Thousands of years ago, food was eaten to survive. A lot has
happened in recent decades. Corporations, in all their greed, have
turned eating into a national pastime by making food that actually
tastes good.
But today, food is even more than a pastime ““ it’s a
national treasure. Food is a psychologist to many, an employer to
some and an avenue to power for a few.
To put it more honestly, a bunch of people have eaten like pigs,
gotten fat, and hired lawyers. The lawyers have filed asinine
lawsuits against corporations for selling their clients food. This
skullduggery naturally has gathered the attention of elitist
politicians who have passed legislation to regulate (and now we
arrive at that awe-inspiring term) “corporate
America.”
In 2002, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of a few obese teenagers
that charged that McDonald’s was responsible for making them
fat. The mother of the plaintiff confessed, “(I had) always
believed that McDonald’s was healthy for my son.”
Earlier this year, filmmaker-buffoon Morgan Spurlock revealed,
in an insightful new documentary called “Super Size
Me,” that gorging violently on a fast food diet and staying
sedentary are not good life choices. And so, by some twisted logic,
fast food is the problem ““ not the life choices.
Just last week, news arrived that British lawmakers plan to ban
junk food advertisements from the airwaves before 9 p.m. But Health
Secretary Dr. John Reid is taking the fight against obesity one
step further. He will threaten food manufacturers and advertisers
with new legislation should they refuse to comply with a voluntary
code, which will involve new food-labeling methods.
Of course, I have nothing against fat people. I happen to be
pitifully overweight myself. And I do recognize that there are some
good reasons to be so. There is a convincing dignity in the
corpulent stomach of a seasoned politician and an unmistakable
authority in the rich belly of a mob boss.
But for those of us who use these images as excuses rather than
ideals, we have to rethink our lifestyles and do something about
it.
And by something, I don’t mean eating more, lying about
knowing the consequences of eating more, and filing egregious
lawsuits to take the place of making money legitimately. As
legitimately, for example, as McDonald’s.
It is difficult to pass judgment on the fatsoes who continue to
file lawsuits against fast food chains because they fall into so
many different categories. Some, I suspect, are
decent-but-somewhat-opportunistic Americans who are lured by the
promises of slimy lawyers. Others though are simply wicked,
self-loathing masochistic parasites. And perhaps a few of them have
spoiled brains and can’t really be blamed for making spoiled
decisions.
But it is all too easy to pass judgment on lawyers because they
are not clinically insane, and their motives are crystal clear.
They’re after money, and they’ll do anything to get it.
Enormous successes in lawsuits against cigarette companies have
given them the incentive. Self-abusive clients have given them
their victims. America has given them the opportunity.
Then there are the politicians ““ like Democratic New York
State Assemblyman Felix Ortiz who proposed in 2003 six
“anti-obesity” bills that would, according to the
Washington Post, “tax not only fatty foods but also modern
icons of sedentary living ““ movie tickets, video games and
DVD rentals ““ and use the resulting $50 million for nutrition
and exercise programs.”
Ortiz and fellow democrats hope to solve the problem of obesity
by sticking their painfully visible hand into the harmonious
transactions of the free market. Perhaps they take example from the
low obesity rates in Kolyma and Auschwitz.
And these are liberals! The same people who declare with such
moral confidence that the importance of free choice is enough to
ditch the millennia-old institution of marriage as a contract
between man and woman turn around and argue that free choice is not
enough to justify a simple trade between money and food.
The same people who contend that abortion is a matter of
personal choice come to the opposite conclusion when dealing with
the far less medically and morally controversial relationship
between restaurant and customer.
Why is there this vast disparity in standards? In short, because
there exists among liberals a knee-jerk reaction against corporate
America. If corporate America stood to benefit from gay marriage or
abortion, be assured that liberals would oppose them with the same
passion with which they support them now.
They hate corporate America because it tells the successes of
capitalism.
Fortunately, help is on its way. So far, 12 states have passed
laws to stop frivolous lawsuits against the food industry that have
to do with weight gain ““ and several other states are
considering similar laws.
But this help is accompanied by a sad realization ““ that
common sense is dead in America; that people need to be told what
it means to be free; that the greed of lawyers and the power-lust
of politicians can conquer even the greatest systems of government;
and that Americans just don’t get that they can’t eat
their Big Macs, have it, and have yours too.
Hovannisian is a second-year history and philosophy student.
E-mail him at ghovannisian@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to
viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.