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Thingish Things

Who Put Him in Charge?

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Feb• 04•12

What odious mental malady convinces some people that they have a say over what the rest of us do? A certain sub-segment of the population has it.  You can begin spotting them in around fourth or fifth grade when they start using words like “let’s.”  By high school, they are yearbook editor; by adulthood they chair the local community board. I don’t suffer from it, but if I did, I’d suggest that its victims be tattooed on the forehead with the bold letters B.B. for “Busy Body” as a warning to the rest of us.  

National Review’s Rich Lowry writes today on a group of these BB’s obsessed with sugar. In his piece, “Enter the Cupcake Cops“, Mr. Lowry takes special aim at one University of California San Francisco professor — is it any surprise? — who is helping lead the charge to regulate what your children and mine are allowed to ingest.  His name is Robert Lustig. Professor Lustig is seriously suggesting, among other things, that adolescents be carded when buying soft drinks to prove that they are at least 17 years of age. 

The NR editor writes:

There is a vigorous debate among researchers about how harmful sugar is, and Lustig — as you might imagine — takes the dire view. This fuels his push for “gentle ‘supply side’ control strategies” to limit the intake of sugar, including “taxation, distribution controls, age limits.” He and his co-authors muse about “zoning ordinances to control the number of fast-food outlets and convenience stores in low-income communities, and especially around schools.”

Under this regime, we’ll go from gun-free school zones to Snickers-free school zones. Lustig & Co. seriously propose starting to card young people who try to buy a Dr Pepper, with an age cutoff of 17. This will make 17 a fraught age: Old enough (with parental consent) to join the military and old enough to buy chocolate milk.

What I find even more disconcerting is the number of seemingly normal people who have expressed agreement with these police-state tactics after reading prior posts on this site. The argument is always the same:  If we have to pay for the effects of obesity through our tax dollars, then we should have a say over what others put in their bodies.

How’s this as a compromise? Keep government out of healthcare and allow people to eat, smoke, or drink whatever the hell the want. 

Let’s. 

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