You're trying to ban SALT?!

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@Der_Trihs

Because everyone has the same taste in food? I suppose that butter should also be banned from the table, because of course a cook knows better than the customer how much butter should be on something.

I don’t care if a cook is the best who ever lived; he can’t make food that appeals equally to everyone. Some people are going to want to customize it a little bit; by, say, sprinkling some salt on it.

It was satire/hyperbole. In a very awesome restaurant I used to work in, we didn’t put salt/pepper shakers on the tables. They were available upon request (without condescension), but we urged diners to try their food first before seasoning it further. Its really not that unusual.

Kinda like not stocking mint jelly if you serve a lamb dish…because its an old person connotation back when lamb was mutton, or flavorless or whatever.

My restaurant menu link: http://www.cincinnati.com/dining/daveeds/tasting.html

[Starving_Artist]

@Kimstu

Which the government is not doing, despite your panicked overreaction here.

Did I say the government was doing it?

Or did I say we need to make damn sure the government doesn’t do it?

They aren’t the same thing, you know.

But I suspect you knew that all along and you were just taking a cheap shot.

[The_Flying_Dutchman]

I’ve recently been diagnosed with high blood pressure.

Since then I’ve learned that a majority of my 50 plus male peers that I’ve discussed this with are in the same boat.

What hurts is that my favourite cheap quickie hunger quenching meal, two Mcdonald’s double cheeseburgers costing a total $3.54 compels me to consume 2300 mg of sodium right at the recomended maximum daily intake. That’s for healthy people.

That is just so wrong. At those levels, you might as well call sodium a poison and it should be a controlled substance.

[CaveMike]

Is there any indication that this is a sincere proposal? Or is it a protest bill, much like the periodic attempts to reinstate the draft?

[Frank]

@Starving_Artist

I would submit that it’s people like you who are always seeing shades of grey in these issues who are responsible when the time eventually comes that one of our freedoms has been commandeered by government.

Heh. I guess you didn’t read the “I don’t agree with this bill,” nor did you read the “This particular solution is not one I would support”.

That said, I can only assume that you are defending a restauranteur’s freedom, as my freedom is not impinged at all. The freedom of restauranteurs is already limited, unless you desire to eliminate such things as health inspections, etc. Do you desire that restaurants should be able to serve me spoiled meat or vegetables? Obviously, the government’s interest that I not be served spoiled meat or vegetables is limiting freedom.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@CaveMike

Is there any indication that this is a sincere proposal? Or is it a protest bill, much like the periodic attempts to reinstate the draft?

I’d reinstate the draft before I banned salt. Troops like their salt, especially in the Endless Love Desert Wars that deprive them of so much of it daily…

[kidneyfailure]

@Starving_Artist

that the time will come that the government begins intruding on our lifestyle choices…

Like who we can marry or if we can have an abortion or not?

[Starving_Artist]

@kidneyfailure

Like who we can marry or if we can have an abortion or not?

No, not the same thing at all.

On the one hand you’re talking about trying to break a hold government has on society, and on the other you’re trying to create a hold for government to have on society. So in one way you’re trying to increase societal freedom and in the other you’re trying to restrict it.

Like I said, not the same thing at all.

[bengangmo]

@FoieGrasIsEvil

It was satire/hyperbole. In a very awesome restaurant I used to work in, we didn’t put salt/pepper shakers on the tables. They were available upon request (without condescension), but we urged diners to try their food first before seasoning it further. Its really not that unusual.

Kinda like not stocking mint jelly if you serve a lamb dish…because its an old person connotation back when lamb was mutton, or flavorless or whatever.

My restaurant menu link: http://www.cincinnati.com/dining/daveeds/tasting.html

I remember the British comedy “Chef” where the (I think) Michelin rated Chef verbally berates his patrons for daring to request salt before tasting their food…would anyone happen to have a clip?

[Todderbob]

@Starving_Artist

No, not the same thing at all.

On the one hand you’re talking about trying to break a hold government has on society, and on the other you’re trying to create a hold for government to have on society. So in one way you’re trying to increase societal freedom and in the other you’re trying to restrict it.

Like I said, not the same thing at all.

Oh, so like who we can marry and whether we can smoke pot or not?

[El_Kabong]

@Starving_Artist

Well, apart from the fact that I’m not all that, uh, uncalm, the chances of it becoming law don’t really matter. It’s just that the idea behind it is so typical of liberal thinking and its relentless efforts to parent us.

