The debate about Obamacare and the way the government is using it to mandate that institutions pay for services they oppose such as contraception has brought the whole question of intrusive federal regulation back into the public eye. But those who believe this is something that will be limited to health care are probably deceiving themselves. The impulse to tell people how they should live and what they should do is implicit in the ideology that gave birth to Obamacare. If some influential people have their way, Washington’s power to impose its will may be extended into other spheres that were heretofore considered so far out of the government’s purview as to have been considered laughable. But as New York Times Magazine food columnist Mark Bittman wrote yesterday, the day may be fast approaching when government bureaucrats will be telling some, if not all citizens, what foods they may or may not eat.
Bittman picks up on the attempt by a conservative Republican in the Florida legislature to pass a bill that would prevent recipients of food stamps from spending their chits on junk food like candy, chips or soda. The willingness of a right-winger to join the food police encourages Bittman to think the time will not be long before sugar is regulated the way the production and marketing of alcohol and tobacco are controlled by the government. While Bittman’s nutritional advice about the dangers of over-consumption of products drenched in sugar and corn syrup is well taken, the notion that such choices will be taken out of the hands of consumers ought to frighten anyone who values individual freedom and understands the perils of a nanny state. Some may scoff at this possibility, but the Obamacare precedent and the power the president’s signature program will give the government may change everything in the future. Bittman’s argument that the costs of health care will make such government micro-managing of our lives inevitable may prove prophetic if Obamacare is not repealed next year.
Bittman is right to say obesity has become a major national health problem. Nor would I dispute his arguments that American nutritional habits are doing us and the country no good. But the notion that this is reason enough to give the government the power to prevent people from buying the food they wish to eat is a fundamental assault on individual liberty.
Food stamp recipients are vulnerable to such regulation because their poverty and dependence renders them helpless against such intrusions. If they are taking our money, some people reason, then we should be able to tell them what to do, especially if it is obviously for their own good. But this sort of utilitarian argument has no limits. If the national exchequer is burdened by the costs of caring for those who suffer from obesity, then we can just as easily be told that sugar or any other substance selected by the food police (Bittman prefers the term “vigilantes”) can be regulated or banned for everyone, not just those who rely on government handouts.
The ideological underpinning of this thinking can be found in Bittman’s assertion that it is the government’s job to take care of itself. If, as he believes, the government is failing to sufficiently protect us from ourselves, then it is time for enlightened souls to step in and force it to take control. However well-intentioned Bittman’s prescription for the national diet may be, government involvement on the scale that he is discussing is the epitome of the political trend that Jonah Goldberg aptly styled Liberal Fascism.
One might assume the food industry will fight this expansion of government control tooth and nail. But the example of Obamacare demonstrates all too well how businesses can be co-opted into acquiescing to a takeover by the federal leviathan. Unless Obamacare is stopped next year by a new president and Congress, we may well eventually find out just how far the reach of an empowered government can go.
Business fighting? The Olive Garden and McDonalds already caved to Michelle Obama's food -obsessed dictates. nWhat bothers me about the Obamas and so many on the left is that some pigs will always be more equal than others. There has not been one time that the Obamas have served a healthy menu at the WH. Last night's Governor's Ball a case in point. It's as if they go out of their way to be hypocrites serving rib-eye with creamed spinach, mac and cheese etc. Every Obama me time at local restaurants is the same. Every stop on the campaign trial is the same. The rules never apply to them and except for the WH Dossier, Drudge and the Daily Mail UK it goes unreported. n nSo much about BMI and cholesteral is unscientific, global-warming typish unscientific garbage. Case in point. We are living longer than ever even though they're trying to scare us skinny. Coercive Utopians…as true today as when Ruel Jean Issac wrote it.
What we currently have is freedom to eat and drink whatever we want, but when it comes to paying for the medical consequences we want others to assist us. We don't want health insurance companies to have the option to charge us more if we are sedentary and obese. When we all pay the same amount for premiums and when our employers are paying for part, that means those who are responsible are subsidizing those who are not. n nThe changes that come with Obamacare are not supported by conservatives for good reason, however, the current dynamics of healthcare allowing freedom of choice at the expense of others should not be defended. And given that we live in a society that will not stand for people to bear the full consequence of their own choices, regulating the amount of sugar and salt and fat that the "corporations" can put in their food products may be the most politically viable improvement.
