• 15
• 10/05/2012
• David Dickinson

If it's going to stop society worrying about my health, let me state that I don't over-eat, I watch carefully what I consume and I keep fit at the gym. And that's because I'm educated on what's the best thing to do for my physical and mental health. If other people behave differently, that's their business, not mine and certainly not the governments. That's my last word on the subject.

• 14
• 10/04/2012
• David Louis

Dear DD, hopefully one day you’ll realize the ‘corporation’ owns you, freedom is an illusion, and you are a slave to the rhythm of the corporate prison. While you may not want government to take another penny from you, you’ll pay less tax, government will shrink, subsidies to business cut, industry will deregulate. Instead of government tax you will pay the corporate tax, paying more for less to the corporate cannibal. Small government = less regulation. Less regulation = more public health nightmares and corn syrup = sugar. Your comment about education are predictable but sad, without education everything seems so simple..earth is flat, at the center of the universe and created in 7 days…simple. I could keep debating your pedestrian beliefs but it’s futile. Feel FREE to CHOOSE any of the thousands of food like products that are to be had, keep thinking you’re are free. Oh yea, supersize them too. Ah, ignorance is bliss..charge on my friend!

• 13
• 10/03/2012
• David Dickinson

David L.
I know that freedom in this country is not absolute and I know that corporations have a significant role in our lives. But I don't just have a choice between Coke and Pepsi. There are hundreds and hundreds of alternative drinks out there, all competing with each other for my attention, some of which are better than others for my health. That doesn't feel like I'm being controlled by corporate power. I simply say that it's no business of the government to push me one way or the other by using their taxing power. As to your assertion that I need to get degrees in this and that, othwise I must be misguided, well my experience has been that the more degrees and the more study that people have, the more DIVORCED they are from reality. Reality can be simple. The complexity that government, educationalists, lawyers and corporations inject into our lives is not the REAL reality - it's the fog that they create to confuse and control us.

• 12
• 10/02/2012
• David Louis

D.D – I’m sure your intentions are good but thinking that you have real freedom in this country is delusional. Sure you have the freedom to choose between Coke and Pepsi, Lucky Strike and Kool, democratic or republican, but last time I checked that is not real freedom. There are plenty of things the government regulates that keep us safe. Might you be against universal healthcare too? I hope not. This country is not run by people like you and I at risk of having our freedom taken away, it is run by a corporate oligarchy who has taken our freedom away a long time ago. Spend some time researching the history of unregulated capitalism and then you can have an intelligent conversation about the loss of freedom. As for public health issues try getting a degree in a population based health science before make conclusions about policy. I have spent years in both the corporate world and the government and these issues are not as simple as you seem to think they are.

• 11
• 10/01/2012
• David Dickinson

David H - I have no problem understanding the thinking behind the proposed law. I do understand the problems of obesity. I also know about the persuasive tactics that are used in advertising. What I don't agree with is the method being used to deal with these problems - taxing the product as a discouragement to the consumer. The reason for my resistance is simply that I don't like the way governments take more and more control of our lives. In the long run, that feels to me to be more dangerous even than smoking, over-eating, or parachuting from a plane. Every tiny step the government takes "for our own good" is simply leading to the next step, and the next step. Before you know it, you have no choice any more. Your whole diet and daily activity will be set out for you by government mandates. That's the actual reality that I see and nothing has so far convinced me otherwise. This country was founded on individual freedom; let's hold on to it.