Sober thread: How much is too much?

Serious answer, there's plenty of European countries that allow it and they don't have issues with kids going to the hospital over it. Also, plenty of parents give their kids irresponsible amounts alcohol today, the law isn't stopping them. Do you really think there would be a new found epidemic of kids dying from alcohol poisoning if the government all of a sudden stopped saying it was illegal?

The problem is you're implying that in absence of control there will be widespread abuse and that's just not the case here and never really has been.

 

Regulation is not banning, and creating safety standards is not the same as instituting a ban. Saying, "We have discovered that arsenic is deadly, no one is allowed to put it into pop," is a regulation. Saying, "We have discovered that some people are unable to control their amount of intake when it comes to the product that is safe in moderation, so we are getting rid of large sizes in an effort to control their actions for them," is a ban. Regulations imply that the government is consulting science in order to help us uneducated folk who don't have the ability to test arsenic rigorously in a lab to find out whether it is good for us or not, then continue to offer you the choice of how you want to use that safe product. Banning is an effort to control behavior.

Pop is safe, that is all there is to it. In moderation, it will not kill you. You have to drink gallons in a lifetime to see the ill effects. As such, the government is trying to ban large sizes to arbitrate poor impulse control in a number of people. It's bullshit and should not be allowed.

Murder and child abuse are patently unsafe, so I agree there should be regulations against them. But they are not technically banned, just regulated.

 

Just as much soda gets consumed because there are infinite refills or you can buy 2 16-ounce cans instead of 1 20-ounce can. Consumers lose money because buying 2 16-ounce cans is more expensive than 1 20-ounce can. Government makes more money because it's a clear signal to the fast food places that they need to step up lobbying efforts, which go to the corrupt politicians who passed this bill.

Not to copy Frank, but isn't this so basic as to be self-evident? If government imposes rules to control supposedly "irresponsible" parents, you're transferring a portion of the child-rearing duties to the government.

Edit-

Excellent post. A lot of people nowadays think that allowing freedom will lead to chaos and wide-spread abuse.

Legalizing marijuana will cause kids to become lazy potheads. Allowing people to carry guns means they will all shoot one another. Allowing parents to monitor how much alcohol their child drinks at what age will lead to a bunch of alcoholic teens.

Unfortunately for these people, the facts don't back them up. The countries where these things are legal don't see any of these hysterical predictions occur.

 

I feel like this ban is completely unnecessary because it won't have any real affect on either public health or, say, tax revenue for the state.

New York has one of (if not the highest) excise tax rates on cigarettes in the country. Dave Attell once joked that he could buy a pack of smokes, or for a couple bucks more, could be smoking crack instead. The higher taxes on cigarettes earned the state hundreds of millions in tax revenue, but also resulted in a lot of people reducing the amount they smoked, or stopping altogether, especially among teenagers--which is a huge target group. So many are calling it a public health success story that was just the result of a tax grab on a vice good.

This soda ban probably won't accomplish any of that. As far as the public health piece is concerned, yes, soda is horrible for you, but it's only a single piece in the "horrible for you" diet that is making many Americans obese. From a revenue stance, they aren't increasing the tax on sodas, just making them slightly smaller. I highly doubt that there will be enough people who really feel that 12 or 16oz. of soda wasn't enough and they have to go back for more to the point where the state (or the soda companies) notice any real uptick in sales or revenue. Nor do I think that the smaller soda will help to curb anyone's desire to buy one.

All I see coming out of this is that soda-drinking New Yorkers will just be carrying around smaller bottles and they'll be buying the same amount of bottles that they were before.

I don't see this as an infringment on freedom so much as an attempt to appear like they're doing something for the good of the people without actually doing anything at all.

 

I'm pretty sure there are states in the US where it is legal to give your kids alcohol, as long as you are with them when they consume it.

 

I don't agree with the notion that it's cost-prohibitive to eat healthier. Fresh fruits and veggies are a bargain (economically and nutritionally) in comparison to the majority of the processed foods and fast-foods being consumed. Supermarkets have sale items every week--not a week goes by where I can't get some cut of chicken for $.99/lb. The "problem" is that healthier eating isn't convenient. It takes planning, committment and preparation. In other words, you have to get off your ass and take the action to help yourself, a very foreign if not distasteful concept to the typical American welfare recipient (You know why welfare recipients don't look for jobs? They might find one.) Yes, there are people who are deservedly on public assistance, but believe me they are the minority. But that's a whole other thread topic.

I don't think Bloomberg's quantity limits in certain purchasing situations is the cure for the obesity epidemic, nor do I think it's some government/business scam to fill the coffers. But at least it's getting a discussion going.

As for a sin tax, if you can apply it to tobacco products and alcohol, it should be applied to certain food products as well, and one should not be able to purchase those foods with food stamps, just like one can't buy a pack of Newports and a Colt .45 tallboy (or Marlboros and a Bud tallboy, because y'know, I'm a culturally sensitive-kind-of-guy) with them. But that sin tax ain't gonna happen, at least not in my lifetime.

 

While I'm all for less government regulation, this particular law is a city law. Cities should have the right to pass any asinine ordinance they want (as long as it doesn't supercede state or federal law) just as much as the citizens have the right to not eat, work, or live in that city.

Vote with your money. That's the only thing these people understand.

 

Eating shitty vegetables and meat is easy, but if people are looking for nice farm-grown food, that's where it starts getting expensive. I don't know anything about the differences nutritionally, but I can see the argument that an organic diet is more expensive than buying a crap ton of ramen and Hamburger Helper.

