Marty Diet

For lunch yesterday I ran through a Wendy's drive through. Okay, all right, I did not run. They frown on that. I drove my new old van. But you get the point.

As I typically do, I ordered far too much food. It was the Baconator meal, large size. Now here comes a joke for you to make, a fat pitch I'm quite confident you can drill over the fence. The one in the deepest regions of the ballpark in fact. I can even see the eye rolls which will accompany what you're about to read. It's okay. Swing at the fat pitch and roll those eyes. I would. I know Ron would.

Baconators have all that stuff which is no good for you. Most doctors say don't eat it; I'm certain mine would. Two quarter pound pieces of red meat on a huge buttered bun with gloriously melted cheese, a large fries along with it, topped with gallons of ketchup and mayo. And bacon, of course. Salty, crispy, yummy bacon. 

My drink? A Diet Coke.

It was too much food. I don't know the calorie count and I don't care. Too much. But I order Diet Coke with such blatantly bad food because I like the taste. Honest. And, full disclosure, I suppose it does help ameliorate the calories. Somewhat. But I genuinely like the taste.

Did you just roll your eyes at me?

The Devil's in the Details

Back in the 1970s and 1980s there was a wonderful Professor of Philosophy at the University of Detroit named Dr. Carlo Grassi. He was one of those teachers who made you want to learn simply by his own excitement about the subject. Perhaps that is why we think of him now; but that is also a point for another time. Right now we want to consider one question which he frequently asked. He didn't really ask it in search of an answer; it was a question meant to provoke thought. And that it did quite well. The question was: as government takes over more and more charitable works and taxes us to pay for them, how responsible does that leave the person for being charitable?

The most obvious inference, and one he readily conceded, is that it lessens the person's obligation to help others. We're biased, perhaps, but we agree with that. The next question becomes, is that a good thing?

Do we really care for people when we ask (and increasingly demand) that someone else, not me, of course, but, in this case, the government, do what we ought to do ourselves? What kind of person will that make us? Will we become more considerate, more, ahem, charitable, in our dealings? Our will we become less truly concerned with others, because someone else should deal with them, another obvious inference in demanding government aid to whomever? Or worse, will we become actually more intolerant of them?

In that last point we can see why the left, who wants more government and less individual responsibility for caring for others, wants to limit trans fats and soda consumption. Now that their ally, the government, is paying for so many things and their taxes are footing the bill, then they have the right to monitor what people eat and drink. In short, in the name of helping the people, they begin to despise and terrorize them in the minutiae of their acts.

This is not to say that all government charitable works are evil. But it is to say that the devil's in the details. Do we like the details when governments being to assert that abortion is okay but you better not let yer kid have a 20 ounce Coke? Should we like them?

The devil is in the details. Chew on that for awhile, and then let's have a serious discussion about charity.