You're Too Fat to Eat Here

Mississippi legislators have introduced a bill that would make it illegal for state licensed restaurants to serve obese patrons. The work of Republicans W. T. Mayhall Jr., John Read, and Democrat Bobby Shows, the bill proposes that the state's Department of Health establish weight criteria after consultation with Mississippi's Council on Obesity. Some in the Mississippi legislature worry that the new law would be too draconian in nature, not making allowances for the chunky, thick, husky or big boned.

Comments

Sigh

[pudge]

It's stories like this that drive people to vote for Ron Paul.

Re:Sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? This is a great idea, one that I'd like to see pushed nation-wide.

Fat people cost everyone else greatly increased health costs - and I don't mean increased insurance costs, since insurance companies can just raise insurance rates for fat people. No, I mean costs like ambulances, paramedics, and emergency room costs.

Fat people cost everyone else more when they have a heart attack from eating triple cheeseburgers daily and then have to have an ambulance ride to the hospital after having their heart restarted.

Since being fat is a personal choice (losing weight is easy: stop eating so much!), and fat people have chosen to burden everyone else with their choice, it's a simple solution to forcibly make them stop eating so much.

Solve the problem, reduce costs for everyone: this is what government should be doing. The entire point behind government regulation is to protect society from people who actively harm it.

Re:Sigh

[pudge]

Why? This is a great idea, one that I'd like to see pushed nation-wide. It's people like you that drive people to vote for Ron Paul.

Fat people cost everyone else greatly increased health costs - and I don't mean increased insurance costs, since insurance companies can just raise insurance rates for fat people. No, I mean costs like ambulances, paramedics, and emergency room costs. To the extent government is involved in those costs, it shouldn't be. And if government decides to be involved in those costs, it cannot use that as justification for taking away someone's liberty. That's utter nonsense. "Here, we are going to give you X ... and now, since we gave you X, you have to give up Y." Utter bullshit.

Since being fat is a personal choice (losing weight is easy: stop eating so much!), and fat people have chosen to burden everyone else with their choice ... False. EVERYONE ELSE CHOSE to be so burdened, by participating in paying for those costs in the first place.

it's a simple solution to forcibly make them stop eating so much. Yes. Simple, and utterly fascist. A simpler, and far better, solution is to NOT PAY FOR THOSE COSTS. Then there's no problem.

The entire point behind government regulation is to protect society from people who actively harm it. False. The entire point of government is to protect individual liberty. Government has absolutely no business whatsoever giving a damn about how fat anyone is.

Re:Sigh

[dleigh]

Fat people cost everyone else greatly increased health costs

No they don't. Dying earlier leads to lower lifetime health care costs. This also applies to smokers.

Since being fat is a personal choice

No, it isn't. I know I'm feeding a troll here, but:
(a) people can become fat for all sorts of reasons beyond their control (medical and/or genetic problems etc - for example nearly all asthma preventatives cause weight gain );
(b) The expression "chose to be fat" is disingenuous; like saying someone who moved to Florida chose to have their house flooded, or someone who lives in Australia chose to have their house burnt down.

(losing weight is easy: stop eating so much!)

Frankly, bugger off and stop perpetuating this myth. It's simply not as simple as "eat less, move more" (and you even forgot half of that). If you haven't been obese and gone back to being healthy, you have absolutely no idea what it takes to do so. Losing weight is a world of difficulty away from maintaining a healthy weight.

I look forward to the protests

[cylcyl]

As my fellow gravity challenged individuals are the masters of passive protests, especially sit-ins

Let's get something straight

[gr8scot]

The state cannot punish private citizens for enabling behavior while enabling the same behavior itself. Until the same regulations are applied to all government subsidies, they violate equal protection.

Chunky Men

[milsoRgen]

"not making allowances for the chunky, thick, husky or big boned."
Are those the terms used by the opposing legislators? Hahaha...