Oh, horseshit. What is your response to the fact that pretty much no one in this thread, including numerous self-professed liberals, is in favor of this ridiculous bill? Can you show me where the good people of this mook Ortiz’ district voted him in on a promise of banning salt in restaurants? Lastly, can you demonstrate conclusively just how voting Republican would somehow magically inoculate us from politicians introducing silly lagislation, for all time?

Right. I didn’t think so.

[Starving_Artist]

@El_Kabong

Oh, horseshit. What is your response to the fact that pretty much no one in this thread, including numerous self-professed liberals, is in favor of this ridiculous bill?

My response is that even though all liberals may not be in favor of it, it’s always on the liberal side of the aisle that these kinds of ideas come from. One reason liberalism has such a hard time getting things done is because liberals are all over the map on what they want. But you can be sure that whenever some attempt is being made to get government to force us to do things we don’t want to do in order to benefit our own individual or collective good, it’ll be some liberal trying to get it done.

[Todderbob]

@Starving_Artist

My response is that even though all liberals may not be in favor of it, it’s always on the liberal side of the aisle that these kinds of ideas come from. One reason liberalism has such a hard time getting things done is because liberals are all over the map on what they want. But you can be sure that whenever some attempt is being made to get government to force us to do things we don’t want to do in order to benefit our own individual or collective good, it’ll be some liberal trying to get it done.

Like keeping drug prohibition going, and banning gay marriage?

[Starving_Artist]

Not the same thing.

And I can keep giving the same answer as long as you can keep asking the same question.

[Kimstu]

Yeah, and forcing employers to deny spousal benefits to same-sex partners of employees. And making libraries report to Homeland Security about what books we check out. And making schools teach creationist theories in science classes. And making schoolkids stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance. And making voters show certain mandatory forms of ID before they can vote. And forcing judges to sentence people to decades in jail for minor drug offenses. And making women undergo expensive and inconvenient delays to get an abortion.

Oh yeah, any time the government is forcing citizens to do things they don’t want to do, it’s always those damn liberals behind it. Uh-huh. Sure it is.

[Kimstu]

@Starving Artist

And I can keep giving the same answer as long as you can keep asking the same question.

You sure do, but the fact that you keep repeating it doesn’t make it a valid answer.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@Kimstu

And making schoolkids stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance. .

Amongst your exhaustive list, this is the only one I have any issue with. Yes, schoolkids should pledge allegiance to the country where their forefathers, grandfathers and parents collectively pay for them to get an above average education, not to mention provide for a way of life and opportunities that do not exist in over 2/3rds of the Earth’s other countries.

I have no problem with the Pledge. You can pledge allegiance to your homeland/country while still developing a questioning mind towards it, or without committing treason against it.

[sqweels]

The bill doesn’t ban shakers of salt at diners’ tables, does it?

So what this means is that the people have the freedom to decide for themselves how to season their food without the restaurant’s “government”–aka Big Chef–spiking it with heavy doses of sodium chloride and playing hell with our precious bodily fuids.

[sqweels]

@marshmallow

Sometimes the slippery slope isn’t a fallacy.

Because if restaurants in New York are not allowed to put extra salt in the food, it will quickly lead to dytopian scenes of people desperately eluding the secret police and furtively exchanging cash for cylindrical boxes of white powder. :dubious:

[SteveG1]

@Kimstu

Yeah, and forcing employers to deny spousal benefits to same-sex partners of employees. And making libraries report to Homeland Security about what books we check out. And making schools teach creationist theories in science classes. And making schoolkids stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance. And making voters show certain mandatory forms of ID before they can vote. And forcing judges to sentence people to decades in jail for minor drug offenses. And making women undergo expensive and inconvenient delays to get an abortion.

Oh yeah, any time the government is forcing citizens to do things they don’t want to do, it’s always those damn liberals behind it. Uh-huh. Sure it is.

That is a list of things I am against.

The same sex marriage battle, sooner or later comes down to a religous argument, over what is in the Bible, and what God does or doesn’t approve of. The same religious fight is behind the teaching of creationism and intelligent design. And the abortion fight. And, if you go to various relgions, various religious leaders etc, even they don’t agree. So, apparently only ONE brand of religion is getting the government seal of approval. “Congress shall make no law,”. They can almost do it as long as they don’t announce they did it?
According to Ayn Rand, very popular among Libertarians,

“Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)”

Finally on this portion, "

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise there,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”

– Thomas Jefferson"

As to watching the books we read,
The government, snooping into our reading habits, should never have happened.

“If the 1st Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.”

• Thurgood Marshall

“I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” – James Madison

“The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts.”

• Edmund Burke

This salt thing, and the food thing in general, is so way WAY over the top, that it blows my mind. Isn’t there already enough government interference?? Maybe we are on the Slippery Slope after all.