Posted on 07/29/2009 5:16:17 AM PDT by shortstop
I told you so.
Years ago I said the next target was food.
In its tireless quest for power and money – done in the name of protecting you – the government has gobbled ever-larger chunks of the economy.
Tobacco, health care, communication, energy, banking, the automotive industry.
And now food.
A national soda-pop tax has been proposed, the Urban Institute wants to go after food producers and family budgets the way it went after tobacco companies and smokers, and food is about to be called a hazard to your health.
Ostensibly, because you’re fat.
Actually, because the government wants your money.
The one habit people can’t give up is eating. The one portion of the economy that truly controls the people is the food supply. In the past the government sought to protect it, now it wants to conquer it.
More correctly, now the government wants to conquer you.
And it will do so in the guise of protecting you.
As you may have noticed, Americans are fat. Some two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. It is a national shame. And it is a threat to our health.
But it is also a threat to our freedom.
Because when the activists point to the supposed $200 billion in annual health-care costs blamed on people being overweight, they are really just building a case to take away from you the ability to decide – or afford – what’s for dinner.
This is in the news because, in addition to the soda-pop tax, the Urban Institute has a new study out that calls for dramatic taxes on “unhealthy” foods.
Before we try to figure out what “unhealthy” is, let’s figure out what the Urban Institute is. Basically, it’s the government. It was founded by the government and is funded by the government – 62 percent of its budget comes from the feds – and since the days when Lyndon Johnson got it rolling, it has been a steady apologist for and advocate of socialist, big-government programs.
And it says food should be treated like tobacco. Producers should be taxed or sued into massive revenue-sharing agreements, and consumers should be heavily taxed.
The theory is that people who produce or eat food are bad, that they are the cause of the obesity epidemic and they must be forced to pay. The problem is that they are us. While a minority of people smoke, a majority of people eat.
And that’s a good thing.
So is the system of producer, processor and distributor that takes the tiniest fraction of our population and from its agricultural productivity feeds not only our country but also millions of foreigners. Astoundingly, we are being trained in this society to bite the hand that feeds us, to resent the farmer as a polluter and barbarian, somehow cruel to both the environment and livestock.
We have been taught phrases of contempt – like “factory farm” and “big agra” – and the prejudice against our food supply is palpable. We have been conned into hating something we don’t know the first thing about. Large processing companies – that feed countless people here and abroad – are not thanked for their efficiency and productivity, but are castigated and condemned.Then there are the folks who eat.
In the thinking of this report and its supporters, the free-will choices of Americans on something as elemental as what they eat or drink should be done away with. In order to get Americans to eat what and how much the all-powerful activists want them to eat, high taxes on “fattening” foods are being pushed.
The problem – beyond the tyranny – is that there is no such thing as a “fattening” food. It doesn’t really matter what you eat, it matters how much you eat and how much you exercise.
All food contains calories – little units of energy. In partnership with your level of physical activity, the number of calories your body takes in determines whether or not you gain weight. Twinkies are fine, depending on how many you eat. Fruit can be loaded with calories and an all-fruit diet – involving being idle and eating to excess – can make you just as fat as anything else.
If soda pop is bad for you, what about ice cream? Or chocolate? Or beef? Or cheese? Or eggs? Or pancakes and syrup? Or whole-wheat bread? Every one of those things has the innate capacity to contain at least as many calories as soda pop.
So where does the taxing start?
That question can’t be answered.
So the objective becomes: Making sure this tax never starts.
The groundwork now being laid for this government raid on the food industry and on our family grocery budgets must be pounded back into the hole it dripped out of. Activists talk about the cost of obesity and how this money could fund health-care reform and how people need to be protected from themselves. They feel empowered by the current regime in Washington.
But they must not be allowed to take control of the food supply. They are about to try a money and power grab, and in so doing will interfere with our ability to feed our children.
And that’s not a matter of convenience or philosophy, it is a matter of survival.
I told you so.
They’re coming after food.
And we’ve got to stop them in their tracks.
“If we have universal health care, backed by the government (ie. our tax dollars), it is a natural outcome of this thinking that they’ll want to control diet, exercise, lifestyle choices.”
Exactly. The news seems to think that the discussion is only about cost, they never consider the implications of the freedoms lost. To them I reply with the following:
When this “health care for all” crap passes, right now the legislation states that it will be illegal to sell private policies over the date of passage. It also says that HSA’s will no longer be allowed. That means that my current policy will no longer be allowed and neither I nor my employer will be allowed to privately purchase an alternative.
I will not accept the “public option” that I will be dictated to join. I will not give the government control over my physical body. I will not pay their fines, I will not surrender to the impending warrant for my arrest. When they knock on my door, I will not answer. When they kick it in, I will make the news.
How’s that for unification, libtards? You loons are currently legislating my death. I will chose the terms and I will bring as many of you along as possible!
*********************************************
“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,..”
The Department of Food is a requirement to total control of the population.
They can tax the air we breath (or exhale), control health care from birth to death, but until they own food from seed to table, they won’t have complete ownership of our lives.
And the malignant political class will not stop until they totally own us, cradle to grave.
Very well put.
Uh, I actually agree with you. I forgot the /sarc tag. Sorry!
I believe you. I think that they want to take over every essential industry in the U.S.
Oooops, sorry.
Things are so bizarre lately, I get confused.
My bad!
:0)
these guys think they have way too much power...We the People will need to show them otherwise...
Gruel and Soylent Green for everyone — yummy!
They do. I think the farms would be "redistributed" to the Farmworker's Union (AFL-CIO, I believe), the way the auto companies are being restructured with union ownership, which is essentially redistributing them to the unions. Chavez also worked through unions.
As for the food and food distribution industry, I think heavy regulation will be enough to crush them and in one way or another, the Government will end up controlling them.
We're going to go one step beyond the Soviet Union and head for something more on the Chinese model under Mao, IMHO.
H.R 875 Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009
(still in committee as of 2/4/09) Keep an eye on it.
Legally binds state agriculture departments to enforcing federal guidelines effectively taking away the states power to do anything other than being food police for the federal dept.
* Effectively criminalizes organic farming but doesn’t actually use the word organic.
* Effects anyone growing food even if they are not selling it but consuming it.
* Effects anyone producing meat of any kind including wild game.
* Legislation is so broad based that every aspect of growing or producing food can be made illegal.
* Section 103 is almost entirely about the administrative aspect of the legislation. It will allow the appointing of officials from the factory farming corporations and lobbyists and classify them as experts and allow them to determine and interpret the legislation. Who do you think they are going to side with?
* Section 206 defines what will be considered a food production facility and what will be enforced up all food production facilities. The wording is so broad based that a backyard gardener could be fined and more.
* Section 207 requires that the state’s agriculture dept act as the food police and enforce the federal requirements. This takes away the states power and is in violation of the 10th amendment.
But unlike the case in Africa or 18th-century Ireland, they’re not dealing with unarmed peasants here. I have a feeling there is going to be a lot of violence before this is all over with.
This would basically require a massive, overarching enforcement structure. Nobody can be everywhere at once to enforce it ALL. The black market would be huge. Another gift to organized crime!
I’m waiting til they tax our breathing...NOT.
Nothing NYS EVER does makes any sense.
I know you aren’t. Many of us probably feel the same way. Amerika is coming.
And let’s not forget the cell phones they can get. Chees..
Good is evil, evil is good...
Bingo.
Words fail how bad such a proposal is.
It already has. Most food is taxed. You must pay the state for permission to eat anything beyond base staples. Look at your receipt next time you go to the grocery store.
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