Dear Fat People

[VINYLONE]

"Fat acceptance is about being comfortable in your own body..."

 

[LogGrad98]

"Fat acceptance is about being comfortable in your own body..."

Or 4 bodies...

 

[default]

"Fat acceptance is about being comfortable in your own body..."

That is definitely not an example of a 30 BMI body, which I keep hearing as so obese that it is disgusting by posters in this thread. This man's BMI is MUCH MUCH higher (50+? 60+?).

 

[VINYLONE]

 

[jimmy eat jazz]

Well, simple minds, perhaps.

But this topic relates to something more complex. . . . habits, attitudes, conditioned behaviors. . . . even political agendas for driving social change or healthcare.

"Should X people be shamed?" What for? When? How? When people set out to enforce some ideal of society by imposing hate or shame, it rubs against other ideals, like personal rights.

I'd be more inclined to call the shamers bigots and use the term "shamer" as something worse than most of our epithets. Vinny has been asking me for examples of how "liberals" today are more intolerant than "conservatives". Those terms fail in this topic because "shamers" are in a sense the "conservatives" who want to use government to enforce a behavior code. It's a matter of who controls the rhetoric, not what the rhetoric really means.

"liberals" as some style themselves at the moment, are the ones pushing the agenda for more government power or more intolerance in this case.

I understand that when government assumes total control of health care, the idea is pretty much going to be assuming total control of all personal decisions and behaviors that might reasonably impose expenses to that healthcare budget.

Couch Potatos of the World!!!!! Unite!!!!! Reject intrusive government projecting an agenda of intolerance and hate against you!!!!!

Popaholics of the World!!!!! Unite!!!!! Defend your sippy cups and high-fructose addictions that enrich ArcherDanielsMidlands, whose railroad cars full of high fructose corn syrup are responsible for the modern obesity and diabetes epidemic!!!!!!

Well, I don't want to pay for the health care of ignorant folks who can't be reasoned with about good health practices, so I don't hold with national, single-payer, or in fact any government involvement in health care. If you want to help the poor, put your own money up for it, and fund your own charity. And I think "liberals" do use "hate" to push their ideals.

I'd like to reason with those "liberals" a bit. Why not get up a drive to sue Archer Daniels Midland corporation and other food cartels and make them pay for the obesity and diabetes they cause?

Nope. . . . Nope. . . . No way. . . .. That wouldn't do anything to make government more powerful, and there'd be no personal jollies in that. You really do like to tell others they are lesser humans. . . . .

Liberals today are intolerant bigots who hate anyone who doesn't buy their load. But I love ya, anyway. You are so much fun to shame.

Just out of curiosity, who on this board is claiming that liberals don't have their fair share of narrow minded, fanatical knuckleheads.

A difference of note, however, between intolerant liberals and intolerant conservatives (very generally speaking) is that only one of these groups has over the last 100 years or so fought against, and continue to fight against, extending Constitutional rights, along with basic civil liberties, to all citizens.

Etc.

By the way, I'm interested in your evidence that liberals are more intolerant toward fatties than conservatives.

Also, aside from a few kooks, where precisely is the upswelling of liberal support for laws that regulate what fat people may ingest or otherwise regulate their behavior? (Meanwhile, conservatives are passing laws regulating what poor people may eat or do with their money.)

 

[LogGrad98]

Just out of curiosity, who on this board is claiming that liberals don't have their fair share of narrow minded, fanatical knuckleheads.

A difference of note, however, between intolerant liberals and intolerant conservatives (very generally speaking) is that only one of these groups has over the last 100 years or so fought against, and continue to fight against, extending Constitutional rights, along with basic civil liberties, to all citizens.

Etc.

By the way, I'm interested in your evidence that liberals are more intolerant toward fatties than conservatives.

Also, aside from a few kooks, where precisely is the upswelling of liberal support for laws that regulate what fat people may ingest or otherwise regulate their behavior? (Meanwhile, conservatives are passing laws regulating what poor people may eat or do with their money.)

