Junk Food Junkies

Under new guidelines from the United States Department of Agriculture, schools will have to offer healthier snacks beginning with the 2014-2015 school year. The regulations, titled 'Smart Snacks for Schools' basically eliminate junk foods from school cafeterias and vending machines.

This is an assault on freedom, plain and simple. Does that sound like hyperbole? Well, it isn't. If parents don't mind their kids eating whatever they want, providing it isn't immediately dangerous or stupid, then it isn't any business of government. Especially the federal Department of Agriculture; aren't they supposed to be concerned with the quality of food products as they are produced and sold rather than with who consumes them? Even that is more of a threat than people realize, but it at least allows, for now, those who want salty snacks to have them.

It is or will be argued that it is in the best interests of the nation to do this. To be fair, that might be true. A healthier people would be a better people. Yet when people are, not quite compelled, yes, but certainly stigmatized by an agent of government to eat yogurt or granola rather than Fritos, are we really that far from being told that if you don't eat right, no health care for you?

That's the real threat: small and almost innocuous encouragement now (eat fruit) can develop into you don't get the best medical care you can when you're 50 because your high blood pressure is your fault you moron and the rest of us (society) don't have to help you.

The solution? Private schools and private health care. If someone wants to eat poorly yet can be encouraged through a market approach to take better care of themselves by simply allowing medical insurers to charge higher premiums to higher risks, if schools were not under the domain of government, freedom would be rightly expanded. As it is, far too many citizens will merely nod their heads and quietly agree that eating healthy is everyone's business anyway. That attitude will last only until their way of life becomes questioned similarly.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps by then they will be completely indoctrinated, and will accept that they have earned the punishment they receive. Big Brother will indeed have won, and be loved at the same time.

Tolerate me; I'm diverse

We have pointed out many times the number of empty words, words often used without real meaning such as peace, freedom, and education. There are also words used with very definite intentions even though they appear to be innocuous. Perhaps first and foremost among them are 'diversity' and tolerance'.

We are told that we ought to embrace diversity and that we ought to be tolerant. Interestingly enough, the very first problem with these term is no different than testing the use of calls for education or peace or freedom. When someone asks us to accept diversity and become tolerant, we must ask: tolerate what? Tolerate it why? Accept what type diversity? All of it, or only parts of it? For of course all that diversity really means is that A is different from B, and all tolerance means is allowing something to happen or be. It is only through the answers to these question that we can really know what the person is talking about or what they want us to do.

So you see, to actually understand what the preachers of tolerance and diversity want we find ourselves in the same boat as our friends who preach freedom: once we begin the discussion in detail, we aren't talking about toleration or diversity. We're talking about, at the least, acceptable personal and social behavior, and, at the most, good old right and wrong. For surely in asking those necessary questions we aim to draw conclusions about propriety or morals. Indeed, even the person asking for diversity must mean that they want you to accept what they support as right and true. If your compliance didn't matter to them, they wouldn't make any demands upon you.

Another and better question to ask is, if all it's really about is accepting people as they are (which, you may notice, in itself only begs the same questions as descriptive words alone do) then why don't you tolerate me? I'm diverse. All right, so maybe I am intolerant of your creed. Well, then. Put that in your pipe and smoke it too, if it's all about tolerance.

But, as we all know, it isn't about tolerance and diversity. It's about making the more conservative among us accept what we cannot. The fact of the matter is they surely do not appreciate our diverse opinions; they most certainly do not wish to tolerate us. And why? Simply because we disagree with them, and have the audacity to say so.

That leaves us with one final question. Who between us is truly audacious?

Girls have no right to play on boys's teams

Leave it to the Christians to cause controversy over an issue which most of society would see as unimportant, or as having been decided long ago. We say that as a compliment, however. The general society needs a better conscience that it actually has, and the Church offers that to those who listen objectively.

