dank
2008-05-16 19:15:14 UTC
There's an idea being promoted by nutritionists and others to engineer a
healthier society by taxing unhealthy food ingredients like fat, sugar,
and salt to price them out of the reach of poor people who consume too
much of them and suffer poor health as a result. The fat tax revenues
would be used to subsidize healthy foods, with the intent being to
"encourage" uneducated peasants to make the correct food choices by
pricing junk food out of their reach. The end result of this idea will
be to coerce most of a nation's population to consume nutritionally-
balanced human nutrition pellets, with perhaps an extra ration of canned
nutrition glop for holidays.
Though fatty, sugary foods are bad for everyone, there is no effort to
actually OUTLAW these ingredients because that would deprive the elite
of their capuccinos with extra whipped cream, fancy imported cheeses,
even pizza and Cheetos when they're feeling ghetto. There is no problem
with nutritionists and social engineers stuffing their faces with these
particular foods, all they are asking is that these things be made
prohibitively expensive for everyone making less money than themselves.
Sweden has a law that sets traffic fines based on the driver's income.
It was seen as unfair to set a fine for speeding that the wealthy
could afford to pay repeatedly, so it was decided that the fine should
be a percentage of one's annual income. A poor person would pay $100
for speeding while a rich person would pay $10,000 because he earns so
much more. To be fair, a fat tax should also be levied according to
income. If the intent is to discourage unhealthy dietary choices by
making those choices too expensive to regularly consume, then
nutritionists, social engineers, and government officials who promote
this idea should be willing to apply it to themselves and pay a
proportionately higher tax to be fair, so that fatty junk food is just
as unaffordable for the elite as it is for the proles.
=====================================================================
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
-- Animal Farm
=====================================================================
healthier society by taxing unhealthy food ingredients like fat, sugar,
and salt to price them out of the reach of poor people who consume too
much of them and suffer poor health as a result. The fat tax revenues
would be used to subsidize healthy foods, with the intent being to
"encourage" uneducated peasants to make the correct food choices by
pricing junk food out of their reach. The end result of this idea will
be to coerce most of a nation's population to consume nutritionally-
balanced human nutrition pellets, with perhaps an extra ration of canned
nutrition glop for holidays.
Though fatty, sugary foods are bad for everyone, there is no effort to
actually OUTLAW these ingredients because that would deprive the elite
of their capuccinos with extra whipped cream, fancy imported cheeses,
even pizza and Cheetos when they're feeling ghetto. There is no problem
with nutritionists and social engineers stuffing their faces with these
particular foods, all they are asking is that these things be made
prohibitively expensive for everyone making less money than themselves.
Sweden has a law that sets traffic fines based on the driver's income.
It was seen as unfair to set a fine for speeding that the wealthy
could afford to pay repeatedly, so it was decided that the fine should
be a percentage of one's annual income. A poor person would pay $100
for speeding while a rich person would pay $10,000 because he earns so
much more. To be fair, a fat tax should also be levied according to
income. If the intent is to discourage unhealthy dietary choices by
making those choices too expensive to regularly consume, then
nutritionists, social engineers, and government officials who promote
this idea should be willing to apply it to themselves and pay a
proportionately higher tax to be fair, so that fatty junk food is just
as unaffordable for the elite as it is for the proles.
=====================================================================
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
-- Animal Farm
=====================================================================