 

Agreed, since ditching grains and going to mostly grass fed meat our grocery bill has been hovering around $600-650 for the two of us. Granted that's with just about every single meal (with exception to shit like weddings) being home cooked, so we're not spending money at places like Subway everyday, but goddamn that's a lot of money.

 

Ah, yes. Farm-grown food. Way better than that non-farm-grown food. You city people are adorable.
You are right though, that organic shit is expensive. Organic farmers have a pretty good racket, I'd do it myself If I had the time and patience (and a little more incentive) to make it happen. The truth is though, that you don't necessarily have to eat organic to be healthy. If you just stick to whole foods you'll get basically the same result, whether it's organic or not. Most of the time it's the whole pesticide thing that people freak out about, but that's a whole different discussion.

Grass fed meat should be cheaper because of how shitty it tastes. Just saying.

 

Here is some information.

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.jonbarron.org/natural-health/nl101115/conventional-vs-organic-food" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.jonbarron.org/natural-health ... ganic-food</a>

 

I'm completely down with regulating the sale of soda to children. Sugar is addictive (dat dere dopamine rush) and child obesity is through the roof. Children do not and have never had the same rights as adults. This isn't a question of freedom, it's an economic incentive, aimed at a segment of the population that generally does not control its own pursestrings. (And this is a city law, not a federal law. Did everyone here throw the same bitch fit when DC instituted its 5 cent tax on plastic bags! "NO! Our freedom to get plastic bags for free from takeout places!"

For adults, however, I doubt this ban is gonna do shit. We have a saying where I'm from: "Fatties gonna fat." Would you expect a smoker to quit smoking just because the price of cigarettes went up? I wouldn't. And shitty parenting will always trump legislation.

Of course, the best solution would be better nutrition education efforts, based not on stupidity (You need 6-12 servings of grain or you will die! Red meat is the devil! Egg yolks are bad for you!) but on actual science. But everyone in this thread knows this is a pie-in-the-sky idea. In the absence of that, I'm OK with some municipal legislation.

 

Synthetic fertilizer and organic fertilizer (a.k.a. shit) are the same damn thing. The difference is that synthetic fertilizer is dialed in according to a soil analysis, so it's a lot more efficient, and you know exactly what you're putting in the soil. Manure can be cheaper if you're close enough to a livestock operation for it to be pumped or hauled, but the amount of shit you have to apply to equal the content of synthetic fertilizer is ridiculous. The ground is fucking saturated after they inject a field with liquid manure, and it causes a lot of soil compaction. People (like in the article above) claim that you miss out on certain nutrients when using synthetic fertilizer, but they forget to mention the decomposing biomass from prior crops, and also products like MEZ (micro-essential nutrients) which are also applied with the fertilizer.
Genetic engineering can be misleading as well. Most food is engineered for yield and quality, and some for herbicide/insect/nematode resistance and shit like that. The biggest reason non-organic fruits and vegetables tend to have a bit less taste than organic is because they just grow faster. Nutrient content is usually arguable depending on where it came from. Also, we've been tweaking the genetics of plants and animals since the dawn of agriculture, it's just more high tech now. For example, the corn we grow now is much different than 100 years ago, and even that corn was a lot different than it was 200 years prior to that.

 

So any fruit or veggie that isn't organically-grown is shitty? Perhaps you should seek a different produce vendor.

No argument that organic is more expensive, but that's not an excuse for someone to stay mired in a junk/convenience/processed food diet. The shift to a healthier diet doesn't mandate organic exclusivity.

 

Do you live in the arctic? Because I've never found slopes around these parts nearly as slippery as it seems you do.

Seriously, though, "heading down the path of the government raising children"? Isn't that a bit of an alarmist strawman? Sure, maybe it is "heading down that path", but then you should also be railing about how the government mandating school curriculum is bullshit and is really just the government inserting itself into the business of raising children. I mean, it's a matter of balance; I think this law is ridiculous because, as others have said in this thread, it's going to be completely non-functional. But to act as though it's some sort of fundamental attack on your freedom seems to blow this way out of proportion, and doesn't strike me as being consistent with many other things we're happy to accept.

And as long as we're talking about attacks on your freedom:

I already mentioned this before, but would you feel it to be a fundamental attack on your freedom to choose if the companies selling these drinks simply decided not to sell larger containers? Ought the companies be permitted to make such a decision? I think so. But then why oughtn't the government, which has the obligation to act in the interest of its citizenry, be so permitted?

 

Because a decision by the government carries with it the force of law, and applies universally.

It's the difference between a single restaurant not allowing children to eat there, and the government passing a law making it illegal for children to eat at all restaurants. The first is an individual choice by a company. The second takes away choices from both businesses and consumers alike.

 

Personally I don’t understand how people drink that fizzy fucking sugar water, I’d be doing well to have more than a 6-pack a year (and that’s because its mixed with booze) I feel pure contempt for parents in the supermarket when they pile up cartons of soda, chips and processed shit while their fat maggot children hang off their back tits.

But that’s just me.

Eating all organic makes you a bit of a faggot, don’t buy into the hype, as long as the produce isn’t from China the levels pesticides and herbicides shouldn’t harmful, at any rate much less harmful than the wide spread starvation should everyone go “organic”. Only eating grain fed beef? Give me a fucking break, grain isn’t poison you numbnut, I suppose you believe in homeopathy as well, because you’re swimming in the same pond.

That being said if it tastes better and you can afford it, go for it. (Just don’t ever tell me about it. Your diet, like your children and pets are subjects I don't give a shit about)

Should the government regulate this sort of shit, in my opinion no. But in my opinion welfare recipients should be offered an extra $150 a week for life if they allow themselves to be neutered. Would solve a whole lot of problems in my state inside 40 years, entire parasitic suburbs would disappear.

That was cathartic.