🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <O-OdnRGabb-m2pzeRVn-hg@rcn.net>, Jon Nadelberg
<news@nadelberg.com> wrote:

> "Tim May" <timcmay@removethis.got.net> wrote in message 
> news:150820051826585509%timcmay@removethis.got.net...

> 
> > It doesn't mean government has any power or authority to ban certain
> > foods, to promote other foods, to require certain ingredients, to ban
> > others.
> >
> 
> No, but the Constitution does grant the government the ability to do that. 
> And since they are doing it whether you like it or not, not much you say 
> about it is going to change that.

This subthread started with my comments about some of your kind
complaining about the government's various versions of "food pyramids."

There are many reasons why government "food pyramids" (or whatever
shape the advice is in) are terrible, terrible ideas. Something our
Founders recognized, and specifically said that such powers ("not
enumerated") were thus outside the scope of government.

For starters, any government food pyramid is going to change slowly,
and in response to lobbyists, pressure groups, etc. (Perhaps why
"dairy" was such a large fraction of the Official Food Pyramid for so
many years...even the sprouts and tofu eaters amongst you ought to
recognize this point clearly: no lobbyists for sprouts and tofu,
compared to the lobbyists for the U.S. Dairy Council, and no position
on the Food Pyramid for sprouts and tofu.)

Secondly, government is a poor arbiter of science. Science is really
about belief. It is not as clear as Newtonian physics tends to imply.
Think caloric restriction is the key to long life? Maybe so. But don't
count on Official Science to be clear on this for many years, even
decades. Think a diet high in olive oil is best? Despite research
mainly sponsored by olive oil producing nations, don't expect this
controversy to be cleared up for years or decades. Meanwhile, what is
the Official Government Position supposed to be on caloric restriction,
olive oil, macrobiotic diets, Peruvian coca leaves, or anything else?

Answer: No position. If someone asks government what they should eat,
those in a limited (Founder-style, libertarian) government should say:

"I have no idea what you should eat. Not our job to tell you, anymore
than it's our job to advise you against rock-climbing, or helicopter
skiing, or reading Ayn Rand."

Thirdly, and related to the two points above, the best way for ideas
and notions, which is what diets are, to flourish and compete is for
them to flourish and compete. This happens less when government uses
its regulatory powers to, for example, order that school lunches
contain the "recommended proportions of milk, cheese, peanuts, and
canola oil, as established in the 1968 USDA Food Pyramid guidelines,
with input from the Dairy Council, the Canola Consortium, and the
Georgia Peanut Producers."

As an adult, I eat what I wish. Except for the foods the Founders ate
but which modern lobbyist groups have  had banned (in a wholly
unconstituitional series of laws, of course).

But you folks were the ones wailing about the deficiencies of the Food
Pyramid, not me.

So now don't natter about how Gubmint is going to do as it pleases
anyway, so we shouldn't be commenting on what it is and isn't
appropriate for them to do.


--Tim May