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I am not against what you wrote here CrazyDonkey. I'm aware that you ultimately want to better society and help with the health crisis we are facing. However, we disagree on the means to achieve this. I do not believe in the government controlling and taxing everything they deem unhealthy is the solution. It didn't work in prohibition and it won't work now. Where it's a tax, ban or monitoring what people consume.
If the government wants to truly help people, they will raise awareness and it has proven successful. People have not quit smoking because of the tax on cigarettes. It is the fact that most people realize how it is a serious health risk and it has been well documented the consequences of smoking. You say there is no proven evidence about the risks of EMFs/RFs, yet have seen firsthand what excessive low-level EMF exposure can do and I would not doubt that your cousin died from soaking in constant RF/EMF radiation from her phone. However, Motorola and many other large corporations that make a lot of money on EMF/RF emitting devices spent a good amount of money and help fund politicians to suppress research on the risks of EMF/RF exposure. And , the supposedly low-level RF/EMF exposure is not as low-level as it use to be, Wireless-N routers have lot of juice. As well, those giant cell towers you see every way are emitting a considerable amount of microwave radiation and they put them right next to school and on top of apartment complexes. Now, have a child who spends a good amount of time with their developing brains next to these devices and it will affect them much more, especially later in life.
Oh, by the way, what about a ban or tax on seafood products? Considering how polluted our oceans, lakes and rivers are with contaminants, including nuclear waste, I think you are better off drinking Coca Cola than eating the fish out of the ocean we have today. Why they don't test fish for PCBs/mercury contamination is beyond me. I think seafood has contributed to a great deal of the cancer, auto-immune diseases, like Parkinsons, Autism, etc. Why is the city of Seattle not imposing a fish tax, considering the health risks? My cousin who was an avid fish eater had a miscarriage thanks to eating too much fish while pregnant.
Diet Sodas are actually more toxic than Sugared sodas.. If I had to choose between the two (I don't) I would go with sugared soda. Stevia would be excluded, although stevia has been proven to cause some reproductive issues, but still healthier alternative. Sucralose/Splenda, Saccharin, Nutrasweet/Aspartame are some of the most toxic substances on this earth that have been approved by the FDA for food consumption. Splenda use to be used as bug poison.
My point is, where does this Big Mommy Nanny state end? Should we just regulate everything? Maybe, if we lived in a Matrix like society where we are all programmed to think and act in a certain manner and taken care of by a greater governing authority everything in life would be absolutely perfect? Is that your definition of utopia? Not mine.
I'm not a believer in either/or politics. Left-Right is only one political axis; Authority-Liberty is the other. Both are continuums, not absolute opposites. Neither is equatable to Good-Evil. I call myself a Left-Libertarian, but don't believe that either the Right (Conservatism) or Authority (Moral/State Rule) has no merit; I take you to be a Right-Libertarian (although you seem to be dealing in absolute oppositions, rather than relative sliding-scales, if you will). (A society with no liberty is a prison; a society with no authority is a madhouse.) I am also only partly sympathetic to Left-Authoritarians, who along with Right-Authoritarians, with whom I am entirely unsympathetic, believe in prohibitions, censorship, and police states. I don't take these four standpoints to be separate categories, but rather as inter-related dispositions that we are as likely to intuitively inherit as rationally adopt. Politics are largely formed in the cradle (Stevenson and Truman were in mine).
I am not a Marxist, but a Nietzschean:
Quote:
Whispered to the conservatives. — What was not known formerly, what is known, or might be known, today: a reversion, a return in any sense or degree is simply not possible. We physiologists know that. Yet all priests and moralists have believed the opposite — they wanted to take mankind back, to screw it back, to a former measure of virtue. Morality was always a bed of Procrustes. Even the politicians have aped the preachers of virtue at this point: today too there are still parties whose dream it is that all things might walk backwards like crabs. But no one is free to be a crab. Nothing avails: one must go forward — step by step further into decadence (that is my definition of modern “progress”). One can check this development and thus dam up degeneration, gather it and make it more vehement and sudden: one can do no more.
Nietzsche's thinking cuts across categories, and not just political ones. Even "decadence", on the surface a highly anti-liberal concept, is riven by irony, all the way through. He freely acknowledged that he too was...a decadent. History is decadence...
Note, my router is about ten feet away, not slapped against my ear. As I said, you're making a false equivalence, nor is that the only one. I'm neither a purist nor a puritan. I'm no ideologue, but a realist and pragmaticist (Nietzsche and Peirce, but not James, meld together almost seamlessly).
Last edited by CrazyDonkey; 01-09-2018 at 05:41 PM..
Right, the industry will suffer dearly.. Evil Kombucha makers.. Shame on them.. Democracy works by a bunch of politicians making bold and noble promises as a means to extort money from their voters, enrich themselves from their lobbyists and coffers and build up their prestige and financial prowess. Name one politician who left their office poorer than they came in, despite giving up their careers to become a politician, which essentially is a much more profitable career for many of them.
How about allowing adults to make their own decisions, while we are at it? Or, do you think I need Big Mommy to watch over me and tax me when she thinks I am misbehaving. Why not just give me a spanking , rather than strip me of my hard earned money? Or, how about spending some of the money she has for those fancy cocktail parties and 5 star hotels on building organic greenhouses throughout the area like they do in Europe. These same bleeding hearts who claim they care about health do actively nothing effective except tax the poor and enrich themselves off their blood in the name of "health and wellness".
Just like how they are going to solve our transportation woes by taxing us to death on a high speed rail system that will probably never be built. Just look at the last example of our tax money being used well with the Amtrak crash.
