Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Nanny State Takes Away the Salt

Feds Mount Indirect Household Invasion; or, More Creeping Lefty Incrementalism

Just when you thought it was going to stop, the current Marxist-Democrat Administration in Washington is at it again, deciding what's good for us and doing its best to limit our choices to what's politically correct. This time, in food choice. From today's WaPo:
The Food and Drug Administration is planning an unprecedented effort to gradually reduce the salt consumed each day by Americans, saying that less sodium in everything from soup to nuts would prevent thousands of deaths from hypertension and heart disease. The initiative, to be launched this year, would eventually lead to the first legal limits on the amount of salt allowed in food products.
How nice of them. Did it ever occur to any of these intrusive idiotarians that maybe some people like the taste a little extra salt imparts? Yeah, yeah, I know, bad for us, etc. But Chicago's moronic, lefty city council banned foie gras because it's bad for us.** (And bad for the geese.) Closer to my backyard, the Food Police in Maryland's rich-beyond-avarice left-liberal Montgomery County are tracking down every last ounce of trans-fats in restaurants. God knows what else is going on everywhere else.

But wait! There's more on the salt issue:
Officials have not determined the salt limits. In a complicated undertaking, the FDA would analyze the salt in spaghetti sauces, breads and thousands of other products that make up the $600 billion food and beverage market, sources said. Working with food manufacturers, the government would set limits for salt in these categories, designed to gradually ratchet down sodium consumption. The changes would be calibrated so that consumers barely notice the modification.
Aha! So that's what our tax dollars are being spent on! Another complicated, intrusive, money-wasting, bureaucratic witch hunt. As for the inevitable "modification." Screw this. I'LL notice the modification. And I'll add the salt right back in. Until they ban that.

This is the kind of crap the government you pay for is putzing around with these days instead of figuring out ways to cut taxes, stimulate the economy, and get people back to work. (Please remember that this November, particularly if you're unemployed.) Remember. Modifying your behavior by fiat is far more important to these clowns than getting you back on the job.

Looks, folks. Drinking a glass a day of transfats and pouring shot-glasses of salt on your medium-rare steak every day of your short, happy life will surely hasten your end. But an occasional indulgence in these areas is simply no big deal, healthwise, for 99% of the population. By declaring that it is, 24/7, the intrusive 'Rats once again chip away at our freedom to choose product x or product y when we feel like it. They simply remove the option. Because they've decided that they know best and we children can't be left to our own devices. This is, as always, the height of arrogance, but it's just another day at the office for the rich socialists currently running Washington for your benefit and mine.

Maybe sometime next year, they'll pass another law only permitting us to breathe just 3x a day to cut down on carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Be forewarned: You might start out agreeing with this or that "sensible" little behavior mod that government types decide to impose on you. But incrementalism is how we got into our current hydra-headed messes. Tomorrow, there'll be another ban, and then another, on something else you like to consume or do that's no longer permitted. It's time to just say no and put a stop to the endless intrusiveness of the elitist leftists who run the government for the sole purpose of controlling our lives as they see fit. These idiots are our employees. Just who the hell do they think they are?

**PS: The foie gras ban was rescinded in 2008.

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