It would appear that some of the Greater Minds of our nation have reached the conclusion that the government needs to look further up your colon than we would have dreamed. Literally. Researchers at the University of California San Francisco have decided that sugar is a toxic substance and that the federal government should regulate it much as it does alcohol and tobacco.
As someone who kicked the tobacco habit I can tell you it is unhealthy, and I feel better having walked away from it. The health and social benefits are wonderful, not to mention I am saving a pile of cash. I would recommend it to anyone. Recommend it, but not demand it. It’s not my business to tell you whether or not to smoke, to drink or for that matter to eat a box of donuts.
However, according to an article at thenewamerican.com one of the researchers, Dr. Ron Lustig states “We are in the midst of the biggest public health crisis in the history of the world,…And nobody even gets it. Nobody understands how important this is because they don’t consider it ‘public health.‘ They consider it ’personal responsibility.’ ” The researchers go on to suggest that the public does not curb its appetite for sugar, then the federal government should step in.
The article is worth a read for no other reason that it gives startling insight into the mindset of those of the Intellectual Class who, by virtue of their degrees presume to make our choices for us.
The group suggests tax increases, tighter regulations on vending machines and snack bars, and has even floated the notion of barring sales of sugar to those under 17. Really? So the day will come when someone will get carded for buying a candy bar? As with any encroachment on self determination, the approach is a soft-peddle. A Dr Laura Schmidt calls the move “a gentle way to make sugar consumption less convenient”
Kinda makes you wonder what other things the Left will want to gently make less convenient.
The White House has adopted a similar position on the food we eat, and the FDA is moving to how the food industry advertises its products on television.
The typical response to all of this would be to decry further government intrusion on our lives. But after giving it some thought, I have come to the conclusion that these kinds of intrusions are necessitated by a much larger one: Obamacare.
Obamacare is going to be extraordinarily expensive, will likely lead to fewer doctors, and more people visiting emergency rooms for even the most minor complaints. And unless the Supreme Court places it out at the Constitutional Curb, it increasingly looks like more Americans than know it now will find themselves customers of government medicine.
Somewhere in the back of their minds, or perhaps even in the front of their minds, the architects of the Affordable Care Act know that the demand and the costs will go up while the availability of care will go down. What better way to finance such a boondoggle through increased taxes and fees? And what better way to cut down on customers than by eliminating things that may, or, in some cases, may not be, unhealthy
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