Ooops - I had a different definition for 'crap'. Maybe we should instead use a scheme that lets people choose their own food, like a free market or something...

I would say it's both. There are additives and such that are known to be unhealthy and should be eliminated. Making it easy to make cheap crap food by adding unhealthy elements needs to stop.

That said, I agree with you about choice. Creating a Nanny State only further disables the masses, and perpetuates the Nanny State. If you're always doing my homework, how am I going to learn to add?

Moi? Unless, there's a personal responsibility / accountability most people won't change. Not to get off topic, I do believe we (i.e., the USA) should have an accessible healthcare system. That's simply modern common decency. However, making misguided decisions (i.e., preventable diseases) affordable and acceptable is dangerous and expensive.

That doesn't sound like an effective way to combat the obesity crisis.

Its consistent with American values (personal freedom etc). So often the idealist jumps straight to "Lets make people do it my way, uh, the right way! With restrictive intrusive laws! Or raids! Or some other totalitarian tool! Because that'll work!"

I understand its hard to see folks making choices that diverge from my personal sense of what's optimal. But it is a cost of living in a free society.

You're making up stawmans, nobody's talking about that. Just some extra taxation like with cigarettes.

We're discussing ideas on how to get a hold on the obesity crisis. I suggested some extra taxes. Yes some gov't regulation.

You suggested me to use the free market, but food is already on the free market. So I fail to understand what you are actually suggesting.

At the same time you say "get rid of the crap", while not defining how to do so (without gov't regulation accordin to your own preferences) and without defining what in your eyes crap then means...

Please make a real argument.

And why should any solution be "consistent with American values"; obesity in the US is VERY CONSISTENT with American values. Maybe to turn the tide on it we have to look in a diff direction.

To make it clear: what people eat and how they exercise is a very personal matter. Social engineering is intrusive and objectionable. When done with a shakedown its particularly intrusive.

I'm sensitive to this topic. Live in a University town. Periodically some idealistic students petition the City Council for some totalitarian ban as part of a social engineering agenda. The latest was, Permit only Organic Coffee to be sold in the city limits.

This clueless banning/taxing/penalizing folks for living as they please is inconsistent with American values. More typical of nanny states and other less savory government styles.

> This clueless banning/taxing/penalizing folks for living as they please is inconsistent with American values. More typical of nanny states and other less savory government styles.

Bollocks. Read your law books. Weed is only recently legal in some states. Ciggies are taxed heavily, so is petrol. Try walking butt naked in the streets.

My point: your values are arbitrary. And calling them American(TM) does not give them any credibility in my eyes. In fact what you are doing is similar to what you despise in others: setting some standard and calling it "universal" (ok US-niversal)

> To make it clear: what people eat and how they exercise is a very personal matter.

Except:

When there is a public healthcare system that takes care of you fuck up.

When advertising is everywhere shoving "eat unhealthy crap" messages into our collective sub-conscience.

When some sentient being needs to suffer/die/have-children-taken-away-at-birth/is-forcefully-impregnated-(also-called-rape)...

What I'm saying is that I see cases around me of diet not being a strictly personal choice. I think if you try hard you can see it too. It's not so black-white as you make yourself believe.

Food is different. Very different. Blurring that with strawmen is easy but not helpful.

Not against free-market, just in favour of slapping some extra taxes here'n'there. Just like cigarettes. Would you like ciggies to be traded for normal value? Please no, we made so much progress...

Such things are to be kept to a minimum. Whiskey/cigarette taxes were initially to fund the early US government in time of need. But that precedent has been used to justify any social engineering stunt somebody comes up with for decades.

> Such things are to be kept to a minimum.

So you agree it is there? Are you against them taxes now then?

Don't act like the US is some an-cap utopia or something, it full of tariffs, permits, taxes, privileges, etc., pretty much like any western country. Slapping a heavy tax on unhealthy foods is not making a huge diff in that picture.