In his three terms in office, New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg has removed salt from restaurant tables, banned the use of trans fats, is still trying to ban large sugary drinks from being sold (by some businesses, but not all), thinking about how he can prevent people from using ear buds too loudly, and now removing tobacco from public view in store windows.
My question is this, if a political candidate announced during their campaign that they would see to it that these kinds of things would be on his agenda, would you still vote for him? Maybe a better question would be why they don’t make these things known during their campaigns.
Sifting Reality 
John,
You just had to post about that sonuva****. You know I can’t stand – LITERALLY CANNOT TOLERATE – even looking at that dirty, rotten, pile of no good…Man, I can’t stand that damn idiot.
I think if Bloomberg had run for office promising to act in this way he’d have been laughed off the campaign.
I know what I said is anything but Christ-like, but I cannot stand Michael Bloomberg. I have told John in private conversation so many times that Bloomberg is the politician I despise most. I would choose Obama to be president for 16 years than submit to a Bloomberg presidency for even 1 year! He infuriates me, like literally I seethe with anger when seeing the man.
The idea that some self-anointed little weasel has any right to tell me what to feed my children, what to feed myself, how much of a legal substance I am allowed to consume at one time, et cetera…is so infuriating it makes me wanna beat the hell out of something.
TerranceH
Ilegal sustances are banned because are health harmful.
In the same way, an excess of legal sustances is hearth harmful.
An excess of salt causes arterial hypertension.
An excess of trans fats causes hypercholesterolemia.
An excess of sugar causes fatness and its related problems. It can cause also diabetes and pancreas complications.
Isu
No one disputes the complications of consuming to excess. What infuriates people is someone else making those decisions for you as if it’s any of their business.
John,
There are plenty of ilegalized or regulated sustances.
Anyone who abuse of them could say it’s none of your bussiness making those decisions.
On the other hand, the fact is that your health would be my business in we were both in the same health insurance firm. The higher medical care costs, the higher prima.
Isu,
The problem with these things is that they are only unhealthy of over-indulged. Moderation is the key. For someone to take it in their hands that you are not capable of moderation and therefore will make what you eat illegal, is the height of arrogance. Since just about anything can cause problems if indulged in to excess, why don’t we just outlaw food?
Glenn,
“The problem with these things is that they are only unhealthy of over-indulged. Moderation is the key”
I agree.
“For someone to take it in their hands that you are not capable of moderation and therefore will make what you eat illegal, is the height of arrogance.”
The fact is that many people are not capable of moderation.
On the other hand, if I’m capable of moderation, why bothering about excess banning?
Why bothering about a banning of buying more than 32 oz sugary drinks for a meal when I don’t drink them?
I have never take such a huge quantity for a meal, nor haven’t seen anyone here in my country taking it.
“Since just about anything can cause problems if indulged in to excess, why don’t we just outlaw food?”
If the excess is the problem, you can outlaw “excess of food” not food itself.
Anyway oulawing only works for law abiding people. I bet many will break the law or will use loopholes.
As you said, moderation is the key, so I think it’s what must be taught.
There can be many disagreements on the moderation threshold, but usual eating of quadruple bypass burger is clearly off the bounds.
Isu,
Your argument is stupid because an excess of anything is bad for you. Drinking too much water can deplete your salt and potassium levels, causing death. Should Bloomberg put a limit on that? Too much exercise can kill you. Should Bloomberg monitor how many jumping-jacks you’re doing? Too much anything can harm or kill you.
It’s your life. It’s my life. It’s John’s life. It’s Bloomberg’s life. We have a natural right to make decisions about our own bodies provided we are not endangering another. Nobody has a right to tell me, you, John, or anyone else how much of a legal substance we’re allowed to consume. That choice is ours. If you want every little aspect of your life run by government, that’s your prerogative. As for me, [insert Patrick Henry quote]…
If this was 1776, Bloomberg would be swinging right now.
No, it isn’t. People have a right to eat what they want, when they want, how they want, and as much of it as they want. If they pay for it, what the hell do you care? Why is it any of your business? You have your own life to live, so why are you so concerned with what another man does? Keep your nose to yourself.
TerranceH
I don’t drink excessive water nor do I make excesive exercise, nor people do it as often as excessive eating.