"healthcare allowing freedom of choice at the expense of others should not be defended" — n nThat is fascist. And damn scary because it was where the Eugenics movement was coming from as well, they just took it the next step and said that "inferior" races of people shouldn't reproduce (Margaret Sanger) or even be permitted to remain alive (Adolph Hitler). n nNever forget that the first group that the National Socialist targeted in the "final solution" were those with disabilities. Some historians argue that had the line been held there, had those atrocities been responded to with appropriate world-wide visceral disgust, the atrocities that followed wouldn't have happened. n nHow far do we go with personal responsibility (Romney-speak for fining working families for making both too much to qualify for MassHealth and too little to be able to afford Romneycare, so they pay the fine and also lack insurance) — how far do we go? n nAny woman makes a personal choice about the guy she sleeps with and/or marries. Some make bad choices, and wind up with a guy who is beating the daylights out of her on a daily basis. Should she be able to expect society to help her escape from him? This is a *major* expense to society when you add it all up, police, courts, women's shelters and the rest — or would you say she should accept the consequences of her personal decisions? n nLet's take this to the ultimate bottom line — a woman makes a personal choice about what she wears, and she makes a personal choice about where she goes. And she gets raped. nI presume you would say that was the consequence of her personal choices (which it technically is in that if she hadn't been there, it wouldn't have happened) and we should just blame it on her and not incur the expense of streetlights, police officers, and everything else? n nHey, dear, don't go outside without your father, brother or husband to protect you. And wear a Burka so that no one notices you either. Welcome to Saudi Arabia… n nThis, in a nutshell, is why I am more afraid of Mitt Romney than B. Hussain Obama.
I, for one, do not want others to assist in paying for the consequences of my actions. I do not wish for anything other than the right to make my own choices and have a marketplace that will price the cost of insurance according to what coverages I want and don't want, based on my medical profile and risk factors. n nNo conservative I know of ever argues that anyone's freedom of choice is at the expense of others. That is liberal pap. The entire concept of liberty upon which this country was founded is that we are a society that allows people to make their own choices and to bear the full consequences of those choices. It is a craven cop out that regulating sugar, salt and fat is "the most politically viable improvement." Improvement over what — the legislative and administrative mess that Obamacare already has created?
You are preaching to the choir here. I was merely acknowledging the reality that to propose health insurance actually be purchased by individuals the same way we purchase auto insurance is politically unlikely to garner much support. If public opinion polls are correct, that is true among the vast majority of Democrats plus a considerable percentage of Republicans.
Fixing healthcare is a formidable problem because we have collectively become used to the idea that employers and the government should pay for most of it. Take the dog to the vet and a $200 bill is not a big surprise, but take the kid to get a checkup and scream because the co-pay was $25 last year and now it's been raised to $35. Regulating the ingredients of food is a natural extension of the Obamacare mess. Identifying it as the most politically feasible method of addressing obesity does not mean it is the best or most effective choice. It would obviously be better if people would be left to make their own choices and suffer their own consequences. An improvement because continuing to see ever greater percentages of the population becoming obese and creating unsustainable increases to the cost of healthcare, which is what is happening now, is not an appealing alternative either.
"we have collectively become used to the idea that employers and the government should pay for most of it" n nwell, you have made it sound as if employers paying and the government paying are one in the same. n nmy employer paying is part of my COMPENSATION. I WORK for that. n nThe government paying….well that is something else, isn't it??
One could argue that lifestyle choices do impact how much you pay for other insurances (life, disability, etc.) and that it's only with healthcare that we expect our insurance to provide for more than catastrophic coverage. If health insurance were like other insurances, would people pay more for poor life choices? Just as the chronic speeder pays more for car insurance? Sadly, we're moving the opposite direction, in which the government (through mandates) pays for our standard medical care (annuals, etc.) . . . so they expect (or will expect) more say I suppose . . .
Does anybody really think they are going to stop with the poor? n nOf course not. n nThey'll have us all out in the street doing calisthenics and without a doubt we'll be told that it's for our own good and the good of all. n nWhat it won't be, in any way, is the pursuit of happiness.
Someday, maybe when 99% of us are fat or obese, the remaining 1% will finally be believed—sugar is a poison.r nr nSomeday, hopefully sooner than later, enough people will have seen the Dr. Lustig youtube sensation, wherein he proves this. Over a million hits, so far.r nr nWatch it, and be awakened to the deadly dangers of high fructose corn syrup.
Sugar is not a poison. It exits in nature. It is processed by the human body. Too much sugar – like too much anything – overwhelms the ability of the host (or body) to process or absorb. This scenario is repeated in nature again and again n nAs far as policing what food stamp people purchase with their food stamps – the purpose of food stamps is to provide life sustaining nutrition to those who cannot afford basic food items. So food stamps should be only for basic food items: fruit, vegetables, dairy, breads… staples. Cookies, cigarettes, Twinkies, alcohol and visits to strip clubs would not and should not be at taxpayer expense. And people who can afford college should not be on food stamps.
Yes, the people running the federal leviathan would dearly love to be our nanny/drill instuctors. Liberal fascism, to my mind, is exactly the words for it.