In babe's defense, often on this board when we get into political discussions it ends up with certain vocal posters spewing the typical "dems are everything Good in the world, repubs are all the slime of the earth and evil and should be killed on sight" and vice versa.

 

[babe]

Just out of curiosity, who on this board is claiming that liberals don't have their fair share of narrow minded, fanatical knuckleheads.

A difference of note, however, between intolerant liberals and intolerant conservatives (very generally speaking) is that only one of these groups has over the last 100 years or so fought against, and continue to fight against, extending Constitutional rights, along with basic civil liberties, to all citizens.

Etc.

By the way, I'm interested in your evidence that liberals are more intolerant toward fatties than conservatives.

Also, aside from a few kooks, where precisely is the upswelling of liberal support for laws that regulate what fat people may ingest or otherwise regulate their behavior? (Meanwhile, conservatives are passing laws regulating what poor people may eat or do with their money.)

I thought it was pretty much common knowledge what sorts of groups or classes of thinkers, are pushing for the veggie school lunches(Michelle Obama), or the soda pop bans, or the war on twinkies. I don't have a special hatred for "liberal" stupidity, I hate conservative stupidity as well. I take it you refer to "conservatives" who don't want food stamps being used to purchase cigarettes and alcohol, or to buy lottery tickets. Well, I'm actually ignorant of the food stamp issues. We have a lot of people on food stamps now, more than relied on the soup kitchens in the great depression. I think conservatives who quibble about issues like this are missing the point, and are ineffective in addressing the issues of our economy.

Politically, they would be wise to move on to other issues. Let the voters see what food stamps are used for, and think what they will. Dems will take the heat. But the real issue is corporate lobby power, and if you want me to call someone a good politician, I'll have to see the evidence that they do not rely on corporate contributions nor listen to corporate lobbyists. I think we have, effectively, a one-party system, and the right name for it is "The Corporate Party".

What we need to do is restore equal rights for human beings in our political life.

 

[jimmy eat jazz]

I thought it was pretty much common knowledge what sorts of groups or classes of thinkers, are pushing for the veggie school lunches(Michelle Obama), or the soda pop bans, or the war on twinkies. I don't have a special hatred for "liberal" stupidity, I hate conservative stupidity as well. I take it you refer to "conservatives" who don't want food stamps being used to purchase cigarettes and alcohol, or to buy lottery tickets. Well, I'm actually ignorant of the food stamp issues. We have a lot of people on food stamps now, more than relied on the soup kitchens in the great depression. I think conservatives who quibble about issues like this are missing the point, and are ineffective in addressing the issues of our economy.

Politically, they would be wise to move on to other issues. Let the voters see what food stamps are used for, and think what they will. Dems will take the heat. But the real issue is corporate lobby power, and if you want me to call someone a good politician, I'll have to see the evidence that they do not rely on corporate contributions nor listen to corporate lobbyists. I think we have, effectively, a one-party system, and the right name for it is "The Corporate Party".

What we need to do is restore equal rights for human beings in our political life.

Personally, I have no problem for the state to have a say in what types of food are dispensed at public schools. I don't see that as a liberal/conservative issue but a common sense, public health issue. For example, if a school district or state decides it won't dispense sugary food with little to no nutritional benefit in public schools, I hardly see that as an egregious infringement on personal liberty. Students are perfectly free to buy crap food on their own time. I believe that the state is well within its reasonable rights to determine, as a matter of public health, what food it will serve children under its care.

Anyhoo, I do agree that that we are increasingly becoming the government of, by and for the corporations, and Citizen's United (a towering hallmark of conservative legal reasoning) will only make this more and more so.

Did you every watch the original Rollerball with James Caan (not the dumb remake)? The premise there, if I remember correctly, was that corporations had pretty much taken over the world, and James Caan used Rollerball to stick it to the corporate man. While that premise is a bit far fetched, it's becoming closer to reality.

