That's where it gets scary to me. Majority rules vs. individual rights.

Smoking is a bad analogy, though, for a number of reasons.

1. No amount of smoke is required for health. Salt IS required by the body.

2. The smoking in question is done by the customer, NOT the business. The analogy to salt would require that we talk about customers being allowed to bring and use their own salt.

3. Having seasoned food does not season someone else's food nearby. If I eat a burger, and you, concerned about salt just get a coke, my salted burger doesn't make your coke salty. Smoke does in fact leave your cigg, and come into MY lungs if I sit nearby.

So smoking is a terribly analogy.

My analogy to water is far more straightforward.

Both salt and water are required to live.

Both salt and water are acutely unhealthful if consumed in sufficient quantity over a short time period.

The difference is that in some quantity of salt that is not harmful in the short term IS potentially harmful if consumed over a long time period.

The argument for regulating this on prepared foods requires that the assumption be made that the consumer is eating that specific food for some substantial % of their food intake. One salty burger will not harm you, the habit of eating them might—just as 1 liter of water won't hurt you, but drink 6 in a few hours, and you might die.

Precisely, sir. I agree entirely.

This is not a democracy August, and it was never intended to be one. As Benjamin Franklin (I think:doh:) put it; "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner".

I probably won't go postal either, assuming the thing passes. But sooner or later, someone with the ability and the popularity will, over one issue or another, and then it's gonna hit the fan.

There is a growing resentment against the federal government and its agencies. There has been for quite some time. Even external threats aren't galvanizing the populace towards a united will very well anymore.

Sooner or later somebody with political saavy is going to take advantage of these sentiments and there will be a major shift in policy. Let us pray that it does not come to civil war again. That may sound like rhetoric bordering upon idiocy to some, given the seemingly insignificant OT, but one general rule of mankind, that people resent being pushed around, holds true.

What flag the disgruntled and disillusioned may march under, I cannot hope to guess. All I know is that they will be looking for one, and when it is raised they will unite under it. There may be a million different reasons why they are unhappy, but when it comes to reform, they will unite behind a single symbol. They will seek a single, powerful, outlet for their discontent, if you will.

I do not mean to be hurtful, but have you forgotten how the young think? They have their whole lives ahead of them, and they usually view any kind of establishment as a barrier. In other cases, they view it as a suitable means towards an end. They do not care about your health, or your welfare, unless there is some kind of agreeable ideal associated with it. I am one of those (comparatively) young fools. I have been on this earth for less than three decades, but I am resolved to fight and, if need be, die for the ideal of individual rights and responsibilities.

It's kind of funny unless you think about it from an evolutionary standpoint, but I have neither the will nor the space to go into details here. We can discuss the subject in detail if you wish.

No, I haven't forgotten how the young think Lcpl (at least not yet), but I do know that the young rarely have any idea of how THEY will think when they get older.

Now I know that the young tend not to trust their elders but please trust me in these two things:

1. Our fine country isn't worth destroying because our government regulates fast food content, bans smoking in public places, enacts socialized health care, or any number of other things the Feds have done in the past 150 years.

2. If there is another civil war, and the Federals loose, our country will indeed be destroyed. It will fragment and the pieces will be at war with each other within a generation.

Regulate "fast" food? So if the burger is on the plate in XX seconds it's regulated, but 1 second more and it's not? SOunds petty, but the burger joint might be a nice, sit down place, not a chain. Or only if it has more than XX employees?

I just can't get behind the nanny state that way.

It wasn't a terrible analogy, you just clearly missed the context in which I was using it, which is personal freedom and the freedom of businesses to choose how to operate.

But okay, I'll play devil's advocate and respond to at least your first point.You know that iron is required by the body? Ever hear of a condition called hemochromatosis? That means you have too much. Now should vitamin makers be allowed to put excessive amounts of iron in their supplements, or should the FDA regulate them?

This is an excellent analogy.