At this point, more accurate perhaps to refer to it as Liberal proto-fascism, as it is still in early yet evolving stages. Not just yet to the point where advocates are donning the brown shirts, but the behavior (e.g., public employee union thuggery) is eerily similar. Some might even call it Creeping Socialism (as in National Socialist Party), but Creepy Socialists is closer to the mark to describe the many liberal progressives striving to supervise everyone else.
There is another wild card in all of this — a very chilling one — the soon-to-be-released DSM V. n nThis is "the book" which officially declares who is and isn't mentally ill — and many are arguing that the fifth edition is so expansive that absolutely everyone will come under some part of it. For example, your spouse dies and what have called "mourning" since Biblical times is now to be officially defined as "depression" and you are to be expected to take antidepressants for it. n nOr be locked up in the psych ward against your will. n nThis is the truly scary part of the nanny state — even more than the food police — because this comes with the power to eliminate your individual liberty for your own good. After all, why should society suffer your lost productivity because of your depression? n nThrow in the rapidly growing divide between persons of faith and the mental health profession — the cases of Jennifer Keeton and Julea Ward who were kicked out of certification programs because of their views on homosexuality — the Sixth Circuit ruled in favor of Ward so that could well go to SCOTUS — and we have the potential for a really serious problem.
I think there's another way to look at this, however. We have an unsustainable welfare state. If the argument is that we're going to make transfer payments from people paying their own way to people who can't–which, in a decent society, I think we have to do–I think it's also reasonable to limit those payments to basic needs. If we're going to have a safety net, it needs to be robust but lean. No one prevents poor people from spending their limited discretionary dollars on potato chips and soft drinks. But I don't know how you make the argument that other people need to subsidize the purchase of non-nutritional non-necessities. Especially in view of the fact that people getting subsidized food probably also get subsidized medical care. Separating the truly needy from the gold bricks is a real problem. But "welfare" in its various forms should be a floor, not a lifestyle, and I think that means basic means of decent survival, i.e., shelter, food, medical care, etc. The encroachment of the nanny state is also a real problem, but in this case at least, the problem isn't what you're eating but who's paying for it.
We have an unsustainable welfare state because no serious effort is ever made to "separate the truly needy from the gold bricks," so, decent society or not, we should never even have started making transfer payments from productive to non-productive people. It's a process that, once started, can't be stopped and which ultimately ruins economies–q.v. Europe. As a society, we're forced to make the choice: the long term good of society or the short term good of people who don't support themselves–personally, I'd choose the former as the path of "the greatest good of the greatest number." n nAll of the foregoing, though, presupposes that the support of unproductive people is compulsorily financed by government. It would be an entirely different thing if such support were made voluntarily by those wishing to do so.
It's true we aren't good about separating the gold bricks, but I have to disagree with the notion that helping actually needy people is going to ruin our economy. Our welfare state is unsustainable because we've got all kinds of people with their hand in the public purse. I think it was Ambrose Bierce who described "Allies" as two parties who had their hands so deeply inserted into each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third. But we can let GM go under so long as we have a safety net under the people who used to work there. That's what the market is for–to punish foolish economic decisions. I will happily sacrifice ethanol and public radio to pay for food stamps and medicaid. Really terrible things happen to perfectly blameless people. I'm not myself willing to leave them to the vagaries of private charity.
The food police are very important now that unemployment is at 3%, the budget is balanced,gasoline is at $2 a gallon, and we have a guy in the Oval Office smarter than a head of lettuce…ah..wait a sec
"…attempt by a conservative Republican in the Florida legislature to pass a bill that would prevent recipients of food stamps from spending their chits on junk food like candy, chips or soda." n n"Food stamp recipients are vulnerable to such regulation because their poverty and dependence…" n nThere's that old saying: "Beggars can't be choosers." And that's what "food stamp recipients" are, beggars. They live on public sufferance and, in doing so, have forsworn the privileges accorded to those who take responsibility for their own affairs. Beggars can't be choosers; neither can economic children who won't take responsibility for themselves. n nThe solution is obviously to eliminate food stamps altogether, along with all the other ridiculous wastes of money that do nothing but encourage poverty. There is no Constitutional right to being a parasitic free-loader
Sorry– I don't think of my needy neighbors as "beggars." There's no constitutional right to be a free-loader, but every American government ever created right from the very beginning made provision for the poor because it is our duty to do it. The practical problem of designing a welfare system that affords good stewardship to the taxpayer and doesn't incentivize dependency and dishonesty is separate from the basic obligation. I agree that our actual welfare system is a travesty of what it ought to be, but you seem to be suggesting that there's no such thing as honest need. Really?
