First they came for the tobacco, and I did not speak out because I was not a smoker. Then they came for the alcohol, and I did not speak out because I was not a drinker. Then they came for my food, and there was no one left to speak out for me because misery loves company.

We've all heard about driving while black. Now we have eating while fat. But, unlike the former, size profiling is more reality than rhetoric. As to this, and coming on the heels of the recent story about a mother arrested for having an obese son, is more folderol from the fatism front: a proposal by the Urban Institute to tax "fattening" foods to fight obesity. In other words, if you're overweight, you're guilty until proven innocent and thus fair game for the most onerous "corrective" action.

Reporting on this in the Los Angeles Times, Melissa Healy writes: "'Facing the serious consequences of an uncontrolled obesity epidemic, America's state and federal policy makers may need to consider interventions every bit as forceful as those that succeeded in cutting adult tobacco use by more than 50%,' the Urban Institute report says."

And the interventions could be bold. To actually change people's eating habits, we're informed, would require a heavy, punitive tax that applied to every fattening thing we eat. Otherwise, the report avers, "consumers could simply substitute one fattening food or beverage for another." Yes, well, people need to be controlled — strictly — so they can be happy like the rabbit-men who mainline carrot sticks and Perrier.

It's easy to see what the scope of such a measure would be. What's considered "fattening"? Sure, I know about desserts and junk food, but what about butter, red meat and cooking oils? And what's left? Vegetables, fish, fruits and grains (oh, strike that; grains and certain fruits can be disaster for "carboholics")? I mean, I like all these things, but do you really want some pasty-faced bureaucrat playing food czar?

This seems especially preposterous when considering that this isn't simply a matter of X number of calories=X amount of weight gain. For instance, I'm a guy who drives women nuts — I can eat anything I want without gaining an ounce. In contrast, I have a friend who has always fought the battle of the bulge and who for years envied my ability to clear a table like a hurdler without ill effect. Today he has me by 100 pounds (I'm 184), and he both eats less and exercises more than I do. And he's not the only one I know like this.

But is this surprising? Vindicating common sense, scientists recently discovered a "fat gene" (I hear it wasn't difficult, either — you couldn't miss it), which is associated with obesity. Then, I once heard an M.D. specializing in nutrition say that certain people, such as those of northern European descent, may not digest grains well, as they've only had them in their diet for about 5000 years. He said that they might do better on meat. Given all this, how does imposing a one-size-fits-all diet straightjacket on the population make sense? We're not suddenly forgetting how "diverse," we are, are we?

Now, don't misunderstand me, there's no denying that behavior has a great bearing on one's weight. As to this, I've ventured overseas and have found that while travel may broaden one, it obviously doesn't do so nearly as much as staying right here in America. I probably saw as many horizontally-disadvantaged people in Alabama alone as I did in Spain, North Africa, France, Taiwan and most of the other places I've been to combined. Nevertheless, it's a fact that many thin people consume more calories than many of their rotund peers.

This brings us to another factor in taxing fattening foods. Understand that it's not a tax on the overweight specifically.

It's a tax on everyone.

After all, except for those rare people who light up a room when they leave it, who doesn't sometimes enjoy "unhealthful" foods? Why, even Healy, that woman who cares enough to tax the fat out of us, says in her bio that she "chooses to believe in the health benefits of coffee and wine, and considers water a better work-out medium than beverage." Hey, guess what? I hate coffee and wine — and swimming. Let's tax them threefold.

In reality, taxing fattening foods only targets those who actually eat more — for whatever reason. This means burdening bigger people more than smaller ones; men and, in particular, teenage boys (famous for fast metabolisms) more than women and girls; and athletes requiring 8000 calories a day more than sedentary computer geeks. Thus, the only thing such taxes are guaranteed to make thinner is your wallet.

But most outrageous of all is the sanctimony, something Healy accosts us with in the very first half of her title, which is, "Tough love for fat people ...." Aw, do you really care that much, Melissa? Answer me one question then: why do those who support a woman's "right to choose" — and who bristle at any restrictions on it — suddenly depart from this when the matter is diet? My body, my choice, right? And if it's wrong to kill yourself slowly with food, why is it okay to kill someone else suddenly through abortion?

A big part of the answer is that, if there's any kind of love here, it's more for money than life. The former is obviously a priority for Healy, who writes, "If you happen to be the 1-in-3 Americans who is neither obese nor overweight . . . you might well conclude that the habits of the remaining two-thirds of Americans are costing you, big time."

Then again, I might not.

What actually costs us big time are statists like Healy who have created system in which we are held responsible for the consequences of others' decisions. She then continues, "[Your problem] is how to make them [fat folks] stop costing you all that extra money because they are presumably making poor choices in their food consumption." Actually, I already know how to make them stop costing us all that extra money:

Stop holding people responsible for the consequences of others' decisions.

This means the decisions not just of profligate eaters but also smokers, drinkers, mortgage holders, drug users, the promiscuous and the rapidly-disappearing employers of liberal journalists.

Really, what we have to worry about isn't gluttony but greed and covetousness. Toward the end of Healy's article, she discusses how obesity-tax revenue could fund socialized medicine. With apparent glee, the journalist says "here's the payoff" and then provides a detailed breakdown of how much money could be extracted from taxpayers. It's billions this and billions that, and look what we can do with it! What she doesn't understand is that she has been conditioned to think like a thief. In her universe, it's wrong and a burden to use your own money to grow your waistline, but moral to steal others' money to grow government to the most burdensome proportions imaginable.

Selwyn Duke is a columnist and public speaker whose work has been published widely online and in print, on both the local and national levels. He has been featured on the Rush Limbaugh Show, at WorldNetDaily.com, in American Conservative magazine, is a contributor to AmericanThinker.com and appears regularly as a guest on the award-winning, nationally-syndicated Michael Savage Show. Visit his Website.

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danwhitehead1 said:

	This Melissa Healy sow - - - - - - is obviously another creep who needs to be struck down.
	report abuse vote down vote up

July 29, 2009
Votes: +1

us and them said:

	leave her alone don't worry, she'll squeal like a pig when they come after her "obsessions". they think they will be exempt because they are wearing the hammer and cycle, think again comrade melissa
	report abuse vote down vote up

July 31, 2009
Votes: +3