Tuesday, October 26, 2004

FOOD STALINISM

"In The Constitution of Liberty, Friedrich Hayek made the point that one of the keystones of socialism is the denial of individual responsibility. Thus, the crusade for socialism always included attacks on individual responsibility. For if individuals do not have free will, and are not responsible for their actions, then their lives must be controlled somehow-preferably by the state-according to the socialists. They must be regulated, regimented and controlled-for their own good.

This is the underlying message of Fast Food Nation, in which the author [Schlosser] makes the remarkable scientific discovery that a steady diet of chocolate milkshakes and French fries, combined with little or no exercise, will make you fat. Schlosser has nothing at all good to say about the fast food industry despite the fact that millions of Americans (and others) express their disagreement with him every day by spending their money at these establishments.

Schlosser fails to acknowledge that American consumers are as educated as they have ever been and can judge for themselves where the best place to eat is. Just as everyone has understood that smoking is bad for your health for well over a hundred years, if not longer, it is common knowledge that a super-sized double cheeseburger with fries has considerably more calories than baked chicken and broccoli. We don't need Eric Schlosser to inform us of this.

One gets the impression that despite his voluminous discussion of the alleged problems of the fast food industry, Schlosser has never paid close attention to the menu items at Wendy's, McDonald's, or Burger King. These fast food restaurant chains, and many others, have adapted to the American public's demands for healthier foods by cutting down on fat grams, offering more and more salads, wrap sandwiches, and other more healthful items, as well as all kinds of low-carb offerings. The free market is working, in other words. But Schlosser's book is nothing if it is not an uninformed attack on the free market in the food industry.

Schlosser reveals his true agenda in the book's epilogue, where he sings the praises of "scientific socialists," a term that Lenin used to boast of the alleged accomplishments of Soviet socialism. He lambastes capitalism in general and waxes eloquent about the alleged munificence of government intervention, from the job-destroying minimum wage law to "public works" departments and road-building programs, which have been perhaps the most colossal examples of government waste, fraud, inefficiency, and corruption.

He ends the book by recommending a blizzard of government intervention, as though that will make us all thinner, fitter, and healthier. We need more government "job training" programs, he says, despite the fact that such programs were even deemed to be abysmal failures by the U.S. Congress itself in the 1970s when it sunset the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA). We need more laws that give special privileges to labor unions, says Schlosser, who is apparently ignorant of how such union power played an important role in almost destroying the American steel and automobile industries, among others, over the past several decades.

The food industry is regulated by federal, state, and local bureaucracies, and by "consumer activist" busybodies in the nonprofit sector, but that is not enough for Schlosser, who advocates layers and layers of additional regulatory regimentation.

(Much) more here



LEFTISTS EXEMPT FROM THEIR OWN PC SPEECH CODES

Because George W. Bush ended the 8-year Democratic occupation of the White House, they have made him the object of their fury, even though his administration has not embraced the conservative direction they like to think it has and what I wish it were. Dick Cheney is loathed even more because he is considered to be more conservative than Bush and is a former CEO in the realm of business.

My other guess in discerning what vexes the Left is their own politically correct mentality. There is perhaps nothing more stifling to human intellect in the Western Hemisphere than the shroud of political correctness, which prevents people from projecting their instinctual thoughts and requires deep contemplation to review and censor the potential offensiveness of their statement before saying it.

If I had to carefully analyze everything uttered from my mouth and convince myself into believing a load of fertilizer that conforms to the norms of PC while ignoring the reality of a situation, I would probably be peddling a bicycle around Manhattan while wearing a tricorner hat myself.

The infringement of freedom of expression has undoubtedly bottled up emotional frustration causing liberals to channel it out through bombastic acts on the political stage that need no rationalization regardless how obnoxious they might be.

And finally, I believe liberals have a self-aggrandized view of themselves in which they are mentally and morally superior to everyone who thinks otherwise. This is the reason why they see no problem violating their own rules of political correctness as their deviation from the mob-enforced mentality is wholly justified in the pursuit of their agenda.

In their twisted minds, politics is not about the development of policy through deliberation, but about good versus evil. They are energized with the same self-righteous zeal that possessed Spanish Inquisitors during the religious cleansing of Iberia.

If a business manager had used in the presence of a female underling any of the words I read on the placards at the womynist "March For Women's Lives" in DC back in the spring, they would have been slapped with a sexual harassment suit faster than you can say "Bill O'Reilly".

Like the unpopular kid on the playground who constantly changes the rules in sports, the PC code only applies to the Left when it is convenient.

Tormented with the angst of defeat, fueled with hate, and desensitized to a point that they are willing to accomplish their goals through any means necessary, liberals across the country will continue their no-boundaries political rage until they are once again consumed by their own blind hostility and handed yet another setback at the polls.

More here

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