish" (I'm invoking Godwin's Law, btw, so you lose by-default)

 

Curious: do you think antibiotics should be completely unregulated (i.e. over-the-counter)?

 

Regardless, I'm all for letting people lead their lives or whatever. I just want them to read a big label that says, "YOU"RE FAT" when they eat a bigmac.

Edited May 25, 2011 by rob

[j_b]

trying to parse everyone's every single habit into a proper health price is quixotic and somehow distinctly nazi-ish. fuksakes, let people live their lives how they want w/n very broad, reasonable parameters and stfu up about everything else, eh?

 

you appear to have no clue that we are headed for a health care crisis of gigantic proportion, and not solely because of obesity btw. Right, now I remember that you told me "YOUR obesity crisis" as if it were in my imagination.

[j_b]

Just thinking of the code needed for technology to accommodate >400lbs bodies (and family when they visit) makes me feel like a nazi. How much staff do you expect to need to flop that one over?

Edited May 25, 2011 by j_b

[j_b]

i'm not the cigarette industy, but i have smoked off and on throughout my adult life - i think most of the current regs are reasonable, but i think the level of taxation has passed sanity in most states, as well as some of the regs - new york says you can't smoke on a beach now?!? hello, the whole place is an ashtray!

 

it is not for society or the gov acting on their behalf to tell me what to do w/ my body beyond no-shit basics like don't kill people - it is also not for those same folks to de facto force me by excessive taxes or regulations.

 

at any rate

 

Nobody should be forced to live in a culture of fast food without adequate alternative.

[ivan]

i'm not the cigarette industy, but i have smoked off and on throughout my adult life - i think most of the current regs are reasonable, but i think the level of taxation has passed sanity in most states, as well as some of the regs - new york says you can't smoke on a beach now?!? hello, the whole place is an ashtray!

 

it is not for society or the gov acting on their behalf to tell me what to do w/ my body beyond no-shit basics like don't kill people - it is also not for those same folks to de facto force me by excessive taxes or regulations.

 

at any rate

 

Nobody should be forced to live in a culture of fast food without adequate alternative.

but there are adequate alternatives and no one's forcing you to go to fuckign kfc!

 

quit hating on jack!

Edited May 25, 2011 by ivan

[ivan]

ain't life a bitch, this dude could figure out all the whys n' wherefores of the decline n' fall of the roman empire, just not how to resist the siren call of the bottomless bucket of chicken n' biscuits?!?

[j_b]

You must be joking when you claim that alternative to junkfood is available in all neighborhoods.

[rob]

You must be joking when you claim that alternative to junkfood is available in all neighborhoods.

 

Of course it's available. I don't think "availability" is really the problem. I don't think fat people are fat because they just can't FIND good food. I was really poor once, and I still ate healthy food. Because I'm not dumb.

 

I think junk food prob tastes better, is cheaper, and easier to prepare. But that doesn't mean healthy food isn't "available."

 

Hence, the problem.

[ivan]

people kept telling this bitch to put down the mastodon-jerky 24,000 years ago but no!!!!