Posted by
John Caile on Monday, January 19, 2009 7:18:17 PM
Nanny - State legislators in Minnesota are running amok. First we had the ridiculous smoking ban in PRIVATE businesses, and now we have the government-knows-better-than-you mob (and they ARE a mob) clamoring for... a trans-fat ban in restaurants!
I don't know about you, but I have just about had it with these cultural fascists running around telling you and me how to live our lives. Now, other than an occasional cigar (just to annoy the anti-smoking nazis) I've never smoked in my life, and I certainly dislike the smell of cigarettes, but I dislike the idea of intrusive government even more.
And please, enough of the bogus hysteria about "second-hand smoke" - even if it were true (which it's not) if I don't like a bar, restaurant, or any other venue because it is, in my estimation, too smoke-filled, then, voila! I can go somewhere else.
Ditto if I work there - if I don't like the atmosphere, I am free to find a job somewhere else. I know, I know, those who think that both patrons and workers are helpless victims, unable to take care of themselves will say that such people "don't have a choice."
BULL!
Whether a patron or an employee, I am perfectly capable of making that decision for myself, thank you very much. And when it comes to food, I am just as capable of choosing what I will or will not eat - I don't need some snotty little bureaucrat deciding for me.
It's bad enough that many restaurant managers are so intimidated by potential lawsuits and other harassment, that I sometimes have trouble getting someone to serve me a bloody rare cheeseburger. Now they want "the government" to decide what kinds of fat are "acceptable" for me to eat?
And spare me the canard that private eating habits are a "public health issue." If I want to eat "trans-fats" then I will eat trans-fats. If some Gen-Xer wants to eat four hot-dogs and a liter of Mountain Dew for lunch, I say, let him. If I want to have my cheeseburger barely cooked, that's my business.
So, unless and until I do something that does DIRECT, VERIFIABLE, and PROVABLE HARM TO SOMEONE ELSE...
LEAVE ME ALONE!