Posted on 05/17/2003 11:29:39 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
The government - ever eager to control every aspect of your life - has now launched a campaign to determine what and how much you eat.
Having taken over much of the health system via Medicare, the government is now concerned about the cost of illnesses resulting from obesity, the same way it worried about the cost of illnesses associated with smoking. As such, the government has embarked on an effort to control individuals' personal lifestyle choices, as well as accusing the fast-food industry of causing obesity.
The lessons of Prohibition, the outlawing of alcoholic beverages in the 1920s, have not been learned and the result is the virtual criminalization of the tobacco industry and now, it would seem, the fast-food industry.
In her book, "Dependent on D.C.: The Rise of Federal Control Over the Lives of Ordinary Americans," author Charlotte A. Twight says, "Few things are more personal than health care, nor more alien to the legitimate functions of limited government. Yet few things are higher on the U.S. government's agenda at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Step by step, the federal government is usurping power to substitute its medical judgments and therapeutic choices for those of individual patients and their physicians." Most Americans are unaware that the newly proclaimed US policy comes right out of the United Nations.
The UN's World Health Organization and its Food and Agricultural Organization issued a draft report making the case that various restrictions must be imposed on everything from soda to snack foods in order to save the world from fat people. The UN report manages to ignore the estimated 815 million undernourished people in the world.
It is a plan to create an Orwellian world in which everyone is compelled to do what Big Brother tells him or her to do. The US campaign, though couched in terms of obesity's financial costs, is a subterfuge for even greater control over our personal lives.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson was on television recently, pointing a finger at the fast-food industry and urging it to "do what is right for Americans."
What is right is the right of every American to determine what and how much they eat, and to be responsible for whatever consequences they encounter. This is not a public issue. It is a private one. It is one in which the government should have no role nor say.
The absurdity of the new war on fat people is the assertion, soon to be a nationwide environmental campaign, that housing developments actually cause Americans to exercise less, thus contributing to obesity, diabetes and other disorders.
This is pure junk science that defies common sense, but watch as Americans are told that suburban life is the new enemy that is killing them.
It is a hop, skip and a jump from telling Americans they are too fat to issuing regulations to ensure they do not exceed daily food intake rules set by the government. It's an extension of the same government control that now includes smoking restrictions.
Getting fat or staying slim is a personal lifestyle decision. It is not the government's right, nor role, to determine, and the new campaign, initiated by the UN, can lead to still further loss of freedom in America.
Water??!!?!
Damn...I gotta start writing this stuff down.
The government needs to trim a little pork themselves. Maybe all those morbidly obese people on food stamps can turn some food stamps in at the end of the month.
There is a fat problem the government should be taking care of..in the federal budget.
You have done amazing! I use a no carb, one that breaks down the carbs I do eat. I have bread occasionally, one glass of soda a day. I am losing more inches than poundage though. 34 pounds you have lost! Wowsers! I lost 60 pounds in 7 weeks once, and I have not been healthy since. So when I got serious I decided to do it slowly. Went from a 20 to an 18 and in one week down to 16. But as for pounds only about 10 in a month. I want to keep it off. Keep me updated how your doing in email!
Do you know I've heard nothing but success stories and that is very encouraging, thanx! 80 lbs. in what amount of time Tom?
Although I've been a size 20 topping 230 at 5'8" and I've been a 10 at 150, I do know women with size are more appealing to me. In my Mom's generation, Lucy, Jane Russell, Marilyn etc. all had honest figures, not like the eating disorders of today, which to this day are not talked about how unhealthy that is and how it kills you.
This "thing" is a person, bub. Glad your wife has enough humanity to take care of those who have medical problems, but you don't? Are you so high and mighty that you'll never have any health problems brought on by your lifestyle, genetic make up, poor judgement, and that you are immune to any happenstance which I will have to foot the bill for? My, my, we'd all love to see your perfect self posted. As for the government telling us what we should eat, that's hogwash. The scales cringe when I step on, but in blatant opposition to raybbr and the government I have normal bp and don't have diabetes - neener, neener. If any fat needs trimming it's the government's spending and kick backs such as all that under the table dealings with the UN to lift Iraq sanctions. The US has much more pressing problems than how many Oreos it's citizens stuff in their faces. Can we all say Big Brother?
Have a few pieces of chicken. Stop by an Asian market and get a roast duck and eat half of it. Eat some vegetables. The beauty of this low-carb thing is that one should nnever be hungry. Honestly, it really works.
End Medicare, Medicaid, and Food Stamps. The government dependents are the only whose weight is costing me the most. The most obese of all are on the food stamp program and it's easy to see why when you watch who uses food stamps and who has to use their own money. Why is it when you see 400 pounders with 100 pound 5 year olds, they are using food stamps when they check out with a cart overfilled with cakes, cookies, ice cream, sodas and they never seemed to make it to the vegetable section.
This is the MO of X-42, to vilify your enemy. Who is next, Santa Claus?
------------------------------------------------------------
11/16/99
Lawyers do nothing but increase the cost of every thing we buy and inhibit everything we do in the name of justice when in fact its to increase their net worth.
Its so blatant that to try and vilify it is preposterous. When they find they can not hack it in law they become politicians now there is a real step up, pork and freebies, that's real productivity for you.
Get a real job you leeches!
H.W. Swenson III
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]
Vilify \Vil"i*fy\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Vilified}; p. pr. & vb.
n. {Vilifying}.] [L. vilis vile + -fly; cf. L. vilificare to esteem of little value.]
1. To make vile; to debase; to degrade; to disgrace. [R.]
When themselves they vilified To serve ungoverned appetite. --Milton.
2. To degrade or debase by report; to defame; to traduce; to calumniate. --I. Taylor.
Many passions dispose us to depress and vilify the merit of one rising in the esteem of mankind. --Addison.
3. To treat as vile; to despise. [Obs.] I do vilify your censure. --Beau. & Fl.
From WordNet (r) 1.7 [wn]
vilify v : spread negative information about; "The Nazi propaganda vilified the Jews" [syn: {revile}, {vituperate}, {rail}]
Gay rights activists vilify Norah Vincent for her conservative views. But the controversial syndicated columnist says more people should follow her example and separate politics from sexual orientation.
------------------------------------------------------------
Good Luck With Your Habits & Enjoy Them While You Can!
This is what makes it the government's business. People who want to be fat should be allowed to do what they please as long as they pay their own bills or isurance premiums.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.