Internet Doodlings – “meanwhile, back over at Treehugger…”

by
Skip

Yeah, back there again.  While the name connotes an environmental bent (which it does), there is enough there to start proving “Green on the outside, Red on the inside”.  Or at a minimum, think the Nanny State with Nurse Ratched looking back at you.  Doubt me?  Loyal reader C. Dog e. dog seems to be lately frequenting those haunts as well – it does give one a chance to raise one’s game a bit.  Anyways, there’s this post complaining about our latest epidemic, obesity, and that the Government HAS to do something – Corporations through small children are forcing parent to buy junk food (or something…):

One of the recommendations intended to speed things up is for the food industry to “take broad, common, and urgent voluntary action to make substantial improvements” to marketing aimed at kids. This is certainly important, as advocates have for years been sounding the alarm about the intractable problem of junk food marketing to children and its connection to poor health. But another part of the IOM dictate sounded vaguely familiar:

If such marketing standards have not been adopted within two years by a substantial majority of food, beverage, restaurant, and media companies that market foods and beverages to children and adolescents, policy makers at the local, state, and federal levels should consider setting mandatory nutritional standards for marketing to this age group to ensure that such standards are implemented.

And this:

“Congress should enact legislation mandating” a shift in advertising. Also, that “[w]ithin 2 years the Secretary [of health] should report to Congress on the progress and on additional actions necessary to accelerate progress.”

 Well, I couldn’t let that go by….

There was one comment that I just couldn’t let go of :

We are all paying for these parents stupid actions… We are enabling them by providing this cheap food. Our tax dollars are being used as subsidizes to Big Ag. Big Food is basically getting their raw material to create this crap for free. When a ‘Happy Meal’ cost less than a Real Food Meal it’s a crime that our government makes us contribute to… through our tax dollars.

Yeah, the person really believes that Real Food must cost more than what Mickey D’s charges (like gas and coal costs more than what the market charges as well).  Being the engineer, I just had to offer a root cause solution – if you are blaming Govt subsidizing Big Ag, vote out those that take our tax money and give it to others.  Also, stop subsidizing stupid behaviors (usual mantra from me – Progressives are trying to regulate all risk and bad outcomes from individuals making dumb decisions) like:

  • overeating
  • illegal drug usage
  •  promiscuious sex (both straight and gay)
  • dangerous hobbies

Make people personally pay for their mistakes, most will stop doing those things that will personally cost them (especially out of their own wallets) pretty quickly.  A gentle fellow  who normally seems to be a bit more aligned with Grok holdings than TH thinkings accused me of being high on the LFoD clean air and went a bit of Occupy on me (as in the 1% controls us all, just not quite those words).

Heh – so I tried to rebut both him (gently) and the post author, Michelle as well, in her assertion that MORE Government control and intrusion is a good thing:

Sidenote: If Govt is subsidizing Big Ag, who then sells their product to Big Fast Food, and Big Obesity is suckering Stupid Parent (who are getting fleeced by Big Govt via inflate taxes) by superior Marketing to Kids Who Like Tasty Food to force Stupid Parents to drive Big Miles (ah – the Eco hook on fossil fuels!) to simply to provide new subjects for Big Clothes (who also get Big Subsidies from Big Govt as Big Ag, but thats another rant).

Er, instead of just getting Big Govt to knuckle down on Big Fast Food that then ends up costing Big Bucks for Big Obamacare, why not just cut the cycle at the beginning (or is that just too easy)?

But it is what keeps the thoughts coming and optimism high!  Look, I am under no illusion that “vote them all out” will happen – but I also do NOT ascribe to the Occupy notion that one person cannot make a difference because the deck is already stacked. And ever thought that THAT’s what “they” want you to think – that you are an immeasurable little cog that amounts to nothing?

I also reject the notion of the author of this post that we are mindless morons that Companies can mandate what we end up doing – that is insulting and in this case, it is the kids that control the adults all the time.  Absolute silliness.  It also shows the tendency of some who believe they HAVE to have control over others because “they won’t do what MY beliefs say they should”. This also shows a tendency to believe “Kids are Govt’s responsibility” instead of “Kids are the parents responsibility – we should butt out EXCEPT in a clear and imminent danger”. There is enough of that going on nowadays to prove “the slippery slope” is alive and well (and they rationalize it by saying “it’s good for you, moron”).

One person, determined enough, can move the Leviathan.  No, perhaps not far or much, but it is possible – I’ve done it both at the local and the State level.  Little old me.

I think to a degree that both Parties have merged [the Progressive Left with the Progressive Right] and have forgotten why this Country was formed in the first place based on American Exceptionalism (that each person is sovereign and that Govt only rules by the consent of the governed based on the philosophy of the Declaration & strictures of the Constitution).  You see that with the rise of the TEA Party, who doesn’t wish to go Right, but back down to our foundational philosophy of the Founders (whose documents were not just of governance but aptly describe a way to mitigate the human tendencies of many to wish to seize power and control the behaviors of others). Unfortunately, we have seen the polluting of those ideals of freedom from the lasting legacy of the Frankfurt School of the 1880s; I see some of that here at this site by the clamor of the supposed needs of the Collective over the ability of the Individual to decide for themselves.  Thus, you see that “at each other’s throats” even here (with the attempted silencing of C.Dog via the voting system).

Oh yeah, if you don’t think that Big Govt isn’t already doing stuff “For the Children”:

A Utah high school is learning the hard way that the government is serious about nudging students away from food it doesn’t want them to consume. Davis High School in the Salt Lake City area is having to fork over a whopping $15,000 in fines to the Feds because it accidentally sold soda through a vending machine during lunch.

Yeah – so who is being held accountable here?  Not the kids – they got what they wanted by making the best of a mistake by the school administration.  The latter?  You really think something is going to be done to them, that the $15K fine is coming out of their pockets (already taxpayer funded)?  Nope, wrong again (although it should).

No, it’s the taxpayers who will be held account for one part of local Govt screwing up and being made to pay another part of Govt – where else does that $15,000 come from?

Author

  • Skip

    Co-founder of GraniteGrok, my concern is around Individual Liberty and Freedom and how the Government is taking that away. As an evangelical Christian and Conservative with small "L" libertarian leanings, my fight is with Progressives forcing a collectivized, secular humanistic future upon us. As a TEA Party activist, citizen journalist, and pundit!, my goal is to use the New Media to advance the radical notions of America's Founders back into our culture.

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