By Selwyn Duke

While
I'm generally no fan of new laws, a law that prohibits stupid laws is a
definite exception. And that's just what the great state of Mississippi
is giving us by passing legislation that
would prohibit localities from limiting food portion sizes, forcing
restaurants to list calorie counts on menus, and banning the inclusion
of toys with meals. The bill was inspired by Little Big Gulp (the man
some still call Mayor Michael Bloomberg), whose current mission is to
ensure that human life may not be endangered via imprudent use of fat,
sugar, or bullets, but only through abortion.

As
for LBG, he isn't just a tyrannical nanny stater, but also a rather
dull one. Banning large sodas will have as much of an effect upon
obesity as prohibiting a bayonet mount on an AR-15 will have upon
murder. Large sodas have simply become the latest scapegoat, just as
SUV's were with respect to glo-bull warming and Saturday Night Specials
once were with crime. Even if you could keep a given gun out of
criminals hands — which you cannot — they could just as easily use a
different firearm; their problem is criminality, not their current
method or tools for committing crimes. Likewise, obesity is generally
caused a lifestyle, not one particular food.

In
fact, how great a factor are sugary drinks, anyway? It isn't unusual
for a fat person to get a diet soda — and use it to wash down a piece
of chocolate cake or bag of chips. After all, diet drinks are readily
available and boast great taste, but we can't say the same for diet cake
and chips. Moreover, having that low-cal soda can make a person feel
better about eating the junk, as he can then rationalize that he's being
proactive with respect to his weight in some way.

In
reality, I think it's people such as me who are more likely to imbibe
sugary drinks. I'm 6'1", 180, and I'll confess to a can-a-day Coke habit
(and you'll have to pry that heavenly nectar from my cold, dead hands,
LBG). And what of the lower-income folks who buy large drinks at a
theater with the intent of sharing them with the whole family? I know
money is no object to Daddy Warbucks LBG, but some people have to try to
economize.

Worse still is the hypocrisy. Arianna Huffington was campaigning against the SUV some years back while buzzing around on private jets
and using more energy than any 10 average Americans. Gabby Giffords'
husband just bought an AR-15, and many pro-gun-control politicians have
been found to be pro-gun ownership when it comes to themselves. And
while we may not find LBG in a dark room somewhere suckin' on a Big Gulp
like an Obama crony on the government teat, I've already mentioned his
support for abortion. And how pro-death is he? Well, he once allegedly
responded to a female underling who had just announced her pregnancy by
saying, "Kill it!" Imagine, this from a man who recently said about
his intent to use taxpayer money to fight for his soda ban in court,
"I've got to defend my children, and yours, and do what's right to save
lives." Billions of dollars and no brains.

But
it doesn't take a big mind to enable big government. As to this, we
should be mindful of a warning C.S. Lewis issued long ago:

Of
all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be
the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than
under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may
sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those
who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do
so with the approval of their own conscience.

No
doubt. Just as there will always be murder and hence always a call for
more gun control, there will be obesity as long as there's prosperity.
And this is why the LBGs of the world will torment us without end. For
dare you emerge from the womb, you'll be the government's till the tomb.

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