Brother, you and I are walking metaphorically arm in arm down the road in protest of the power corporations have over our policies and our lives. To me, the power of corporations is a very worrisome thing.

 

[RandyForRubio]

Telling students what they can or cannot eat with government given money = acceptable

Telling grown adults what they can or cannot purchase with government given money = not acceptable

Makes sense.

 

[b_line]

That is definitely not an example of a 30 BMI body, which I keep hearing as so obese that it is disgusting by posters in this thread. This man's BMI is MUCH MUCH higher (50+? 60+?).

Yeah this guy is clearly far beyond a 30 bmi.

 

[jimmy eat jazz]

Telling students what they can or cannot eat with government given money = acceptable

Telling grown adults what they can or cannot purchase with government given money = not acceptable

Makes sense.

It's not government money, it's their money. Once it is dispensed to them, it is no longer the government's.

That said, I don't necessarily have a problem with setting some guidelines on how vouchers or quasi-money can be spent (e.g., food stamps), but if the assistance is in the form of $$ itself, then once the $$ transfers to the possession of beneficiary, it is their money, and they ought to be free to spend it how they please.

What I particularly abhorrent about the recent law in Kansas, and other conservative initiatives to dictate how public assistance can be spent, is that they are NOT motivated by prudent fiscal conservatism but by mean-spirited attacks on the poor, which are based in the worst kind of negative stereotypes (e.g., takers, welfare queens).

If, those pushing these laws had actual, good evidence that abuse of public assistance were systematic and rampant, then it's a different matter, but they don't. It's a solution to a non-existent problem, just like voter ID laws supported for other, more nefarious, reasons. It is a mean spirited attack on a vulnerable and politically weak segment of society. For that reason, I oppose them.

Yet the many of the same people are continually seeking to hand out ever more financial bene's to the wealthy based on the most rose colored stereotypes about the virtues of the "job creators."

 

[RandyForRubio]

So you don't think the people supplying the money should be allowed to have some say in what that money is used for? Cause personally, I don't want money from my taxes going to cigarettes or alcohol, or even junk food for that matter. I would like my money to be used wisely, so that the people it's going to are helped more than not. Maybe I'm just a prick who hates poor people though.

 

[jimmy eat jazz]

So you don't think the people supplying the money should be allowed to have some say in what that money is used for? Cause personally, I don't want money from my taxes going to cigarettes or alcohol, or even junk food for that matter. I would like my money to be used wisely, so that the people it's going to are helped more than not. Maybe I'm just a prick who hates poor people though.

I have my preferences about how they spend they spend public assistance. But, IF, the assistance is in the form of a direct cash transfer, than once it's transferred, it is their money, and my preferences are no longer relevant.

Again, if the transfer is in the form of a voucher or quasi-money, then I am not opposed to reasonable restrictions on how it can be used.

I understand very much the concern about welfare fraud/waste (hell, I used to be a card carrying conservative and wrote much of my dissertation listening to Rush Limbaugh), but I am not convinced it is a systematic problem. Sure, there are some people that abuse it, but some people abuse any system, gaming systems is hard wired into humans, it seems. The question to me is not whether some people are abusing the system (this should be taken as a given), but where the abuse is systematic. Show me evidence that it is, then we can talk. Meanwhile, I'll resist the temptation to engage in demeaning and stigmatizing the poor.

From a more philosophical position, I find curious the sentiment that IF someone is on public assistance, it requires them to live the most absolutely spartan type of lifestyle. They are poor, and they damned well better act it.

Where's the line? I'm not sure. Spending public assistance on cruise ships or other obvious luxury goods crosses it. I don't know were the line is, but I'm not willing to draw it at spartan penury.

 

[RandyForRubio]

It's not demeaning or stigmatizing people, it's about using my tax money efficiently. Using it to its best value. If I am to consider my tax money as an investment to better the quality of living for somebody, then I want to see the best return possible, and if we can help to get the best return, then we would be foolish not to.

