Thursday, March 18, 2010

PEPSI as Paradigm for POLICY?

One of the latest decisions by a corporation to invoke the “herd,” i.e., “socialist,” approach in its business practices is the Pepsi Company, planning now to offer only sugarless, calorie-challenged beverages in schools. The reason claimed by the company is that kids are too fat, ergo, needing to be saved from themselves since fatness predisposes to physical problems. According to the experts who deal with this subject, some one-third of students in public schools are either overweight or obese.

Since two-thirds (67%) of students are not overweight or obese, their “right” to a normal Pepsi is determined by the minority (33%) of students. Since a normal Pepsi may actually be of benefit to the students of normal weight in maintaining that weight, their rate of susceptibility to good health is diminished by the denial of the properly sugared drink. Is that fair? Of course not, but that’s the societal trend in this country today – the “herd” approach and minority rule.

In socialism, one size fits all, whether it actually does or not. Under this rubric, a physician should be paid at the same rate as a go-go dancer since the value of work is determined not by skill and demand but by the fact that all the citizens actually need to buy is food and other life-supporting elements such as medicine and warmth, and the doc needs perhaps even less than the dancer, therefore, less income. The doc may be earning too much vis-à-vis his contribution to society and also for his own good, especially if he’s drinking a traditional Pepsi with (gasp) sugar in it.

According to agencies such as the NIH and CDC, some 47% of adults (142 million people over age 20) in this country are overweight, with nearly half of the overweight ones (67 million or 47%, also) being obese. Since these numbers are much deadlier than those of the students, one must conclude that for the sake of equity and benevolent considerations, Pepsi will pull all of its “normal” drinks from all groceries in the interest of saving the fatsos from themselves, the rest of the population be damned.

The fact that more than half the population is not overweight/obese and might actually need the traditional drinks to maintain their good health, at least weight-wise, should be of no consequence in light of the school-position taken by Pepsi. Left to their own designs, 47% of adults, many if not most of whom also decide what their children ingest to their detriment, will simply make their lives miserable, the natural conclusion in a socialistic society being that the minority will determine the circumstances under which everyone will survive and cheat death every day. In this case, the government should step in and make Pepsi, Coke and all other food/drink vendors re-design their products, leaving the majority of citizens to eat cake (non-sugar, of course), assuming they don’t like sugarless, calorie-challenged products.

Take the case of New York City. By law, trans-fat has been banned. By law, restaurants must indicate food-content percentages on their menus, as if anyone believes that is actually possible. As of now, the folks who live there will either voluntarily decrease their salt-intake or, by law, have the city reduce it by 5% per year for the next five years. This includes restaurant and packaged foods, although one wonders how the law in the case of the latter, prepared all over the world, can be enforced. This is an example of the zaniness of this stuff.

So…naturally, this leads to the health-care debacle in Congress now, with the president admitting to Fox News reporter Bret Baier on 17 March that he doesn’t know exactly how the bill will be passed (or otherwise foisted on the public) but that it doesn’t actually matter since reform will be voted as a good thing to do. Of course, there’s no bill yet, but Speaker Pelosi has promised that this “no-bill” will soon be available on the Internet for all citizens to non-read. They’re expected to non-read it before the weekend, else the prexy may have to avoid the East altogether and stay home to campaign, his specialty.

Added to that further bit of zaniness and more to the point is the fact that 80-85% of citizens have health insurance and are satisfied with the health-care system in this country. This means that some 15-20%, the distinct minority, is not satisfied, ergo, the whole system must be overhauled, including the ways it relates to and satisfies the vast majority of citizens, becoming, of course, socialistic in the process. One size fits all.

Obama and gang try to hide this fact by insisting that private insurance is not on its way out and that government bureaucrats will make no medical decisions, but thinking persons understand on the basis of what has been revealed so far that the design is for single-payer, total government control to be in place soon. These thinking persons also understand that the method used to do the deal will not be Constitutional; rather, it will be an under-the-table exercise more in line with the “communist” approach in place. It’s all about control, not health.

And so it goes…as the proverbial tail wags the dog!
Jim Clark

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