:yeah:

The dose should be below a single, unhealthful dose. In other words if the average person took ONE vitamin and got sick, then yeah, it's to much. But that's NOT the kind of doses in vitamins, is it. Unlike a cheeseburger, a vitamin is expected to be taken with a specific dose regimen, right? Liek one per day, forever. That changes things.

Any regulation of salt requires some specific dose per day of the food. What is a reasonable daily dose of cheeseburgers from a specific take out joint? For ME it's maybe 2 per year. They'd have to be pretty salty to harm me in 2 burgers.

Opening up a new fast food joint. First item on the menu:

Ground Salt (small: .25, med: .50, large: .75, super size: $1.00)

Well, I can certainly agree with that. I usually don't have any idea what I'll be thinking six months from now. Even at 28 years, I still have so much to learn.

But the actions they have taken will destroy it, anyways. It's always one little thing at a time; "protect my job from this", "don't let them do that", "somebody should do something about this" "I'm voting for the guy who.....whatever". They're all just straws on the camel's back. Sooner or later they will break the free-market economy, and when that happens, we are all screwed. Giving the government the power to make such decisions only accelerates the process.

I'll take your word for it, but that doesn't mean it isn't going to happen. I would much prefer that the Union remain intact, and that there be some peaceful reform of government, but let's be honest, how often does that happen? I think it's a legitimate concern.

As for the pieces of the union going to war with one another within a generation, I think you could be right about that. People always find a reason to go to war, and America would not likely become an exception. However, this is also not the Civil War of 1865. I'm not talking about a bunch of Southerners trying to establish a seperate nation, I'm talking about a nationwide revolution with the intent of overthrowing the whole of government. It'd be nasty as hell and the country would suffer greatly for it, but at some point people are going to get fed up enough with this nickel-and-dime socialism that they will use force to repeal it.

Our government has put us on a highly unsustainable path that can lead only to economic collapse or war, and probably both. When things become scarce, people start fighting. We've managed to pawn off the conflict to other nations in the past, but that is not a sustainable system, either. Wars are very expensive and create longstanding and costly commitments. Moreover, people in the Western world are quite sick of them. Unless we get India or Pakistan or China or someone to go to war with somebody, we're not going to have the economic steroids we've had in the past.

I may not be as experienced as you, but I have learned a few things in my short existence, one of which is that you do not mess with mutually beneficial transactions. Trade powers everything we have, and when you halt it, you are doing immeasurable harm. Did you ever stop to think about what effect your ban would have on the millions of people in the salt-mining, salt-processing, and food industries? It would literally kill a lot of them, and for no reason at all since you can already purchase salt-free foods in great quantity. Come to think of it, it might also literally kill some of the employees in third-world nations. The free market also kills industries every day, but it doesn't go out and wipe a gigantic section of aggregate demand in one fell swoop.

It is ideas like yours that will destroy the free market system, through re-appropriation of wealth or negligence of potential consequences. One simply cannot tell billions of consumers and workers what they may and may not do in a system that relies on the efforts and choices of billions of consumers and workers. Not possible. Nobody on the planet is that intelligent. Put a million brains together, and they won't even come close to devising a system that is good for everyone. Order without design will often far outstrip the plans that men consciously contrive. Some guy said that, but I can't remember who it was.

Proper government has exactly three roles. It must punish fraud, coercion, and use of force. If you give it power to do much else, it will turn on you. That is the natural progress of things. It should never be an agency for anyone to advance an agenda, whatever it might be. If you can try to use it for your own ends, a bigger fish is going to use it more effectively for his.

This free market system you claim that i'm destroying dude, where does it exist? Where has it ever existed? The market has always been subject to regulation and if that's what you're railing against then you're about 233 years too late.

But vitamins are intended for daily use ... so the one vitamin argument is out. And as far as the large fast food corporations are concerned, they would LOVE for the average public Joe Blow to use them daily, just like vitamins, and clearly their marketing intends that.

So what if daily use of the one vitamin caused excessive, unhealthy iron levels, although any single one would not (it would be hard to pack an unhealthy amount of iron into any one capsule, as far as I recall)?

