first they came for the terrorist, then the smokers now the obese???

[greenbriar]

gebus can we get any more ignornat???





FEBRUARY 1--Mississippi legislators this week introduced a bill that would make it illegal for state-licensed restaurants to serve obese patrons. Bill No. 282, a copy of which you'll find below, is the brainchild of three members of the state's House of Representatives, Republicans W. T. Mayhall, Jr. and John Read, and Democrat Bobby Shows. The bill, which is likely dead on arrival, proposes that the state's Department of Health establish weight criteria after consultation with Mississippi's Council on Obesity. It does not detail what penalties an eatery would face if its grub was served to someone with an excessive body mass index. (2 pages


http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0201081fat1.html

[greenbriar]

1. I had to look to see if it was a joke

this is beyond crazy

[napi21]

2. My God! How fast can you say "Out of business"?

I'm a smoker, and we TOLD you this was coming, but you thought we were crazy! I have never had a problem with weight, so this wouldn't affect me at all, but I feel this is WAY too much gov't intrusion! I heard Huck say something sort of like this bill in one of his speach excerpts the other day. He was talking about health care, and he added something about forcing people to take better care of themselves. Stop smoking, drinking, and LOSE WEIGHT! This is getting to be a very scarey country!

[greenbriar]

3. I am a smoker and my hubby would be considered obese

we eat out quite a bit

or we used to

[Angela Shelley]

7. Why not? Everyone wants affordable health care.

Are they willing to carry the responsibility for their own health?

[napi21]

14. I personally will quit smoking only IF I decide to do so, not because

someone else decids that I must! I am willing to authorize NO treatment, other than pain killers, if I contract a disease linked to smoking! I won't cost you much because I'll die first!

[windbreeze]

24. Is this kind of like that mind set....IF you have nothing to hide....

you have nothing to fear??? How about those of us who DO HAVE medical/physical problems and glands that don't work right??? Imagination, I suppose many would say???...uhhhh, no...I have to take a large dose of synthetic thyroid every day to compensate for what my diseased thyroid will no longer do....so now I should be punished in other ways too??? Isn't my diseased thyroid, and additional weight, punishment enough?? wb

[greenbriar]

25. exactly

.

[pleah]

27. Exactly! People don't believe you until it happens to them. They have been warned.

[Fridays Child]

4. Wanna tell the bill's authors what idiots they are? Here are their email addresses.

[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

[Wizard777]

5. I said at the beginning of the treasonous War on Drugs. If the government is allowed to control what

we put in our bodies. Soon you will see police in the grocery stores pointing guns at fat people trying to buy Ice Cream. People going to jail for possession of snack foods while over 300 lb.s. Laugh at me now! The worst is yet to come. Fat people will be demonized. They will be made the source of all the worlds problems. Just like it was done to drug users.

[KillCapitalism]

8. That will be interesting!

Especially when more Americans are considered to be overweight than those who aren't.

[greenbriar]

10. especially if you look at the picture of the igtards that wrote the bill

I would think they should be the first to be banned

[Wizard777]

23. Yes but we have a proud history of allowing the norm to be dictated by a minority of white people.

[greenbriar]

30. my hubby asked if they were going to build a special door

and if you couldn't get through the door then you couldn't eat there???

hehe

[China_cat]

16. We already are.

I have a very difficult time losing weight since I cannot exercise. And yes, I mean cannot. I have to use a wheelchair or a mobility scooter to get around, can't walk 20 feet and manage to breathe at the same time.

I eat a decent diet, small portions, lots of fruit and veggies some of which I grow myself, don't do 'convenience' foods, steam/bake/broil instead of frying. We eat meat but not huge portions. I maintain at what is considered an 'obese' weight. And that is difficult enough. In order to lose any weight I'd have to drop to less than 800 calories per day and even then the weight loss would only last for about 6 months. (And yes, I'm talking from experience)

If you aren't overweight, you don't get the sneers when you go out to eat or the comments, or the cracks. Today's our 34th wedding anniversary and my husband doesn't understand why I don't want to go out to eat. If I had any thought that it might be a pleasant experience, I'd go. But I know it won't. Hell, I don't even get OFFERED the food samples when shopping at Costco...even though I'd turn them down.

