Tax fizzy drinks and ban junk food ads, say UK doctors

[davidthegnome]

14. Because in the vast majority of cases they are.

Those experiments, of course, tend to go back and forth. I mean, consider the prohibition. I'll grant that it's an extreme example - but it created a whole new kind of criminal. The bootleggers bribed hundreds if not thousands of police and government officials, killed a whole lot of innocents and intimidated many more. This "noble experiment" was inspired, generally, by white protestants who I'm sure felt that they should have the right to tell people what to drink - or what not to drink.

As far as health issues go, hey, I'm all for creating a healthier world - but not if it's done by restricting individual freedom or through a roundabout approach towards forcing people to eat what's good for them. It should always come down to a choice - and while this sort of legislation still permits that, to me it seems but the first (baby) step towards enforcing "thinness".

I believe that people are generally well intentioned, I don't believe the same thing of politicians. Consider the super PACs, the amount of money that went into the last Presidential election. It's entirely possible to buy a Senator, Congress Critter, or what have you - just as it was possible during the Prohibition to buy police, mayors, governors - and so on - to protect your "illegal" operations.

How does any totalitarian regime begin? It is rarely through immediate, urgent power shifting. Rather, it begins with a nudge. While I'm not going so far as to say that this effort is the beginnings of totalitarian control by itself, it is simply one of many policies that wear the mask of concern (in this instance, for citizens health) while the true agenda is something entirely different. Our politicians, our government... wants us to be healthier? Maybe, but not for the reasons you might think. A healthier citizen will live longer, pay taxes longer, contribute more to our twisted society of consumerism and conformity.

Consider mandatory education and it's origins. An entire system of forced education (a ridiculous notion to begin with) - created for the sake of inspiring perfect little worker bees. Of creating and maintaining a land full of conformists, the sort that generally would not "make waves".

It's simply a symptom of the times. Where as you see an honest effort to improve public health, I consider the implications of this taking place during this era of union busting, of education reform, of corporate greed and power unrivaled by any land or any time in history.

I don't love fast food companies or companies, I could live without soda. It's my suspicion though, that soda and fast food will be replaced with some corporate brand of fruit, vegetable, or juice. We'll be healthier, maybe, but we'll also be given more limits on what we can buy. Hand in hand with these slimy corporations, the governments of the west will legislate us into eating whatever fills their pockets and serves their corporate masters.

Sure, I'm paranoid. But that doesn't mean I'm wrong.