SheLion, you are not reading correctly. I SUPPORT THE RIGHT OF A COMPANY TO DO WHAT IT PLEASES ON ITS OWN PROPERTY. Read, if a company wants to allow smoking, then I SUPPORT THAT.
The Obesity Scam
By Peyton Knight
CNSNews.com Commentary from the American Policy Center
July 02, 2002
As Americans gather for Fourth of July festivities, you can bet the barbecues will be satisfying hungry people, as will picnics, lunches and dinners, as Americans come together as family and friends to celebrate.
As a result, some, if not most, will pack away a lot of food.
Here's the bad news. You're fat.
You have been eating all those good things that are available to Americans: soft drinks, snack foods, not to mention an abundance of steaks, chops, chicken, pork and fish. You have some nerve eating well. And you have packed on those pounds. Some, not me, but some people are saying, "You're 'obese.'"
You may not look like Tom Cruise or Michael Jordan, but according to the federal government's Body Mass Index (BMI) scale, the physiques of these celebrities are described in terms usually reserved for the Rosie O'Donnell's of the world.
On the bright side, you'll be happy to know that your ever-expanding waistline is not your fault. It turns out that you are merely a victim of the savvy marketing of a sadistic food and beverage industry - one that preys on your weaknesses, and most unconscionably, your children's weaknesses, to the degree that it's all you can do to resist cramming one more Big Mac in your fat face.
This obesity diagnosis has been provided free of charge; your tax dollars at work.
However, if the trial lawyers and "fat police" have their way, this seemingly benign absurdity could end up eating away at the liberty of anyone with taste buds and a stomach. If you're a smoker, you are probably saying: "I told you so."
That's because the same movement that raped and pillaged "Big Tobacco" is now gearing up to take on Big Food, Big Restaurant and Big Beverage. Indeed, the blueprints for attack are identical.
First, trial lawyers and their comrades in government work to create a class of victims. In this case, it's any self-loathing porker who unwittingly orders an extra-generous portion at a restaurant, only to find himself incapable of putting down the fork when the first cheese fry is rejected by his brimming esophagus.
However, in this instance, "victims" were lacking, so in 1998 the U.S. government modified the BMI scale to automatically classify an additional 30 million Americans as overweight and obese. Snap your fingers and you have victims and an "epidemic."
The epidemic needs to be sold to its "victims." For this task, tofu junkies, animal rights organizations, anti-corporate groups, haters of capitalism and the reliably hysterical media are employed.
"There is no difference between Ronald McDonald and Joe Camel," says Dr. Kelly Brownell who works closely with the radical anti-consumer group "Center for Science in the Public Interest" (CSPI). "Children are to the obesity field what second-hand smoke was to tobacco," he wails.
CSPI is the leader of the "twinkie tax" brigade. Michael Jacobson, CSPI's founder says, "We could envision taxes on butter, potato chips, whole milk, cheeses and meat." People like Brownell and Jacobson think Americans are incapable of making their own dietary decisions.
Once the political atmosphere is tolerable, legislation is proposed to cure the ill, usually in the form of taxes.
For instance, Deborah Ortiz, a State Senator from California, has proposed a special tax on soft drinks to "diminish the human and economic costs of obesity in this state." (Sound familiar, Joe Camel?) Luckily for soda drinkers in California, her proposal recently failed.
Kooks like Ms. Ortiz have their cheerleaders in the media to back them up, and the next time Coca-Cola drinkers might not be so lucky.
"The Obesity Epidemic in America is getting worse; Americans continue to get fatter," cries the Harris Poll. "Americans are living large and eating larger," Michael Booth of The Denver Post reports. "Burger joints, convenience stores and even highbrow bistros are now offering portions up to seven times as big as government serving suggestions for a healthy diet."
Oh, the horror.
Soon, frustrated fatties, fed-up with their diets, will seek legal counsel against Ronald McDonald and his greedy cohorts.
The restaurant and beverage industries will be forced into paying massive settlements, to balance the scales of justice, of course. The price of a delicious Big Mac will skyrocket due to fat taxes and offsetting legal costs. Meanwhile, the only people able to afford Big Macs will be the newly rich, portly plaintiffs who started the whole mess.
Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) was one of the few on Capitol Hill to foresee this debacle. During the tobacco trials, he asked, "Where does this end? If we don't hold people accountable for decisions they make, does it end with tobacco? Does it end with alcohol? Does it end with fattening foods?"
There is no obesity epidemic in America. Only fat bureaucrats and tubby lawyers feasting on a growing number of people who refuse to take responsibility for their actions.
(Peyton Knight is the Legislative Affairs Director of the American Policy Center, an activist, grassroots think tank headquartered in Warrenton, Va.)
Copyright 2002, Peyton Knight
CONTROL< baby...that's what it's all about and liberal right takers like you will see what damage you've done to a "FREE" people before it's all over!
Achtung!!