Filed under: Freedom, Politics, Progressivism | Tags: Food Nannies, Multiculturalism, San Francisco
Democrats think you are dumb. Or at least a lot dumber than they are. They think you are too unintelligent to get along in the world without their guidance and care. They are so sure that you need their expertise that they are developing a vast catalogue of rules and regulations to control your lives.
New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg (yes I know he is temporarily a Republican, but he is a liberal through and through) has banned smoking and transfats, and is now waging war against the demon salt. (There is no evidence that transfats are bad for you).
The United States Congress is interested in telling the nation’s schools what they can and cannot serve in school cafeterias. If they have their way, the U.S. Agriculture Department would be given the authority to regulate all food sold in schools, including in vending machines — when Congress renews their child nutrition programs. You can lead a child to a tofu hot dog, but you can’t make him eat it.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom (candidate for governor) has banned spending any money to buy bottled water and mandated composting citywide. Now he has issued an executive directive that gives city departments six months to conduct an audit of unused land — empty lots, rooftops, windowsills and median strips — that could be turned into community gardens or farms that could grow food for residents. Citizens could work the farms or purchase the fresh produce.
And effective at once, city workers may no longer make runs to the donut shop before meetings and conferences. A new ordinance will mandate that food served in city jails, hospitals, homeless shelters and community centers must be healthy.
Guidelines will include cutting bagels into halves or quarters so people can take smaller portions, and serving vegetables instead of potato chips.
As one wag commented, he thought most San Franciscans were already doing a lot of farming, but it was going on in closets with grow lights. Can you imagine the lead content of the veggies grown on median strips?
Republicans believe that you are perfectly capable of running your own life without guidance from city mayors or busybodies in Congress. They believe that you can probably decide what you want your children to eat as well.
Mayor Newsom’s administration provided directives for “healthy” and “sustainable”. (Could we please drop that bologna word?)
- Safe and healthy: No pesticides, high nutritional value.
- Culturally acceptable: Chinese veggies for the Chinese, multicultural and religiously acceptable veggies for SF’s diverse population.
- Sustainable: At last, a definition — use manure, not chemical fertilizer. Yep, manure. That’s appropriate.
Filed under: Foreign Policy, Latin America | Tags: Central America, Democrat Demagogues
President Obama seems to have an unusual knack for getting the big foreign policy things wrong. Does his staff do a poor job of briefing him? Does he make up his mind too quickly before he has all the facts, or does he think the facts unnecessary? Is he too unfamiliar with history to make good judgments?
His response to the situation in Honduras is a case in point. He quickly said:
America cannot and should not seek to impose any system of government on any other country, nor would we presume to choose which party or individual should run a country…And we haven’t always done what we should have on that front. Even as we meet here today, America supports now the restoration of the democratically elected president of Honduras, even though he has strongly opposed American policies.
Arturo Valenzuela, Obama’s nominee to be Assistant Secretary of State, falsely claims that it was an illegal “coup” for Honduras to remove its corrupt would-be dictator, President Mel Zelaya, even though Honduran courts said it was perfectly legal. Obama has sided with Venezuelan dictator Chavez and Cuban dictator Castro in demanding that Zelaya be reinstated.
The Honduran president forfeited his right to the office under Article 239 of the Honduran Constitution, which bans presidents from holding office if they even propose to alter the constitutional term limits for presidents, according to Hans Bader, senior counsel at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The Honduran military, acting under the orders of the Honduran Supreme Court, expressly had the right to remove the president under Article 272 of the Honduran Constitution.
What Obama really seems to mean is that presidents, once elected, have a complete right to rule their subjects, to ignore their country’s constitution, as Zelaya did, without being subject to removal. “It sounds,” Mr Bader said,” like the ‘divine right’ to rule.”
I’m not at all sure that Americans care to have their president lining up with communist thugs like Castro and Chavez. Nor, I suspect, do they care much for Obama’s notion that a president’s job is to “rule.” The idea here is to “serve.”
Central and South American countries are a little more sensitive than we are, to presidents who attempt to turn an election into a mandate for permanent control, and their constitutions understandably reflect that prejudice.
American Elephants 