"Childhood obesity isn't just a public health threat, it's not just an economic threat, it's a national security threat as well.... We can't just leave it up to the parents." --Michelle ObamaIt turns out there are a whole lot of things that the government does leave up to the parents, and these are things that can directly affect a child's quality of life. For example, most states have a "personal belief" exemption for vaccinations. (Whether I agree or not with choosing not to vaccinate is not the point. The point is, we leave it up to the parents.) We don't make parents teach their children to swim. We don't make them go to school (although we do require schooling of one kind or another). We don't make parents take their children to the doctor for regular checkups.
Educating parents is good. Encouraging the behavior you want is fine.
The phrase "We can't just leave it up to the parents" is not okay.
When I saw (or think) "I can't leave it up to person X", that generally means I don't think person X is competent enough to accomplish the task. This is not how the government should consider the parents of America.
So how, exactly, is the government going to ameliorate this "national security threat" of childhood obesity? I don't know, and I don't want to know. It's a terrible (and frightening) precedent to set.
The problem is...how do they do that? Are all children going to be removed from their parents at birth and raised in government institutes? It drives me nuts when ANYONE talks like this. It's the same sort of thing that I have problems with with Obamacare. Where does the government get the idea that they have the right to tell me these kinds of things. I nearly cheered when I read yesterday that the federal judge declared that the government doesn't have the right to require us to carry insurance. I think people should have insurance but doen't think it's the governments job to force us!
ReplyDeleteOh my....
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