The Government Says You're Fat

CNSNews.com ^ | May 15, 2003 | Tom DeWeese

[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.

[Beck_isright]

"Better home JR gets FR an exemption."

Oops, that should read "Better hope"...I guess this means I'll be getting a warning letter from the Ministry of Typos.

[StriperSniper]

The Government Says You're Fat

Well I say they are ugly.

[KDD]

When the government gets its way we may all be required to do a series of exercises in front of our telescreens every morning. Richard Simmons will be the official government coach and those unable to maintain preset norms for their demographic group will be sanctioned by having their food debit cards restricted to "approved items only".

Farfetched?

[Beck_isright]

The Ministry of Health will have a Richard Simmons department????? ARgggggggghhhhhhhhhh

[metesky]

If you're picking the governemnt's, or your company's pocket, to subsidize your self-destructive behavior then the govt (or your company) has a right to beef.

First of all, no one is "picking the government's pocket". The government is willingly giving in order to spread it's power.

Second, not doing your job is the only way you can "pick you company's pocket". If you show up at work everyday and do your job, it is not the company's business whether you float in the door like a butterfly or waddle in like a sow.

When GodGov comes after something you like, I just know all you "perfect" people will scream louder than all others combined.

[Beck_isright]

Did you clear your posting with the Ministry of Truth and the Ministry of Health? If you cause his bp to rise, you'll be turned in to the Ministry of Justice for a referral to the Ministry of Punishment. After all, we just can't have enough government to watch over us and protect us.

[mewzilla]

So those Medicare/Medicaid recipients who are costing the taxpayer more than they otherwise would if they exhibitted a little self-control don't bug you? Ditto for your company's health care expenditures? The obese people I know routinely run up at least four figs in medical bills every year. I'm tired of getting soaked to help cover the results of their bad behavior.

[metesky]

Did you clear your posting with the Ministry of Truth and the Ministry of Health?

No.

If you cause his bp to rise, you'll be turned in to the Ministry of Justice for a referral to the Ministry of Punishment.

Come 'n get me, copper!

After all, we just can't have enough government to watch over us and protect us.

Forever and ever, amen.

[metesky]

So those Medicare/Medicaid recipients who are costing the taxpayer more than they otherwise would if they exhibitted a little self-control don't bug you?

What bugs me is that there is a gooberment boondogle called Medicare/Medicaid. What bugs me is that people who've had the advantages of the same education system as I still seem terminally dumb.

Ditto for your company's health care expenditures?

My company is me and there are no health care expenditures.

I'm tired of getting soaked to help cover the results of their bad behavior.

Quit bitchin' and become self sufficient. Kill the system by refusing to take part. It's the more manly way and the rest of us won't have to listen to your constant carping.

[TRY ONE]

Let's have the Gov. break it down even further, say:

Whites: 65% Fat
Blacks: 72% Fat
Latinos: 66% Fat
etc. etc

We gots to know....

[Beck_isright]

LOL, the absurdity of it just illustrates what we are up against. However, there are many in this country and on this board that would have no problem with a Ministry of anything to "protect" them.

[Beck_isright]

"So those Medicare/Medicaid recipients who are costing the taxpayer more than they otherwise would if they exhibitted a little self-control don't bug you? Ditto for your company's health care expenditures? The obese people I know routinely run up at least four figs in medical bills every year. I'm tired of getting soaked to help cover the results of their bad behavior."

Directly from the Ministry of Government Employment:

WAKE THE HELL UP. The increased costs have nothing to do with fatter people on welfare, older people or hight medical costs. The cost of government and the expansion of the bureaucracy is what is and has been creating this mess. If you're going to blame a fat person, a smoker, a drinker or God Forbid, an evil SUV driver for this, then you need to go back to DU. By the way, did you consult the Ministry of Truth for a posting permit before putting your nonsense up?

[Beck_isright]

"Quit bitchin' and become self sufficient. Kill the system by refusing to take part. It's the more manly way and the rest of us won't have to listen to your constant carping."

That poing can not be emphasized enough. It's really quite sad that there are so many FReepers who want the government involved in every aspect of someone else's life. If FR is this bad, it just shows the microcosm of the general public, and the bleeting is getting deafening by the day.

[FairOpinion]

You mean you haven't heard of the water saving toilets? Regular toilets which use 5 gallons of water to flush have been illegal in the US for years. As I said, I don't understand why people put up with the current level of intrusion into our personal life.

The Patriot Act doesn't come close to being as intrusive as some already existing laws, and it has an important purpose: saving us from terrorists.

But I don't think the government should make laws which basically try to "save us from ourselves".

Here is a bill that was tried to repeal it, but it didn't work, apparently:

Bill introduced to repeal low-flow toilet requirement
November 1999
U.S. Water News Online
WASHINGTON --Plunger wielding frequent flushers across America have found an ally in Congressman Joe Knollenberg. The Michigan Republican has sponsored a bill (HR 623) to repeal a 1994 federal law requiring "low-flow" toilets.

The puzzle that toilet manufacturers have faced since 1994 is how to flush away excrement, toilet tissue, and whatever else goes into a toilet bowl, with only 1.6 gallons of water.

Compare that to commodes manufactured in the 1980s that used 3.5 gallons, or toilets from the 1970s that sent 5 to 7 gallons rushing through the bowl.

"The problem is the flush from a 1.6-gallon toilet does not have the capacity to move solid waste -- it doesn't have the gravitational push," Welday confirmed.

What the 1.6-gallon gallon toilet does do is conserve water. That's why the environmentally friendly law was put into place five years ago. Basically, the law says that builders must install 1.6-gallon toilets in all dwellings constructed after 1994.

http://www.uswaternews.com/archives/arcpolicy/9bilint11.html

[FairOpinion]

It's not the issue of fat, it's the issue that it's none of the government's business whether anyone is fat or not, and what anyone eats.

[FairOpinion]

So do you think that the government should ban certain fattening foods, and everyone should get a government defined ration, that the government decides it's appropriate for them?

I guess you are in favor of the government shouldn't even pay anyone salaries, just keep all our money, eliinate all private property, and then give us appropriate size places to live, appropriate food and clothing, right?

I hope you know what that's called: communism, which even the so called communist countries didn't achieve, but were striving for

[NittanyLion]

So those Medicare/Medicaid recipients who are costing the taxpayer more than they otherwise would if they exhibitted a little self-control don't bug you? Ditto for your company's health care expenditures? The obese people I know routinely run up at least four figs in medical bills every year. I'm tired of getting soaked to help cover the results of their bad behavior.

Then I would suggest you concentrate your efforts on the root cause of the problem: government's role in healthcare.

[FairOpinion]

Absolutely. Santa Clause sets a bad exaple for children. Congress really needs to pass a law that Santa Clause needs to lose weight. Better yet, the government needs to arrest Santa Clause and force him to stay at a government run health clinic and make him lose weight. This will be a place where everyone who dares to smuggle and eat food in addition to the government issued rations will be interred.

And of course we will have government designed exercises that everyone has to engage in too.

And the government will have to tell us when to get up, when to go to sleep, how much time we are allowed to sit in front of the computer, and so on.

[Xenalyte]

The Government Says You're Fat

Damn. Now I KNOW they're watching me. (Of course they are. How else would they know?)

[Beck_isright]

And of course here I am, waiting on the Ministry of Internet to give me permission to log off and do some work around the house. Poor Santa. He could starve to death before the Ministry of Food and the Minister of Exercise (Richard Simmons) gets back to him.