Ah yes, the Nanniest of them all, Mayor “Do as I say, not as I do” Bloomberg wants to ban large capacity soda servings. One more thing that “It’s good for you to NOT drink all that” as if sugary water is the worst thing EVAH! Hey Bloomberg – how about concentrating on stuff that Mayors are supposed to concentrate on that would be more important – like murders and crime? Potholes? What about your failing public school system – what was your graduation rate again? Oh yeah, a rate of 65% but not ready for college:
Sixty-one percent of city students who started high school in 2006 graduated on time in 2010, compared with 59 percent of those who started in 2005 and graduated in 2009.
But only 21.4 percent of those students earned high enough scores on their math and English state tests to be deemed prepared for college and well-paying careers.
That’s the [success] ticket! If 78% of your grads can’t go directly to college, that’s not properly educating your students (a MAJOR part of your responsibility). Yet, that is of lesser importance than grabbing big cups of soda out of the hands of folks in your city?
Anyways, back to the Treehugger post (which isn’t as bad as some of the pro-ban pandering I’ve read):
When if comes down to it, the ban would only be an inconvenience for the die-hard soda drinkers. If you really want to drink 32 ounces of Coke, no one is going to stop you from ordering two.
Your ability to choose what YOU want? Not so much. They don’t see it as individual freedom issue – rather, an infringement on the collective having to pay for the bad habits of all us fat people. My response:
The essential problem is not that Bloomy wants to control, on his own say so, how YOU decide to drink what you want to and how. Rather, it is (once again) liberal do-gooders deciding that the intention of helping people with their healthcare via taxpayer money is (gosh!) actually costing big bucks!
This is the Tragedy of the Commons combined with “intentions over consequences” with “running out of other peoples’ money” all rolled into one.
What liberals and do-gooders are now effectively saying are “how DARE you take advantage of our taxpayer paid charity to take care of your healthcare by overeating and imbibing foods we consider to be Politically Incorrect (and in PI is portion sizes)!”
And then decided that because they got Society to pay for everyone [else’ risky behavior (and overeating is a risk to health problems], they now have the right to invoke the Golden Rule (“he who has the Gold (or control thereof) makes the Rules”) and can boss everyone else around because it would simply cost them more.
Instead, let people eat what they want, when they want, and in the quantity they want. But also let them know that THEY get to pay for the ramifications. No more socializing the cost of the risk – and brings back more common sense and self-responsibility. Enough of the, if I might, “one-size-fits-all” wreck of a “solution” that only Big Govt brings.
After all, everyone can say “no” to the extra big helping – or realize that they don’t want to say no.
Medicare was the start (a Liberal legacy of LBJ’s Great Society) of socialized care. The EMTALA law back in 1986 mandated that hospitals had to accept all seeking help – freely if necessary added on to it, along with Medicaid. And since then, healthcare costs have soared as the personal connection to healthcare costs are hidden by third party payments most of which are paid by Government.
Thus, Liberals have been saying if we have to pay for it, we have the right to control your behavior (as Bloomy is trying to do). So, they’ve set the stage, paid for it, and expect the rest of us to be their puppets on their strings. After all, they aren’t giving us the chances (or the appropriate policies) to remove ourselves from their system. All they can see and say is that “EVERYONE is going to need healthcare in the future” and never see the other conclusion “but you don’t HAVE to pay for it”.
I’d rather keep my money, stuff it into an HSA, and have more control over my healthcare life – and take care of my own risk. But like most Liberals, this choice will not be offered (in fact, Obamacare is slowly taking this away).