Maddy Blythe has been told that she can no longer play football in a league on a team based in a Christian school. The school has determined that girls should not play contact sports with boys, at least in football. The usual clamor has been raised in an attempt to make the powers that be in the school change their mind.

She's a great player, she's great teammate, and she's a role model for young girls are among the platitudes said on her behalf. The trouble is that none of those things matter. When you get down to brass tacks, not even any given boy has a right play in any given sports league or sports team, particularly one which is private. If boys don't have an inherent right to play, why should girls?

Then there is the religious aspect. This is another case of the religious right to conscience being ignored by much of society. No individual, and we mean absolutely no individual, has the right to violate the rights of the religious. Of course, that point shall be dismissed. Liberals believe they have the moral authority to force anything on anyone. That includes the religious conscience. The left is only for rights they believe exist.

We hope that the school sticks to its guns and will not relent. But whether it does or does not, it is good that it has called attention to such matters. The question of who should play contact sports with boys isn't really being considered properly. Neither is the issue of religious rights. What is it that so many people, particularly on the left, say? Open your mind when seeking answers. That doesn't seem, however, to apply to their thoughts.

Mow Your Lawn Today!

We are now well beyond the start of the Ozone Action Day season, according to SEMCOG, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments. And although today is not an action day, SEMCOG's website reminds us to be aware of them and to check frequently about when they occur. People are encouraged to not gas up their cars or mow their lawns on Ozone Action Days.

Go ahead and do it anyway. Indeed, look for such days and gas up and mow on them precisely because our local government has said we should not. Nature is incredibly resilient and will survive what little real effect gassing up and cutting grass may do. But more than that, it would serve as a protest against precisely the kind of government intrusion into our lives that is evidence by declaring such days.

To be sure and fair, avoiding certain things on Ozone avoidance days has not been made a point of law. But that step is surely somewhere down the road. The first step is to condition people that the government knows best, that SEMCOG is smarter than and better than you and ought to be obeyed. The slippery slope is exactly how basic human freedoms are the surest way eroded.

So look out for them, and purposely violate them. You're serving a purpose by asserting your authority over your property.

Red Wings new Playground should be Privately Funded

It seems as though Mike Ilitch and the Detroit Red Wings are going to get a brand new hockey arena. After all, the Joe Louis Arena is clearly not a good place to play hockey, and at around 34 years old, well, it's just ancient. No self respecting major league franchise should have to play in a building which is sliding out of the prime 18-34 demographic. It would be an embarrassment.

Before going on, it is only fair to acknowledge the commitment and the good the Ilitch family has show the city of Detroit. It is even right to admit that new arenas and the nearby Comerica park and Foxtown developments have been nice additions to the northern downtown area. But what has been done well in the past cannot mean that the rich and powerful should get special help from government in the future. What would make this new arena really great is exactly what will not happen: completely private funding.

Not one dime of taxpayer money should go towards it. Not one. It's your hockey team, Mr. Ilitch. You will reap the prime benefits of the new arena. Therefore you should foot the bill. Indeed, we wouldn't even be talking about an arena without your ownership of the Red Wings. You ought to pay for their playground. We know of no family who received government help to build a sandbox in their own backyard for their own children. Neither should your children in the winged wheel get privileged treatment from the government trough.

Yet they will. And while the wealthiest of locals gets his corporate welfare many Detroiters will not have working streetlights or improved city services. That's just how it is when the rich pull the strings, isn't it? How it should be, Mr. Ilitch?

Law cannot be Fluid

Mike Duggan can't run for mayor of Detroit...for now. Yesterday's ruling by a Michigan Appeals Court has declared as much, and until the State Supreme Court is called look into the matter that is where it sits. For now, the most interesting discussion of the issue may not be over Duggan's candidacy itself but of the legal questions behind the ruling.

Stephen Henderson of the the Detroit Free Press says that he respects the court's literal ruling yet feels it violates the 'inclusive intent' of Michigan election law. Not being lawyers, we're not certain what he means by that, but we have our suspicions. We suspect that Mr. Henderson, as do so many of the liberal bent, believe that the law should be fluid or 'alive', as is our Constitution according to their view.

