Defending Your Right To Be Stupid
from The Tentacle - March 18th 2013
It is
counter-intuitive to view a 7-Eleven Super Big Gulp Coke and to believe that its
consumption is in the best interest of its drinker. But then again, who’d have
thunk that the mayor of New York City himself would ever interject himself as
the “food police?”
A
vision of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin at the CPAC conference, raising up the
Big Gulp, as if she were the Statue of Liberty, and that were her torch is now
in my head…
Of
course, last week’s big news was that the courts struck down Mayor Bloomburg’s
law limiting beverage containers to but 16 oz, maximum. What was he thinking in
his original presumption that free men and citizens had to be saved from
themselves?
It’s
one thing to mandate a poster food-pyramid for all elementary schools in
America, attempting to fight calorie pollution, while simultaneously supporting
the American farmer, but to make an essential food group like corn syrup based
carbonic drink and attach legally enforceable limits!
Harrumph.
I’m for
full-figured women; they seem more content.
“We’re
doing this for your own good” seems to be what government is feeding us at
multiple levels more and more every day; does that remind you of parenting 101,
though? The influence that Ms. Nanny State seems to be reaching for really is an
elitist, condescending, brazen attempt at theft of your human
rights.
Trying
to steal away your “Right to be Stupid,” methinks. And you know it’s right,
right there in our Bill of Rights.
It
doesn’t exactly say, “You have a right to poor health choices,” but it does say
that you may ignore your unwieldy body mass index (BMI). You have a right to
your life; your liberty, and your pursuit of happiness – with the limitation
that this right may not interfere with somebody else’s rights.
Okay!
So others should have the right to not be left holding your medical bills when
you become sick and financially indigent, but…
Along
these lines, various states have taken different paths on motorcycle helmet
laws. Maryland has gone both ways on this one over time, and even flipped. Today
you do not have the right to let your head crack open like an egg upon impact.
Some would say this was good law. Presumably, the Blue Oyster Cult guys would
not!
Gaining
a firsthand appreciation for personal liberty and freedom can require some trial
and error, some experimentation, and some defiance. Parents know this; of
course, some mistakes can be made but once.
So, we
craft sensible law, and we insulate our children in bubble-wrap; afterwards,
upon some maturation, even the conservative Mennonite kids go through amok times
despite this. Hence the phrase, “running amok.” Most come
back.
So, we
know that eventually human nature will have its way when it comes to personal
choices and the exercise of personal freedoms, plus the illusion of
liberty.
It
matters not so much what those that attempt to legislate behaviors enact; we
tend to balance back against the extremes of ‘left’ and of
‘right.’
Observe
in our founding documents that there is not a specific right to a house, or
right to health, or a right to be saved from yourself. You do not have a right
to never be hungry or a right to never be homeless.
You are
expected to be hardened in order to stay motivated in self-interest; a part of
being capitalist.
Obamacare will have the impact of saying “we expect you
to be healthy,” and will have penalties for you if you are not. No proof of
healthcare insurance? That’s an IRS thing now.
Just
wait till they finish encoding your medical records in digital format; when they
discover that your doctor asked you to drop a few pounds over 10 years ago, and
you did not, the FBI will begin to check your Visa card transaction history for
corn syrup based carbonic beverages.
Conversely, had you been the doctor of said high BMI
patient, and there is no conversation documented about calories (or of household
weapons, for that matter)…better practice up on the real estate
license.
Because
it’s against the financial best-interests of “Big (high BMI?) Brother” that you
not actually use your
single payer health coverage.
So,
they legislate against “stupid.”
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