BLOOMBERG’S ARROGANCE !

The idea that Government may tell peo­ple what they may drink is a fright­en­ing prospect right?

Well fright­en­ing though it is, or ought to be, many of us allow Government to step in and reg­u­late what we eat in the name of pre­serv­ing our health. I am nei­ther a Doctor, Scientist,or even a pol­i­cy mak­er , what I am a how­ev­er, is a cit­i­zen of plan­et earth who cher­ish­es his free­dom and that of others.

New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg has tak­en it onto him­self to deter­mine that 32 ounce sug­ary drinks ought to be banned from New York City. As such, busi­ness­es doing busi­ness in Bloomberg’s Fiefdom has been scam­per­ing to order small­er sized cups, so as not to breach his Majesty’s decree, which should be in full effect by June of this year.

Of course this was before an Appeals Court Judge over­turned (HRH) Michael Bloomberg’s decree, thank God for checks and bal­ances. A cou­ple of days ago after learn­ing that the Court had done the right thing and stood up to what seem now to be a more aggres­sive and pompous Mayor Bloomberg, I tweet­ed that it was a great day for Democracy.

A dear friend of mine dis­agreed with me and made a very artic­u­late argu­ment on behalf of gov­ern­ment over-reach. Quote:

[ Sometimes a state’s inter­ven­tion to stem what can become a poten­tial­ly seri­ous health issue ‚do make sense …the ratio­nale : peo­ple who are addict­ed don’t think about their health issue which is relat­ed to their ill­ness , only their per­son­al ful­fill­ment . In the long run it will affect every­one who is pay­ing tax­es . An health sys­tem that’s over whelmed will require tax dol­lars to sus­tain it , your hard earned dol­lars man . Democracy is not an iso­lat­ed con­cept it involves mak­ing and tak­ing tough deci­sion by lead­ers on behalf of it pop­u­lace . that’s the prag­mat­ic way of look­ing at this issue. .…. pure democ­ra­cy is a utopi­an concept.]

Bravo, Bravo , Mac, as a bud­ding up and com­ing Lawyer , you make a dis­pas­sion­ate case for Mayor Bloomberg and every oth­er Political leader who feel that they know best whats right for indi­vid­u­als, who they cyn­i­cal­ly deem, too stu­pid to decide for themselves.

But please do tell.. Where in the record­ed his­to­ry of mankind has Politicians ever been judi­cious and/​or restrained when giv­en over­whelm­ing pow­er over it’s peo­ple? I’ll await your research on that my friend mis­ter Mac, but in the mean­time here’s what I think.

Remember when they demo­nized smok­ing then banned it from restau­rants and every eatery,and all pub­lic build­ings and places where peo­ple con­gre­gate, Then they banned it in Parks?.….….….….….……Yes, outside.
No one found it prob­lem­at­ic because they were fight­ing the big bad tobac­co right? This was after they had done decades of demo­niz­ing of tobac­co, it was­n’t hard, after that kind of dem­a­goguery for the Government to line up enough pub­lic sup­port to dras­ti­cal­ly tell us where we could or even if we may smoke.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no love for smok­ing but the issue is much larg­er than smok­ing, it is one of lib­er­ty and freedom.
It is a slip­pery slope when we allow Government to dic­tate to us in that way, one day we wake up and all your free­doms are gone.
Humans are quite capa­ble of decid­ing for them­selves what they drink or if they drink it is not up to the Government to decide, this is not even a legal issue, every well think­ing per­son should be out­raged at the temer­i­ty of Bloomberg, but not so, we have come to believe that Government knows best what’s right for us.

I stopped smok­ing because of the edu­ca­tion­al cam­paign cer­tain NGO’s and yes the gov­ern­ment waged, teach­ing about the health risks asso­ci­at­ed with smok­ing, not because some politi­cian man­dat­ed that I must stop. There are cer­tain fun­da­men­tal rights that must nev­er be abdi­cat­ed or turned over to gov­ern­ment. Those rights are not for Government to dole out to us, they are inalien­able rights giv­en to us by our creator.