But what's the point of fluid law, of laws in motion? The only realistic approach to such a scheme of order can only be chaos, can't it? If the law is allowed to flow according to the will of those immediately involved with it, in this situation Mr. Duggan, how can we have fairness and justice? The Appeals Court has said that the Detroit Charter is unambiguous on the point; isn't that what we want in the law, proclamations which are so well enunciated as to be beyond interpretation? Isn't that the only real way to have every citizen equal before the law?

If the law is bad, there are mechanisms in place to change it. But it shouldn't be changed while the game is in play; that would be like changing baseball rules to have runners must circle the bases clockwise while one is caught between second and third. The game could not be played seriously without respect for the rules as they are whilst it is being played. You may well, for its own good, alter the rules between matches so that everyone who plays later can understand it and play it as best they can. To do so during a match would mock the very sportsmanship and fairness which sports are supposed to promote.

In the same way fluid law mocks the whole process of fairness and justice. If the Charter needs altering, it must come later, not while an issue is in play, and not by courts and their clients seeking whatever they may want simply because they want it.

If that isn't fair to Duggan, and arguably it may not be, the best which can be done is to fix things for the future. Yet as even Duggan and his supporters ought to have been able to predict that the courts might well see things as they have, it hardly seems credible that the whole thing treats him wrongly.

We need unambiguous law. Only our freedom will suffer without it. Our need for the greatest possible and rational freedom is far more important than any potential injustice towards Detroit mayoral candidates in 2013.

High Gas Prices the Fault of the Public

Gas prices in Michigan are falling. They've dropped 27 cents very recently and are expected to drop further in the coming weeks. That is, of course, if storms in the Gulf Mexico don't cause problems. And if refineries don't have production issues. And if there's no threat of a popular uprising in a nation marginally connected to the oil supply chain. And if a tin horn dictator doesn't get looked at crosswise by an infant. And so on and so on.

Why does fear seem to affect oil prices so much? If we understand the situation correctly, oil prices are based on 'futures' which basically are the anticipation that various factors may affect the oil market in unforeseen ways. Stripped to its essentials, oil prices are set based on the predicted availability of oil in the future. Oil isn't produced in the same way as cars or plumbing supplies but is refined as it moves along the supply line, and that supply, so much of it being controlled by persons and factors beyond normal controls (think the tin horn dictators) can seem more uncertain than the delivery of steel to an auto plant. It makes a certain sense, yes.

It also lacks a certain sense. Why should fear drive, or, perhaps, be allowed to drive, a market so important to our overall economic welfare? Do we not have the moral fortitude, the backbone, to resist panic? If it's panic causing prices to shoot up, and that sure seems to be the case if we take our oil purchasers at face value, then courage ought to be the call of the day, oughtn't it?

The next pertinent question is, why are we in such a predicament to begin with? The answer is as obvious as it is easy. Because we aren't allowed to drill our own oil.

Why haven't the Arctic regions been opened up to the fullest degree? Because environmentalists who will never see that supposed pristine wilderness don't want it 'spoiled'. Because Americans who believe in animals over human beings don't want caribou trails interrupted. Why don't we tap into our more local resources? Because folks don't want oil derricks in their back yards. We get that...but we also get that that won't happen. Local ordinances and local pressures won't allow it. That's simply panic driven by members of the general public more than oil buyers.

There are three solutions to our oil needs: stop panicking, drill from our own supply, and come up with new energy sources. The first two should be easy enough to obtain. The last will only come when the oil is gone and is dependent on the first two.

It's up to you, Michigan and the broader United States. Make up your minds to do what we must, or leave the oil under the control of others and suffer the consequences. But if you choose that second option, kindly shut up about how badly gas prices fluctuate, because that's ultimately on you and not the tin horns nor ExxonMobil.