Dana Milbank is a snarky leftist who writes for the Washington Post, but I have to give him credit for an amusing column today about the new big-brother diet guidelines from our incompetent federal government. Here are a few excerpts.
In the late 1970s, before the government began telling us what to eat, 15 percent of adults and 4 percent of children were obese. Now, after 30 years of Department of Agriculture (USDA) dietary guidelines, 34 percent of adults and 20 percent of children are obese. …Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was a nutrition evangelist Monday morning as he rolled out the latest version of the dietary guidelines at George Washington University. …Vilsack said he can help fellow Americans to do the same – as long as they are willing to share with the government a few intimate details about themselves, such as how much they weigh, every morsel of food that passes their lips, and how they occupy themselves every minute of the day and night. …Undoubtedly, Americans would be healthier if they would follow the recommendations, but this sounds like TMI at the USDA. Using the drop-down “activity” menu on the website, you are asked to enter how many minutes a day you do such things as “dressing/undressing,” “sitting on toilet,” “sleeping,” “sitting quietly and watching television,” “slow dancing,” “singing in church,” “casino gambling,” “coal mining,” “washing dishes,” “wrestling” and “butchering animals.”
[…] The Nanny State Runs Amok, Asks Americans How Much Time They Spend “Sitting on Toilet” […]
Let’s connect the dots between yesterday’s ruling in Florida v Health and Human Service and this excerpt from the Washington Post. In his opinion Judge Vinson wrote the following regarding the Constriction’s Necessary and Proper Clause:
“Thus, rather than being used to implement or facilitate enforcement of the Act’s insurance industry reforms, the individual mandate is actually being used as the means to avoid the adverse consequences of the Act itself. Such an application of the Necessary and Proper Clause would have the perverse effect of enabling Congress to pass ill conceived, or economically disruptive statutes, secure in the knowledge that the more dysfunctional the results of the statute are, the more essential or “necessary” the statutory fix would be. Under such a rationale, the more harm the statute does, the more power Congress could assume for itself under the Necessary and Proper Clause. This result would, of course, expand the Necessary and Proper Clause far beyond its original meaning, and allow Congress to exceed the powers specifically enumerated in Article I. Surely this is not what the Founders anticipated, nor how that Clause should operate.”
Hence, if government regulations become more disruptive, then normal societal activities become less efficient and citizens become more dependent upon the public sector. The government becomes more important in people’s lives which then requires more government intervention and a vicious cycle continues to spiral toward more reliance on coercive centralized authority. Now let’s cut over to Mr. Milbank’s article:
“In the late 1970s, before the government began telling us what to eat, 15 percent of adults and 4 percent of children were obese. Now, after 30 years of Department of Agriculture (USDA) dietary guidelines, 34 percent of adults and 20 percent of children are obese.”
Obtuse federal involvement in our eating habits along with the dependent culture created by wealth redistribution programs have contributed to the inability of large portion’s of the population to even eat properly. This is not to suggest that all government transfer payments or nutritional guidelines are unconstitutional, but what Judge Vinson observed in the constitutional questions raised by Obamacare is evident in the waistlines of a large number of Americans.
The intimate details will be skewed without “picking nose” as an option.
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