Your decisions may endanger someone else. If, while driving, you have a heart attack due to your decision to stuff yourself you can loose control and kill people. If you drink too much alcohol (legal sustance), would you have the right to drive a car?
The goverment cannot run every aspect of my life since I moderate myself.
Do you really want to kill Bloomberg? That’s not Christ-like.
“what the hell do you care?”
Because I love people and I don’t want their self-destruction.
“Why is it any of your business?”
Since you don’t accept other’s concern as a “business”. I have set two examples of business that could affect my money and my life.
“You have your own life to live, so why are you so concerned with what another man does?”
The same aswers as the previous ones.
“Keep your nose to yourself.”
Or else? Would you kill me if you had the chance?
How the hell do you know what people do? Just because it isn’t reported doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Regardless, for consistency’s sake, why not put a limit on how much water a person drinks, how much coffee a person drinks, how much diet soda a person drinks (artificial sweeteners have been shown to cause cancer), and so on.
If you’re going to be antipathy to freedom, then do it all the way. Don’t screw around with it, be consistent.
This is an asinine argument. People with absolutely no history of heart disease in their family can consume all the junk they want and live to be 90, while people who exercise daily and eat tofu drop dead at the age of 49. There is no telling. Should a driver’s license be contingent on genetic predisposition?
WHY NOT? WE LOVE PEOPLE, remember?
And since it's possible that someone may drink so much water that their bladder fills up to the point of being unable to concentrate on driving, it should be mandated that government regulate the amount of liquids a person drinks in a day. Bloomberg & Isu, two fascists, should team up and ensure such a tragedy never befalls this world.
WHY NOT? WE LOVE PEOPLE, remember?
So then you’d be okay with government involving itself in the personal relationships of people. After all, we don’t want relationships causing people so much stress that they drop dead, now do we? Why not let government involve itself in every aspect of our lives? Surely we can’t be trusted to keep ourselves out of stressful and dangerous situations, and so on. We need government to control us, right?
And remember, stress is one of the leading causes of heart attack and stroke. For consistency’s sake, Isu, you must do something about all the stress in people’s lives. Should people be required to come into a government office for a psych eval every month?
WHY NOT? WE LOVE PEOPLE, remember?
You’re ridiculous. Do you know that?
No, you haven’t. You reached – and looked like a fool doing it.
No. I’d have you committed to an insane asylum.
People like you despise liberty and should be locked away. You want to control someone’s life, control your own and leave me and everyone else the hell alone. You have no right to tell me what to eat, what to drink, or how much of it I should consume. And what’s more is that you’ve shown yourself to be totally inconsistent.
And just like every other feel good, crackpot liberal notion, it would be impossible to control. Bloomberg is a douchebag. People can simply meander across the street into a bar and get a nice big soda, because those are controlled by the state, not the city. Bloomberg is accomplishing little, if anything. You’d have to push an outright ban on all this stuff in order to effectively prevent overindulgence.
AND WHY NOT? WE LOVE PEOPLE! OMG! WE LOVE PEOPLE!
Focus on your own life, pal.
TerranceH
You lack of reading comprehesion: I didn’t say deaths from excessive water drinking or excessive exercise didn’t happen. Do you know what “as often” means?
Anyway, as it was implied in my anwser to Glenn, it wouldn’t support banning but promoting teaching of moderation. Someone who says that it’s moderate to eat often quadruple bypass burgers certainly needs it.
“If you’re going to be antipathy to freedom, then do it all the way. Don’t screw around with it, be consistent.”
I will answer to this with another nonsense: if you are for freedom then do it all the way and legalize everything: freedom for murder, freedom for robbery and so on.
“This is an asinine argument. People with absolutely no history of heart disease in their family can consume all the junk they want and live to be 90, while people who exercise daily and eat tofu drop dead at the age of 49. There is no telling. Should a driver’s license be contingent on genetic predisposition?”
It isn’t an asinine argument. Statistics will show I’m right. You stick to particular cases, not the total cases.
“And since it’s possible that someone may drink so much water that their bladder fills up to the point of being unable to concentrate on driving, it should be mandated that government regulate the amount of liquids a person drinks in a day.”
I never heard of that sort of cases occurring. I can’t say the same about food excess.
“Surely we can’t be trusted to keep ourselves out of stressful and dangerous situations, and so on. We need government to control us, right?”