Remember: I'm playing devil's advocate and I tend to agree with the other side regarding fast food. But the logic argument isn't as sound as most on here seem to agree. I could probably argue August's point along with him, and no one would be the wiser, because of this analogy alone.

Hence my point about different strokes for different folks. Which, despite its intuitive nature, I still do feel is a personal epiphany.

Gotta jump back in here on this one and point out the flaw in the logic.

Vitamins are intended for daily use WHY? They are designed to supplement the nutrients the body needs but often does not get, with the purpose of increasing one's health. Thus a continual, steady and regular dosage is what is most beneficial (in general) to achieve the goal.

Fast Food on the other hand, while the providers would love for you to use them every day, has no goal other than filling your belly and emptying your wallet. They do not claim to offer health benefits for their most egregious, unhealthy foods. When you go into a greasy spoon joint, you know exactly what your getting yourself into, and its your choice to purchase that food. No one is telling you that you need to be on a Big Mac diet for a month to see improvements in your health. Fast food is a CONVIENENCE - and as such provides a product to the consumer that the consumer wants. What you have here is the government saying "We don't care that the public wants to buy your goods, we are going to intervene in between a private business transaction, and control it."

If Vitamins provided a TOXIC level of a substance over time - yet specifically directed the consumer to intake that substance continuously, then they would be violating the consumers rights - because they have advertised a specific positive while knowing a negative outcome is to be expected. Fast Food has never done this. It has not violated the rights of the consumer, nor does it instruct the consumer in HOW to consume its products "for maximum benefit".

When you start a vitamin regimen, you commit to taking it regularly because that is how to get the best results. Thus, if it were harmful to you, regulating it based on the REQUIREMENT of using it repeatedly (to gain that benefit) is responsible - as it insures that the usage as called for is not harmful. As a consumer, you expect the vitamins to be "good for you". Fast food on the other hand - a consumer KNOWS its not healthy in general, yet chooses - on an individual basis, at individual times, to drive through for their double Whopper with cheese. Regulating salt because someone may choose, for their own ease, to grab a quick meal whenever, when such a thing is not a continual, DIRECTED decision, is ludicrous.

There is a VERY big difference between vitamin use and fast food.

Also, I notice this arguement has centered around fast food, but the reality is that this is going to affect "Processed" foods in general - and thats just about everything you buy in the store. Canned vegetables, salad dressing, bbq sauce, chips, cereal, soups, frozen dinners, etc. This isn't just fries and a burger at a local place, its the vast majority of what everyone consumes - since few people get their vegetables truly fresh. This is what makes such a move so invasive - its the government having its hand even further into everything you eat - whether you like it or not. Go to the grocery store and check out the canned vegetables - they have regular ones, and then you will find the "no salt added" variety. Check your frozen dinners, they have regular ones, and low sodium varieties. Same with soups, etc. So the choices are there for the consumer.

If the choices are there - and the government feels like it has a "need" to regulate those choices - then its boils down to one thing and one thing only:

"Government wants you to do something - you have had the choice to do it or not, and you the public has said you don't want to choose what we want you do to. Fine, we will take the choice away and make you do what we think you should."

If you don't have a problem with that, then I can't see how you can claim you have a desire to keep what is left of our republic alive.

Bottom line is that there is no requirement for people to eat multiple doses of fast food. It's unfair to single out a particular seasoning.

A blanket law would be FAIR, and would show how bad the idea is. Every single serving of every single prepared food must have a healthy balance of food groups. How about that? Since you cannot be sure that someone will eat the green beans that come with their burger, I suggest a nutritious wafer containing all groups in a healthy balance. I think I'll call it "soylent." Ban fast food, and replace it with nutritious soylent!

Americans don't need ice cream parlors, we're too fat for that. Ban them! Think about it, if you ate a an ice cream sundae every single meal you'd die for sure.

How is that different than salt regulation? How about all ice cream has to be hippie crap mad with no cream? You know, healthy vegan ice cream (bleech).

Exactly right. That's why I agree with you. But its fun playing devil's advocate, though. :up: