01-12-2019, 09:44 AM
(01-12-2019, 12:48 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(10-02-2017, 12:57 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Here's a map of the top 15 most obese states (over 27.7% of the population) -- in red.I wonder how many of the obese in those states are Democratic voters?
Yikes! Except for Michigan, those states usually vote Republican in Presidential elections (and 2020 is unlikely to change that assessment).
Aside from Michigan, only one of those fifteen states (Indiana, in its flukish vote for Obama in 2008) has ever voted for the Democratic nominee for President since 1996.
Are they voters? I would expect the terribly-obese to be less likely to go out to do anything, even grocery-shopping and dining out. They might deputize others to do such for them. There is much fat-shaming, and that might keep them from going out to register to vote.
...Obesity obviously creates problems of health and medical costs. Obese people are more likely to have diabetes, a costly medical condition, and any surgeries performed upon them are more costly and less successful. Weight control (like smoking cessation) should be a legitimate object of public health care.
I would suggest that as a condition of collecting food aid that adults be obliged to take a state-paid courses on cooking and nutrition, and that they get a cookbook (of course promoting good eating habits) at public expense. Do you have any problem with that? I would also encourage governments to disqualify sodas, candy, pastries, and chips. (Maybe we could allow people to get dish-washing and clothes-washing detergents as compensation.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.