The practical problem is not separate from the basic obligation because the basic obligation expands without limitation. "Honest need" is an inherently subjective concept, which is why some Americans believe that the federal government should guarantee everyone's right to clothing, housing, health care, education, and even happiness. How do you contend with an American who believes that his happiness depends on his need for so much free stuff? "Obama's gonna pay my bills!" n nTo analogize, imagine you live in a sub-development governed by a Homeowners Agreement that requires you to keep your front yard tidy. However, due to a wondrous breach of nature's laws, the grass in your front yard starts to grow three feet overnight, requiring you to get up two hours earlier every morning to whack and mow it. Then the grass starts growing six feet every night, then nine feet, and so on. So you decide to rip out the sod and replace it with astroturf, whereupon you're promptly sued by the HOA because because the Homeowners Agreement requires Bermuda grass. n nAmerica's welfare state has experienced similar growth since the 1930s, and those who want to replace it with something more practical and manageable because it's wearing them out are routinely demonized. Therefore, the practical problem cannot be separate from the basic obligation, and what's more, the only solution to the practical problem is to reduce the basic obligation.
Moo-shell will still eat whatever she wants.
The Dictator-in-chief and his little Mrs. Moochelle Antoinette are livin' high on our dime and don't give a rats arse about any of us "little people", but put on a great mask pretending to "care" by way of their liberal/socialist/Marxist agenda. n nThe Prez and his ilk's obsession with controlling every aspect of our daily lives, in itself is a mental disorder. Look at history. Oh, I forgot, the liberal bastions of education have revised or eliminated the teaching of history so the youth have no frame of reference to judge them by. Great con job. n nGodspeed November…. n n
I find it fascinating that some propose that it is ok to tell people what to eat and that they must buy health insurance…and that the reason they support this is that they believe it is NOT fair to other people who may have to 'pay' for those other peoples' healthcare. n nYet, we have no problem with providing others with government funded entitlements which are provided at the EXPENSE of the 50.5% of us that actually pay federal income tax?? n nWhy is there no corresponding outcry about the 49.5% of Americans who DO NOT pay federal income taxes being a burden on and negatively impacting the 50.5% of us that pay taxes….and much of the reason they are not paying taxes is thru the choices they have made over their lifetime? n nSeems hypocritical.
I do not want the government to tell me what to buy or not to buy with my own money. However, I don't have a problem with government telling receipients of government money what to buy and what not to buy with it. Food stamps should be used for sustenance, not booze, dog food and fast/junk food. People who need food stamps are also uninsured or underinsured and I don't want to be footing the bill for their future diabetes, high blood pressure or stroke treatment.
> If they are taking our money, some people reason, then we should be able to tell them what to do, especially if it is obviously for their own good.
“Some people reason” ? Count me in. If the claim is that people on food stamps are so in danger of starving that they need to take money out of my pocket to survive, then yes, I do think that putting constraints on their purchases is reasonable.
And I think that even a child could see that.
The slippery-slope argument JT makes doesn’t work because there is a line in the sand here: either I’m paying for someone’s survival or it’s just a bureaucrat busybody’s notion of what’s best for everyone. If you refuse to ignore that line, the entire article crumbles: food stamp recipients should not use my money to buy Twinkies, Ding-Dongs, or crack, and at the same time Nanny Bloomberg can bite me. It’s not inconsistent.
I find that this topic brings out a great deal of rancor. The problem with this subject is that so many are staunch believers that a great majority, if not almost all food stamp recipients, are abusing the privilege. There's also a staunch belief that you KNOW just by looking at someone whether their weight is due to gluttony & sloth, or healthy eating. There's a belief that you can look at someone & know what their disability is.There's a belief that infringing on your liberties & freedoms is a crisis, but infringing on my choices is justified.
Since taxpayer-funded EBT cards/food stamps serve the ostensible purpose of tiding people over for a relatively short period of time until they can pay for their own food, why shouldn't there be restrictions on the types of food? If I'm not mistaken, the EBT card has essentially lost all societal stigma whatsoever as it's essentially a government-funded private debit card. I don't really buy the slippery slope argument, since – in my view, anyway – food stamps should pay for essentials ('essentials' defined as nutritional staples, not chips, candy, pop, etc.)
Say. You musta missed Alcohol and Drug Prohibition. Both largely religious affairs supproted by more than a few Republicans.
You're wrong in your assumption. Governments have no more right to regulate alcohol, tobacco, or drugs than they do to regulate food–at a federal level, all such regulation appears to me to be unconstitutional. I'm not "comfortable" with the over-regulation of these things, nor much of any government regulation at all. n nGovernment regulations seldom achieve any desirable effect or, if they do, it's generally at a ruinous cost. Over-regulation of alcohol in the 1920s did almost nothing to stop the use of it and promoted the growth of gangs and violence–exactly as the efforts to regulate drugs are doing today. Regulation of tobacco never was intended as a public good–it has always been an utterly cynical measure to wring more money from Americans.