Daddy Bloomberg is right

When I was growing up my parents would not allow me to purchase booze and cigarettes with my allowance money. There was no use arguing that once given to me the money was mine to do with whatever I saw fit. In fact, I knew better than to argue the point.

Okay, I never actually tried to buy booze or cigarettes with my allowance but I did try to buy things that my parents said weren’t good for me and they were quick to tell me they were “responsible” for “ensuring” my wellbeing. Now Daddy Bloomberg is taking my parents’ attitude and applying it to New York City.

No Pop for the Poor

New York City’s mayor wants the federal government to say food stamps can’t be used to buy soda – a story that is less about the technicalities of welfare and more about political paternalism.

Now, there’s a strong argument to be made that if the government is setting the table and preparing the dinner, it should be able to choose the menu. But that argument is not being made; on the contrary, those who want soda omitted from the items obtainable by food stamps are making the link between health and public spending.

Good for him but he’s not going far enough. The list should include all processed foods, “junk” food, red meat, white bread, pasta, and potatoes. Better idea-food stamp recipients should be required to call the grocery store in advance and then the store can have acceptable food waiting for them. Think I’m kidding? Part and parcel with abdicating personal responsibility to the state should be a willingness to follow the rules of state, much as a child follows the rules of their parent.

Not fair? Stomp your foot when you say that, Missy!

Children have no choice but depend on their parents but adults have plenty of choices. People who wish to retain their ability to choose their food or housing or health care should not allow themselves to become wards of the state.

Those Crazy Kids in California Strike Again

Is California the easiest punchline in the world, or what?  Even in the throes of a financial crisis our brethren in Cali make no effort to curb their craziness.  Don Surber has a great post on the abject silliness on the State of Insanity, (or is it inanity?) known as California.  This pretty much sums it up:

LOS ANGELES (AP) – When the city’s Department of Water and Power spent $50,000 on lactation consultants two years ago to assist breast-feeding employees, the utility said it was a humanitarian move aimed at cutting absenteeism.

Okay. 

As a mother who breast fed both of her children, I freely admit that it does not come as easily or naturally as one might think.  However, it also would not have occurred to me that my employer owed me a lactation  consultant.  In the case of the Water and Power Department in LA, the taxpayers are the one's providing the consultants.  This in a city, within a state, who can't pay its bills now.

But why stop there?  Why not provide "diaper changing consultants"?  Not for the newborns, but for the adult children of California who somehow believe that the Government should take care of all their basic and most personal needs. 

Read the entire post.

Taking the Happy out of Happy Meals

When my kids were young I was one of those parents.  You know the type-insists that the family sit down for meals together, chooses  and prepares the food, sets limits on the junk.  Heck, I would often go so far as to tell my children, "no".  But in the land of the perpetual nanny state, California, one lawmaker no longer trusts parents to supervise their own children's meals:

In an effort to combat the nation's epidemic of childhood obesity, Supervisor Yeager is proposing Santa Clara County create an ordinance regulating fast food restaurants' ability to offer toys or other incentives with kids' meals.

"Ten out of 12 meals that are associated with the promotional toys are the high-caloric, high-fat, high-sodium meals," said Yeager.

You don't need parenting classes, or the government, to know that a steady diet of fast food isn't the best choice for children.  You don't have to be a genius to know that children ask for the fast food meal because of the toy.  However, children are not in charge of what the family eats, and if they are, the family has bigger problems than food issues.

It would be easy to blow this off as typical California silliness except, more and more, it is typical of government interference with adult decision making.  How long will it be before the nanny state is using "smart meters" to turn off our lights so we will know the correct time to go night night?