And yes, just as you and others have been (or even continue to be) accused of hyperbole when you say you expect food police, I've been saying for years that the attacks on smokers were just the opening salvo. I've contended that that was just the first step in the attempt to control people completely and that the next step would be to apply the same tactics used against tobacco to meat first and then to other foods. Quite frankly, this is one time I would have rather been wrong.

[ChazII]

20. No laughter from me.

Total agreement with your post.

[Angela Shelley]

6. ... it´s a xenophobic nation looking for an enemy.

[rug]

9. They'll have to pry my butter from my cold, slick hands.

[greenbriar]

11. they are none to skinny themselves

http://www.commonvoice.com/article.asp?colid=8151

[shraby]

12. I call these sorts of actions the "back of the bus syndrome"

Some people aren't happy unless they are shoving someone else to the back of the bus...Rosa Parks put a stop to this nonsense once, looks like it needs to be done again on all fronts.

[greenbriar]

31. yup

,

[TahitiNut]

13. We're on a collision course ... the Nanny State and Universal Health Care.

It can only get worse. The Dystopia is in sight.

[uppityperson]

15. Sounds like The Onion. And how will they decide who is obese? What discrimination suits will result?

Too funny and, while I understand the need to work on a serious health problem, well, too funny. Hmmm, maybe we can get a law saying don't sell tobacco to people who are coughing? Don't sell gas to people who are obese since walking would be good for them also. Perhaps each restauraunt will be fit with a sideways tape by the door, like mini-marts/gas stations have upright so staff can do a quick gut check on the way in? What if they refuse service to someone whose body fat index is .5 less than the officially mandated one? Can that person claim discrimination? I think music stores need to do hearing tests on people before they sell them music since it can harm their hearing if they play it too loudly. "hey you! you're too fat to eat here. you need to go buy your own food and eat it at home!" I have a bunion, wonder if I will still be allowed to buy shoes?

Oh too funny, thank you for this, perked up my morning.

[greenbriar]

18. I actually had to look to see if it was really real or a joke

I checked out several sites before posting

[uppityperson]

22. This is the best law of the year. Should get some sort of award.

[bobthedrummer]

17. For those of US that can still think reasonably well here's an archived

thread to consider where all these incremental "laws" have gone into historically, in this instance-The Weimar Republic.

"January 1, 1934: The Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring took effect" (started 1-1-2008)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2570336

[ChazII]

21. I missed this thread

thanks for sharing. Looks like my family would have been targeted for this program. :scared: and :grr: An I am not the only NFer here at DU.

[El Pinko]

19. This doesn't even make sense.

As a person who was 100 lbs overweight and lost it, I can tell you with some certainty that even being "on a diet", people still need to EAT. The solution to obesity is not to ban people from serving fat people. What if they serve them steamed broccoli?

Are they going to have to put a scale and weight measurement in front of the restaurant to determine BMI?

This is the stupidest thing I've ever read, but I have a feeling that even in Mississippi, this doesn't have a chance in hell of passing.

A much better way to help overweight people via restaurants would be for every dish to have the calorie and nutrition info on the menu, so that diners will know

when it has a whole day's worth of calories in the entree so that diners can make more informed choices.

[Sheltiemama]

26. In an area of the country ...

... where dressing is considered a vegetable, I'd say those numbers on obesity are low.

(I'm not kidding. Some eateries in the South list dressing as a vegetable. As for me, I'd gladly skip the turkey as long as my mother makes her cornbread dressing.)

And God help the poor server who gets between a Southerner and his sausage biscuits.

Perhaps the legislators' time would be better spent working on ... oh, I don't know ... education? (No offense, Mississippi posters. I'm right down there at the bottom with you in Tennessee.)

[AZBlue]

28. This is insane.

Thanks for the info.

[greenbriar]

29. it is

what next