 

[Gameface]

So you don't think the people supplying the money should be allowed to have some say in what that money is used for? Cause personally, I don't want money from my taxes going to cigarettes or alcohol, or even junk food for that matter. I would like my money to be used wisely, so that the people it's going to are helped more than not. Maybe I'm just a prick who hates poor people though.

They aren't allowed to buy steak or seafood. Both are healthy food options.

So now I guess they can buy some hamburger and a box of hamburger helper if they want to splurge.

The amount of money they get is not enough to live it up on the regular so if they can squeeze in a steak or fish filet now and then I don't see the problem with that.

So to me the move is more to say that they shouldn't have nice things than anything else.

 

[RandyForRubio]

They aren't allowed to buy steak or seafood. Both are healthy food options.

So now I guess they can buy some hamburger and a box of hamburger helper if they want to splurge.

The amount of money they get is not enough to live it up on the regular so if they can squeeze in a steak or fish filet now and then I don't see the problem with that.

So to me the move is more to say that they shouldn't have nice things than anything else.

Oh I agree, if they wanna splurge and buy a steak, go for it. I don't think it would be a wise habit, but I would find that fine. I just don't want them buying cigs, booze, etc.

 

[jimmy eat jazz]

It's not demeaning or stigmatizing people, it's about using my tax money efficiently. Using it to its best value. If I am to consider my tax money as an investment to better the quality of living for somebody, then I want to see the best return possible, and if we can help to get the best return, then we would be foolish not to.

Really?? What is the evidence that the poor are systematically abusing public assistance?

What are the assumptions underlying these policies about the nature of poor people on public assistance?

You really don't believe that the policy and underlying assumptions reflect a highly negative stereotype of the poor?

REally??

 

[RandyForRubio]

Point out where I've accused the poor of taking advantage of the system. You're imagining things that aren't there.

These are just regulations to make sure our tax money is being spent wisely. I would do the same for every subsidy, make sure the money is being used for what it's supposed to be.

If people honestly get offended by that, then they have issues.

 

[jimmy eat jazz]

Point out where I've accused the poor of taking advantage of the system. You're imagining things that aren't there.

These are just regulations to make sure our tax money is being spent wisely. I would do the same for every subsidy, make sure the money is being used for what it's supposed to be.

If people honestly get offended by that, then they have issues.

I don't know that you have explicitly, but, if you support the laws, such as in Kansas, that restrict what poor people can do with public assistance (and based on base stereotypes of poor people), why would you support them, unless you believe that the poor are taking advantage of the system. If they are not, why are the laws necessary?

I'm not offended by any of that (one might argue that you are imagining things that aren't there).

As a general question, then, why are laws necessary to prevent a problem if the problem doesn't exist?

Also, you still haven't answered my question about what assumptions you think that the law in Kansas makes about the poor on public assistance.

Further, how are these assumptions not demeaning?

 

[RandyForRubio]

I don't know that you have explicitly, but, if you support the laws, such as in Kansas, that restrict what poor people can do with public assistance (and based on base stereotypes of poor people), why would you support them, unless you believe that the poor are taking advantage of the system. If they are not, why are the laws necessary?

I'm not offended by any of that (one might argue that you are imagining things that aren't there).

As a general question, then, why are laws necessary to prevent a problem if the problem doesn't exist?

Also, you still haven't answered my question about what assumptions you think that the law in Kansas makes about the poor on public assistance.

Further, how are these assumptions not demeaning?

1) Yes, you do know that I haven't because you're capable of reading.

2) I haven't mentioned anything about the Kansas law, which I know little about. I'm explaining what I would do.

3) I was not implying you were offended. I was talking about how you insinuated the people receiving assistance would be offended, and how I thought that was ridiculous.

4) You never previously asked me about the Kansas law. I can't answer a question that hasn't been asked.

5) Again, they aren't assumptions. They are merely aids to help make sure money is spent wisely. By your logic, minimum wage assumes every business owner is a greedy *******. Setting a maximum wage assumes every business owner is a greedy *******. Should they be offended by that? We can't not make laws because somebody might be offended.