S.F. and the Food Nazis
Posted on August 4, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized |
“Could you fault the city of San Francisco for wanting to create a healthier population?” Alles asked. “Whatever we can do as a society to encourage healthy living benefits all of us.”
[From S.F. pushes legislation to promote good health]
It’s not so much the goal of encouraging healthy living, it’s the tactics that are bothering people. I dread the thought of living in a community that thinks so highly of itself as to consider it proper to tell me what to eat and how to eat it. While SF is neglecting the basics of good government, as in the everyday quality of life issues that affect 100% of us like clean pothole free streets, they are busying themselves with the fantasy of micromanaging the lives of citizens.
There is also a certain degree of duplicity about all of this that ranks right up there with Britain’s PM Browne lecturing us on food waste after he himself is exposed for having chowed down on 14 courses between lunch and dinner at a recent G8 summit. It is one certainty in politics that those who take pleasure in telling others how to live don’t relish having the spotlight turned on their personal choices and lifestyles.
Lastly, Los Angeles recently made news by banning fast food restaurants from a portion of south LA in the name of creating more food choices. I found this news to be another example of a rather stunning overreach by government but the attendant media and commentary reaction, or lack thereof, was in fact more telling. If you buy into the notion that this is a good thing what you are essentially doing is endorsing the notion that poor people are incapable of making healthy food choices and therefore it is the job of government take away what are deemed as bad choices.
I doubt the public and media reaction would have been so sanguine if the fast food companies themselves had come out and said they were closing all of their south LA outlets because of crime and economic concerns. They would have been blasted for acts of racism… so why is the city council getting off so easy?
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My name is Jeff Nolan and I write Venture Chronicles. These are my thoughts on technology, innovation, management, public policy and pretty much anything else that I find interesting.
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