This isn't about healthier alternatives. These government goons have not only taxed sugary and unhealthy beverages, but have also taxed healthy beverages and other health products that can promote weight loss and aid healing. If this was about health and wellness, they would not be taxing nutritional supplements and healthy foods as they do. THink about it, in the state of Washington all health supplements are still taxed around 10%.. And, these liberal frauds are really fooling all their voters to think that the yare protecting your health and wellness!
Why don't they tax bread and pasta? Sodas are a big problem for children, but most adults are not getting fat on soda as much as starch and carbohydrates. Let's tax all food, that Big Mommy deems unacceptable to make us behave properly.
The genius, Progressive Democrats passed a Soda Tax (all drinks with sugar, including fruit juice) in Philadelpha. The result of this has been a lot of people going outside the city for their drinks, as well as their other groceries in some cases. Due to the reduced demand in the city there have been layoffs in distributors, and suppliers. I don't drink soda, nor live within the city limits, but I feel badly for the people that were impacted.
The genius, Progressive Democrats passed a Soda Tax (all drinks with sugar, including fruit juice) in Philadelpha. The result of this has been a lot of people going outside the city for their drinks, as well as their other groceries in some cases. Due to the reduced demand in the city there have been layoffs in distributors, and suppliers. I don't drink soda, nor live within the city limits, but I feel badly for the people that were impacted.
I saw the numbers from Philly, and it seems that the increase of sales outside the City was less than the decrease in the City, so a net decrease of sales and presumably consumption--which FWIW is the stated goal.
What I suspect will happen is the market will quickly adjust, this is not going to cause a mass closure of eateries or grocery stores or bodegas in Seattle. For example, fast food places could sell a smaller size for the same prices or push non taxed alternatives. I can see them pushing bottled water instead of tap, for instance. Some people might "trade up" for a beer rather than a soda with dinner. Drinks at eateries are already so massively marked up so there is some leeway. Whether it eventually gets repealed might depend more on politics than economics or even public health.
I am as liberal as you can get and I do not like this tax . I don't even drink soda. No one should tell anyone ( besides your parents or your Dr. what you can and cannot eat . We all know the risks by this age . If you are able to particiate in this forum you already know all the risks . From soda to those medications with 5000 side effects they show on TV, that really only your Dr is in any position to make that decision .
People should not be all lumped together by political persuasion .
BTW Liberals are not by definition fascists. It is the conservatives. You should know this .
The bolded portion of your post indicates to me that you need to review certain political definitions, which are often sloppily used nowadays.
Conservative - In America, someone who supports limited government (smaller than current levels). The label conservative does not denote anything regarding social positions. Many nowadays try use the typical smears of: bigot, racist, homophobe, etc. But most conservatives are in favor of limited government, and take a variety of social positions. That can be verified through Pew Research data.
Liberal - Do you mean classical liberal (today often called libertarians; this label also applies to the great majority of conservatives) or left-leaning progressive? Progressives favor wealth redistribution and big government programs. I suspect you mean a progressive when you say you're a "liberal," as that is the common contemporary usage of the term.
BTW, fascists have more in common with modern American progressives than American conservatives. Fascists such as the most common example, the Nazi party, wanted a very large and intrusive government that interfered in most aspects of the citizenry's life. Remember, Nazi is just an acronym for the "The National Socialist German Workers' Party."
I don't think that not drinking sugary sodas is a hardship. There are plenty of alternatives, including one glaringly unhealthy one - Kool-Aid (just add your own sugar, although nothing says you can't add Stevia). One thing that is clear is that we are suffering from an epidemic of obesity and related diseases, and increasingly to an alarming degree among children and adolescents. Until a better way to address this problem is proposed, I'm going to give this tax a chance to make a difference.
I do think that taxes, specifically and in general, can be too high or too low, and that some things should not be taxed at all (food). Whether the rates for this tax are in the "Goldilocks zone" or not, we'll just have to wait and see.
The bolded portion of your post indicates to me that you need to review certain political definitions, which are often sloppily used nowadays.
Conservative - In America, someone who supports limited government (smaller than current levels). The label conservative does not denote anything regarding social positions. Many nowadays try use the typical smears of: bigot, racist, homophobe, etc. But most conservatives are in favor of limited government, and take a variety of social positions. That can be verified through Pew Research data.
Liberal - Do you mean classical liberal (today often called libertarians; this label also applies to the great majority of conservatives) or left-leaning progressive? Progressives favor wealth redistribution and big government programs. I suspect you mean a progressive when you say you're a "liberal," as that is the common contemporary usage of the term.
BTW, fascists have more in common with modern American progressives than American conservatives. Fascists such as the most common example, the Nazi party, wanted a very large and intrusive government that interfered in most aspects of the citizenry's life. Remember, Nazi is just an acronym for the "The National Socialist German Workers' Party."
Thank you Peer 79.
You're 100% correct with your statement. Many Progressive Americans love calling anybody who don't agree with them a Fascist, when in fact, they are, as noted by you, far closer to this term than most Conservitive Americans since the left prefer to let the government control most aspects of our lives, which to me, isn't very "American," IMHO.
As for this unfair Soda Tax, it appears that many who supported it are now "feeling" the sting of our Centralized Government" in Seattle's city hall. Most of my family members are very-very liberal and it was somewhat comical when all of them started to complain how unfair this tax was since it was costing "them" more money, which was coming out of their own pockets. One of them was actually complaining very loudly that her Cranberry juice (cocktail) was also being taxed. She thought that it was only for sodas and that the tax was going to be paid by the "evil" soda-pop corporations... And that ALL the money that was collected from this tax was going to help feed the poor. I love her dearly, but I enjoy hearing her complain how unfair this tax is now!!
Many of my family members living in the Seattle/Tacoma area are still stunned on how much it cost them to register their own Vehicles for one year.
I truly believe that even the most liberal, non-millionaire, person in Seattle/King County will freak out over the next proposed tax on whatever.
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