[QUOTE=Jay Townsend (spokesman for GOP Congresswoman)]
… when is Tommy boy going to weigh in on all the Lilly Ledbetter hypocrites who claim to be fighting the War on Women? Let’s hurl some acid at those female democratic Senators who won’t abide the mandates they want to impose on the private sector.
[Hayworth’s office has not yet responded to requests for comment on the matter.
Townsend is described on his own personal website an “adept wordsmith,” and is far from a political newcomer.]
[/QUOTE]
I can’t get too excited about this little flap. We’ve suffered far more damage to the Bill of Rights in recent years than a ban on large sugary drinks would inflict, but I found this ad funny and effective. Pretty interesting the soft drink industry had it published within a couple of days of Bloomie’s proposal.
Without passing on the merits of the ban—or impugning the above poster—I think it’s a tendency to find rights, privileges and freedoms that are inherent to the concept of a free country/land of the free/free hat. That the government shouldn’t intrude on them is taken as a given, and the “shouldn’t” is followed up by an assumption that the Constitution protects those rights, and that intrusion on the supposed freedoms is somehow an intrusion on the Bill of Rights.
Of course, there’s lots of womb to see things differently and find cases where people feel the government should intrude on a person’s private decisions. I also like the right’s general tendency to decry privacy readings or other interpretations of the Constitution but get up in arms over other areas.
This, though, says nothing about the fact that this isn’t even a state law.
Whether or not it’s a state law is irrelevant, unless you mean that it hasn’t passed yet. The Bill of Rights notwithstanding, states have plenary power to regulate the sale of goods. This is no different than a hypothetical New York ordinance limiting the arsenic content of 1% milk, and I doubt anyone would suggest that such a law damages the Bill of Rights.
It just violates any reasonable notion of common sense and of the appropriate concerns of government. There is a level at which we shouldn’t be protecting people from themselves. I have never in my life purchased a Big Gulp or some other massive soda drink, but if someone wants 32 oz of sugary water, then why the fuck do you care?
I say all this as a confirmed social democrat who believes that government has a strong and positive role to play in the economy and in society. I believe in progressive taxation; i believe in regulation of industry, especially in cases where the regulation protects the public from exploitation; i believe in public transit and subsidized housing and food stamps and welfare.
But i just don’t think it’s either necessary or beneficial for the government to spend a whole lot of effort policing what people do to themselves and their bodies. I’m not a smoker, and i think it’s a disgusting habit, but the anti-smoking crusade has gone too far when people can’t even light up outside in a lot of places now. And this ban on large sodas is equally ridiculous.
It’s an idea that flies in the face of libertarian conservatism, but it seems to me that it’s well in line with the traditionalist conservatism that characterizes a significant chunk of the Republican Party base.
There are plenty of traditionalist conservatives who have been happy to have the government enforce issues of morality and personal choice. Those who, for example, want the FCC to crack down on bad language and depictions of sex on television. Those who not only oppose gay marriage, but pass constitutional amendments banning the practice and, in some cases (North Cackalacky), even barring civil unions. Those who support and uphold “blue laws” that prevent businesses from trading on Sundays. Those who support “dry counties” where you can’t even buy alcohol.
McCotter has given up on his write-in candidacy. It seems that providing the name of the staff member who falsified the signatures (he has apparently suggested he already knows who it is) will somehow take up so much time that he won’t have time to ask people to write his name on the ballot, let alone teach them how to spell it.
Well to play devil’s advocate, Bloomberg cares (and thinks other New Yorkers should care) because the city spends billions of dollars on healthcare-related expenses, and the major factor in the increase of those expenses is a growing obesity epidemic, and consumption of sugary drinks correlates strongly with obesity.
It’s still stupid, because it won’t prevent people from becoming obese, but that’s his rationale for caring.
I overheard one of the networks (ABC or CBS) spouting the story. The claim that caught my ear was made that banning soft drinks from schools cut the obesity rate 5%. Per Wikipedia, approximately 1.1 million students attend NYC public schools with a claim that 40% suffering obesity. That 5% would work out a reduction of 22,000 students who now tip the scales towards lean.
Romney mouthpiece Ed Gillespie says Mitt Romney’s 47th place job creation record as Massachusetts governor is a distortion, because he inherited a bad economy, so his first year shouldn’t be held against him:
So Mitt Romney’s record isn’t so bad if you don’t count the first year, but Barack Obama is just blaming everybody else for the stubborn unemployment performance of his administration.