The Food Police bite the Big Apple!
By Doug Hagin (09/28/06)
I would like to offer my sincerest congratulations to the residents of the city of New York. That city is the only city, apparently, the most together, problem-free city in America. How can I know this you ask? Well look, if the New York City Health Department is pushing a ban on the use of partly hydrogenated oil in any foods served in any city restaurant, then surely, there can be no other issues facing the city of New York.
Just today, September 27 I read the story of how the New York health department, AKA the Food Police, is trying to micro-manage every ingredient used in the food served in New York’s nearly 25,000 restaurants. What a landmark day for Leftist busybodies in America. Not content with dictating to restaurants that they cannot allow smoking, the political correctors have now targeted fatty foods for extinction.
The main point for pushing such a campaign of government intervention in private business is, of course, that it is for our own good. We, the stupid, helpless people need the help of leftists, at least according to the neo-Marxist leftists, in living our lives. So now, the same big government types, who banned smoking in restaurants, have moved on to controlling another legal behavior they find offensive, eating fatty foods.
It brings me no great pleasure to point out, by the way, that I predicted this would happen, and now it has. I am now going to offer another prognostication; this measure will very likely pass in New York. I also gaze into the crystal ball of political correctness and see more cities, and eventually entire states following the Marxist lead of New York.
I can make such bold prediction not because I have ESP. Nor have I spent hundreds of dollars dialing the Physic Hotline. I can predict this because I understand how desperate the left is to control everything you and I do. And yes, that definitely includes what we eat. Please do not delude yourselves my friends, similar laws dictating what our children, and eventually we can eat in our own homes are not too very far away on the highway of political correctness.
In fact, I was reading a news story from Europe the other day that said prospective adoptive parents are being screened for height and weight. Got that? Part of the qualifications for adopting a child who needs parents is how much those would-be parents weigh. Can such dastardly laws be coming to America sooner rather than later? You better bet the political correctors would love such laws.
They are, in fact, the ultimate control freaks.
Let us get back to the Big Apple though, where the leftists are actively trying to further encroach on the rights of business owners to run their businesses free of government intrusions. The city would attempt to undertake controlling every ingredient in every recipe, in every one of New York’s 24,600 restaurants. Does any reasonable person really think such a task could be accomplished with any success or fairness by the government? No, I thought not. After all, no entity is more famous for waste and incompetence than government agencies. Does New York really think they can pull off such a massive undertaking? How much tax money will be wasted, thrown away, in such an asinine attempt to micro-manage New Yorkers diets?
Now I know these fats are not the best things for us that is pretty easy to figure out. I do not, however, need some moronic beaurocrat to tell me what I should or should not eat and neither do the residents of New York! If a person wants to eat these foods, and a restaurant wants to serve these foods, then guess what kids? that is not any business of some overblown health department official or any elitist politician! What it is is liberty, and America is supposed to be about liberty isn’t it?
Remember though, that given the hypersensitive, touchy-feely, society we are becoming, this foolish law will likely pass. What can the residents of New York look forward to? Well consider what foods these soon-to-be-banned fats turn up in. French-fries, piecrusts, margarine, many cooking oils, doughnuts, and shortenings, along with many other foods. Can we expect New Yorkers to kneel to big government now and either not eat such foods or eat them ONLY if they are prepared in a more politically correct fashion?
Yes, those foods might taste as good, might be better for us, and might prove a great benefit to our longevity and waistlines. However, such decisions are not ones, which any body of government should endeavor to handle. Embracing such laws, regardless of how well intended or beneficial they might be, not only imperils our personal liberties, it begins the process of erasing them.
I, nor you, nor New York, needs nosy, clueless politicians, to tell us when, what, or where to eat. Neither is it their place to tell a private business owner that they cannot use certain ingredients to prepare the food they serve. This is really pretty simple folks. These decisions belong to restaurants and their patrons, not government!
So consider this a wake up call my friends. First cigarettes, now certain fats, next? liquor? red Meat? sugars? This insidious campaign must be stopped, and we, the people, according to our Constitution, are the ones running this nation aren’t we? If we do nothing now, how long until some government agent is looking over our shoulders in our own kitchens?
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