That’s right. That’s the reason for setting things as DUI as a criminal offense.
“And remember, stress is one of the leading causes of heart attack and stroke. For consistency’s sake, Isu, you must do something about all the stress in people’s lives. Should people be required to come into a government office for a psych eval every month? ”
A psych eval solve nothing about stress.
“No, you haven’t. You reached – and looked like a fool doing it.”
I have set them. As tipical from irrational fanatics, you deny the facts.
“No. I’d have you committed to an insane asylum.”
I’m pretty sane. You would kidnapped me then.
How would be the facilities? Like the ones of a nazi concentration camp or like the ones of a gulag?
“People like you despise liberty and should be locked away.”
Quite a contradiction. Isn’t it?
“You want to control someone’s life, control your own and leave me and everyone else the hell alone. You have no right to tell me what to eat, what to drink, or how much of it I should consume. You’ve shown yourself to be totally inconsistent.”
Then keep yourself “alone”. If you conversate with me you are not alone.
Should we also leave “pro-choicers” alone?
“And just like every other feel good, crackpot liberal notion, it would be impossible to control.”
I said: “Anyway oulawing only works for law abiding people. I bet many will break the law or will use loopholes.”
You tell me nothing new.
“Focus on your own life, pal.”
Bon apetit!
You lack comprehension – period. Do you know what “for consistency’s sake” means? Evidently not. And until you can show conclusively that car accidents caused by heart attacks caused by an overindulgence in fats and sugary drinks happen often, you have no basis upon which to reject my example. Both could be equally infrequent.
Fail. I said, “We have a natural right to make decisions about our own bodies provided we are not endangering another.”
Oh, you don’t remember? That’s funny. You replied to it with that asinine “heart attacks and car accidents” salvo.
For consistency’s sake, we should cover all bases.
Yes, it does. If a peson is deemed to be experiencing too much stress, his license should be stripped so that he doesn’t have a heart attack or stroke while driving, thereby endangering the lives of other people.
Or, are you disputing the fact that stress is a leading cause of heart attacks and stroke? Living a stressful life is just as risky as a quadruple bypass burger. More so, I suggest, since rarely do people eat such things everyday, whereas stress is often a constant thing.
First of all, it’s “typical.” Second, who is being irrational? You want to limit what people eat and drink because of some half-baked notion of “love.” What you describe is not love or care, but tyranny
Furthermore, I wish to point out your inconsistency yet again. If our dietary habits should be monitored to ensure healthy eating, then our work and personal relationships, two leading causes of stress, should also be monitored. Stress is a leading cause of heart attack and stroke. Clearly, something needs to be done…
You liberals will never learn. You don’t care how difficult and miserable you make life for people. So long as your actions promote the “better good” as you see it, then everything is justified. You people disgust me. You’re a leftwing fanatic and a joke.
The problem is there are a LOT of health myths. I’ll quote these, just because they are such common ones.
“An excess of salt causes arterial hypertension.”
No, salt doesn’t *cause* any health problems at all. For people who *already have* problems, then salt is a problem. Salt is essential to health and we can actually safely ingest quite a lot of it without harm *unless* we already have things like high blood pressure, etc.
“An excess of sugar causes fatness and its related problems. It can cause also diabetes and pancreas complications.”
Sugar does not *cause* diabetes (and if you have a medical professional that tells you otherwise, find a new one). T2 diabetes actually has more to do with heredity than T1 diabetes. The truth is, we don’t understand the various types of T2 diabetes (yes, there are quite a few of them) well at all, despite claims to the contrary. Likewise, sugar doesn’t *cause* fatness. Body size is much more complex than any one food or even total number of calories.
Our bodies are amazing and individualistic. There are SO many things that can affect our health. What is harmful for one person may be a necessity for another (I knew one guy who had to take salt pills; the anti-salt campaigns made it almost impossible for him to get them. Thankfully, he was in the military at the time, and he could get them through the military hospital. I have no idea how he’d be able to get them in civvy land, but without them, he will die). What works for one person’s health problem may not work for another person with the same health problem.
This has increasingly become a problem for pharmacuitical companies. They developed many now common medications based on human trials done years ago. They are increasingly finding that a lot of those medications (especially anti-depressants, but also things like statins) are no longer working, and no one knows why.