So I was having a look around RedState...
I know, I know, low hanging fruit. But as a non-frequenter of the right side of the blogosphere, I wanted to see if it was as big a fever swamp as people have suggested. Let me just say that I was not disappointed.
Let me show you an article by one RedState denizen, snarkandboobs. Both of which are highly admirable things, in my opinion, but I didn't see much snark, just a angry fulmination about those radical liberals depriving everyone of their right to eat whatever they damn well please, even if it kills them.
Now I have more sympathy for this kind of argument than it may first appear. I'm a bit of a foodie, really, and some of the things I cook wouldn't be considered particularly healthy, but are wonderfully tasty nonetheless.
Being from Glasgow, as well, I have an appreciation for the more downmarket local cuisine that would leave health freaks in despair; fried food in abundance, such as fish and chips, the full Scottish breakfast or the legendary deep fried mars bar. Lesser known, but even more heart-attack inducing Glasgow-specific innovations include the "Scooby Snack" and the "Munchie Box"; all heavily laden with grease, but lifesavers when heavily drunk and looking for some late-night sustenance. So I'm very wary about anyone calling to ban, or heavily regulate and tax, these kinds of foods; from both a libertarian perspective that, on the whole, to give people a lot of choice about what they want to eat or not is a good thing, even if it is more harmful to them in the long run, and a more irrational lifelong attachment to these kinds of foods.
In my attack on regulation of food choices, though, I don't include simple, factual and informative labelling, as I believe consumers should have the ability to know exactly what's going into their food in order to make informed choices. I'm also aware, as a left-winger, that your choices can easily be constrained by your social class; It's well known that many people in poverty in the west suffer not from a lack of food, but a lack of nutritious food, a state of affairs which is not improving in the current economic climate, and as such increasing food choice necessarily involves addressing economic inequality. Lastly, I'm concerned about the environmental impact of our current ways of processing food. So all these caveats have to be factored in and taken into account from that basic position. As you would expect, none of these caveats are apparent in the above article.
So what has gotten our poor RedStater so worked up about the evil authoritarian Obama government in terms of our food choices? Well, apart from a knock at universal health coverage, which was only to be expected, it appears it involves reports about an FDA letter apparently classifying Cheerios as a drug and thus coming under stricter regulation. Cue fulmination about every American's right to eat what they want to eat, no matter what kind of crap it might be. And who couldn't agree with that?
Except. Closer examination of the letter involved suggests a different story. The author, W. Charles Becoat, is warning the makers of Cheerios, General Mills, that the claims they make on their packaging and their website, www.wholegrainnation.com, are misleading, suggesting a stronger link between eating wholegrain and a lower risk of cholesterol and certain forms of cancer than is the case, and neglecting to note that other factors, like fresh fruits in vegetables, are also factors in reducing heart disease. Not exactly the worst crime in the world, spinning a positive benefit to their advantage, but Becoat further says that these claims that General Mills are making are presented in such a way, without qualification, that the FDA would have to classify Cheerios as a drug.
So Becoat isn't saying that Cheerios is a drug; he's saying the way General Mills presents and markets Cheerios means that under current regulations, Cheerios would have to be treated like a drug, and thus have to receive proper licensing, etc. The choice is for General Mills either to get the drug license for Cheerios, which I assume would be somewhat expensive and take Cheerios off the market for a while, or the less expensive and time consuming task of relabelling the product to remove the regulation-breaking remarks. I think it's pretty clear which one would benefit General Mills more, and furthermore the action the FDA wants General Mills to take, neither of which have anything to do with the classification of Cheerios as a drug; that's just the threat dangled over General Mills to get them to comply.
We will of course note the irony in our RedStater decrying our liberal government's hatred of Americans' right to eat fattening and unhealthy foods using the Cheerios letter as an example, when what the FDA and Cheerios were quibbling over was the extent of Cheerios' health benefits. She outdoes herself, however, remarking to the effect that unhealthy foods are ok because it means people won't live too long, since people living longer makes Social Security unsustainable, since it was meant for, in her words "short-term use" rather than the long term use it receives today. Not only is this somewhat morally dubious, it's factually wrong. As the Social Security Administration notes, the reason life expectancy was lower in the 1930's was because infant mortality was higher; in 1940, if you made it through those first few shaky years, and then all the way to 65, as 53.9% of men and 60.2% of women did, you were likely to live an average of 12.7 years for men and 14.7 years for women after attaining the age when you started to receive Social Security payments, even back then. The idea that it was just for "short-term" use is simply wrong.
Another day, another RedStater challenged by reality. Oh well. The Munchie Boxes are on me!