Those Rights must nev­er be sub­ject to the whims of politicians.Every time Politicians want to take our rights they argue that it is for the greater good. As such it is dif­fi­cult for peo­ple who believe fun­da­men­tal­ly in the rights of the indi­vid­ual to self deter­mi­na­tion, to win the debate.

My response to my friend: Quote:

[Then you are even more gullible than I thought my broth­er. Pray do tell me ‚where any Government in the his­to­ry of mankind, when giv­en the pow­er over it’s peo­ple have EVER used that pow­er judi­cious­ly, spar­ing­ly, or for the best inter­est of the peo­ple? The peo­ple are the best indi­vid­ual con­troller of their own destiny,it is not up to gov­ern­ment to deter­mine what we eat drink wear, where we wor­ship, or if we wor­ship. Those are inalien­able rights grant­ed by our creator.NOT gov­ern­ment. The argu­ment you put for­ward in defense of Government’s intru­sions and over-reach into our lives are the very argu­ments gov­ern­ments use to con vul­ner­a­ble and gullible tax­pay­ers. You have essen­tial­ly bought into the con­cept my dear friend that we as human beings are too stu­pid to know what to eat or drink, so it’s bet­ter if gov­ern­ment make those deci­sions for us. I guar­an­tee you do not feel that strong­ly about that per­spec­tive you advanced now big Mac.]

My con­tention is not one against Government, it is one of pro indi­vid­ual rights and free­doms, I dare any­one to prove to me , that giv­ing more pow­er to Government any­where, has ever worked out for the good of the peo­ple. It does­n’t, it pro­duces tyrants who abuse peo­ple. Bloomberg is not there yet thanks to the checks and bal­ances with­in the sys­tem, but wher­ev­er politi­cians dare to show such temer­i­ty we should all be wary as to their motives.

Government Legislated Prohibition into law, look how well that turned out, say hel­lo to the Mafia. Government Legislated the War on drugs into effect , look how well that turned out, say hel­lo to mas­sive destruc­tion of lives by Cartels, the incar­cer­a­tion of Millions of non-vio­lent offend­ers and the destruc­tion of lives as a result of over-zeal­ous cops . And by the way illic­it drugs is still here with us more than ever, the mes­sage from that is, can we please try edu­ca­tion and treat­ment , and lay off the testos­terone- laced brava­do for a minute?

Bloomberg and his acolytes argue that they did not man­date that peo­ple could not order a sec­ond drink, they mere­ly want­ed peo­ple to think after hav­ing say a 20 oz, whether to order anoth­er. Sounds rea­son­able does­n’t it ?

The prob­lem with that non­sense is that for some­one pre­dis­posed to drink­ing a 32 oz con­tain­er of a sug­ary drink, there is not one shred of evi­dence that that per­son wont actu­al­ly order a sec­ond drink, the only change which will occur is that that per­son will be forced to fork out more mon­ey to sat­is­fy his/​her thirst, and the Staten Island land-fill will have to con­tend with more non-bio degrad­able thrash, thanks to His Highness King Bloomberg.

As I’ said before Government should extri­cate itself from over-reach­ing into the indi­vid­ual rights of peo­ple, stop telling peo­ple you can’t do this you can’t do that, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it comes to their bod­ies. Education is a valu­able tool for con­vinc­ing peo­ple about obe­si­ty, as it has done with cig­a­rette smok­ing, as it has done with drunk dri­ving, as it will do for illic­it drug use, and pos­si­bly obesity

Bullying and ban­ning will make crim­i­nals out of legit­i­mate busi­ness own­ers, it may fill Jails with a new breed of crim­i­nals, it cer­tain­ly will not stop obe­si­ty, maybe Bloomberg real­ly does­n’t care about obe­si­ty, maybe what he real­ly wants are jails filled with a new breed of criminals.

Maybe there ought to be a ban on peo­ple hav­ing too much mon­ey, I respect­ful­ly argue it will go a long way in reduc­ing arro­gance, what do you say Mayor Bloomberg,? Remember it was your mon­ey and influ­ence which allowed you to con­vince the City Council to change the rules so you may serve 3 terms in office instead of the 2 term legal limit.