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The Government Says You're Fat
CNSNews.com ^ | May 15, 2003 | Tom DeWeese

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.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: foodpolice; government; health; intrusion; privacy; pufflist; screwtheun; soisunclesam
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To: raybbr
I'm pretty sure I would have been able to go my entire life without ever having to see that picture.

/shudder>
81 posted on 05/18/2003 3:45:00 PM PDT by Sweet_Sunflower29
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To: Mamzelle
Are you trying to cut fat, too?

Are you kidding me? Steak is my middle name ;)

82 posted on 05/18/2003 3:59:38 PM PDT by JustPiper (If we are deemed 'far right wingers', does that make them 'left side wrongers'?)
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To: ez
Did you get your carb-buster at GNC?

Cheaper at Walgreens, do you have one near you?

83 posted on 05/18/2003 4:00:52 PM PDT by JustPiper (If we are deemed 'far right wingers', does that make them 'left side wrongers'?)
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To: StriperSniper
The Government Says You're Fat

Freepers said Government was Fat first.

84 posted on 05/18/2003 4:02:38 PM PDT by DannyTN (Note left on my door by a pack of neighborhood dogs.)
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To: Sweet_Sunflower29
But she has a pretty face! lol
85 posted on 05/18/2003 5:49:31 PM PDT by msru (is cool.)
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To: msru
Ewwwwwwwwww!
86 posted on 05/18/2003 5:56:41 PM PDT by Sweet_Sunflower29
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To: msru
Ewwwwwwwwww!
87 posted on 05/18/2003 5:56:42 PM PDT by Sweet_Sunflower29
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To: Leisler
Short walks now mean going to the mailbox and getting out of breath and six months ago, doing six miles on the mountain bike was a half hour little run.

Am I complaining? Yes. I don't mean to but you have to understand, less than a month ago, I didn't think there was a thing wrong with me.

This T-fat may go the way of things like Fen-Fen. If it does, it won't be because of what I say or do.

I just don't like the idea of a little timebomb next to the chocolate chips in the cookie.

Take care of yourself. There are a lot of unsuspecting things out there.
88 posted on 05/18/2003 6:25:45 PM PDT by Shooter 2.5 (Don't punch holes in the lifeboat)
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To: Shooter 2.5
The point I'm trying to make is how is anyone supposed to figure out that there would be some sort of danger to your heath in something so unrelated as a chocolate chip cookie.

Once again, for those in the back of the class...  If you have that many problems, or allergies that are that serious, you simply cannot think that anything is "unrelated" and you have absolutely no business eating anything for which you haven't personally verified the contents of each and every ingredient or preferably made for yourself.  Processed food is just not meant for you.

The same thing happened to me and I don't have any allergies. Do you even know what Hydrogenated oil is if you weren't told? Until that article about the Oreo cookies was printed, I'll bet, unless you were a chemist or doctor, you never heard of it.

By the name and an application of reasoning, I could deduce that "hydrogenated oil" was most likely oil in which hydrogen gas had somehow been injected or blended for some reason.  However, that is beside the point.  Like I said before - if you are so afraid that something may harm you in processed food, go do the research and find out what the ingredients are.  If you are too stupid or lazy to go do all the required research to determine what each and every ingredient consists of in processed food before you eat it, then it just isn't for you.  Make your own food and quit your damn whining.  But let the rest of us eat what we want!

Col Sanders

89 posted on 05/18/2003 6:34:48 PM PDT by Col Sanders (I ought to tear your no-good Goddang preambulatory bone frame, and nail it to your government walls)
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To: raybbr
And when YOU get sick, do you want the health workers who are caring for you to refer to you as a "thing"?

Consider it done.
90 posted on 05/18/2003 6:39:03 PM PDT by GnuHere
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To: Col Sanders
Wow!

So you somehow knew about the t fat even before it became a problem in the news. Where did you do your heart research? Why didn't you inform anyone at least two years ago so you could have saved me all this grief?
91 posted on 05/18/2003 7:31:40 PM PDT by Shooter 2.5 (Don't punch holes in the lifeboat)
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To: Tailgunner Joe
The fat is in their budget.........

and between their ears!

92 posted on 05/18/2003 7:37:32 PM PDT by RIGHT IN SEATTLE
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To: Tailgunner Joe
I may be fat, but they (the govt) are ugly, and I can lose weight.
93 posted on 05/18/2003 7:51:24 PM PDT by wcbtinman (The first one is expensive, all the rest are free.)
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To: Tailgunner Joe
Ah, pardon me, but has anyone taken a good look at the bellies and rear ends of some of the inhabitants of Congress lately?
94 posted on 05/18/2003 7:56:01 PM PDT by harpo11 (Godspeed Brave USA Troops! My Families Thoughts and Prayers are Being Sent to YOU! "Job Well Done!)
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To: *puff_list
PUFF!
It's actually admitted that tobacco was only first on the list.
95 posted on 05/18/2003 8:08:51 PM PDT by Just another Joe (FReeping can be addictive and helpful to your mental health)
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To: raybbr
Your picture is absolutely too funny for words!
Your words are absolutely too much like the liberals.
96 posted on 05/18/2003 8:12:07 PM PDT by ladyinred
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To: Tailgunner Joe
The writing was on then wall, when they came for the smokers.
97 posted on 05/18/2003 9:32:24 PM PDT by Great Dane
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To: Celantro
While I've never tried the no-carb diet (don't have to), I have always wondered whether the "no sugar" rule extended to fruits. Does it?

Thanks for the reply,

98 posted on 05/19/2003 11:55:13 AM PDT by VermiciousKnid
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To: VermiciousKnid
Yeah, Atkins says to stay off fruit too. Berries he likes but not fruit.
99 posted on 05/19/2003 2:31:18 PM PDT by Celantro
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To: FairOpinion
You mean you haven't heard of the water saving toilets?

Now you got my head spinning....You mean water goes in the toilet?

100 posted on 05/19/2003 3:35:48 PM PDT by Focault's Pendulum (Living under a rock is looking better every day.)
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