In a town where you can get a slice of pizza or a hot dog on nearly every block [New York City], one city councilman wants to limit the number of fast food restaurants as a way to fight obesity.
Councilman Joel Rivera, health committee chairman, said at a hearing Wednesday he was exploring the idea of using zoning laws to prevent fast food joints from taking over city streets. More than half of adult New Yorkers are overweight or obese."You're not going to totally eliminate fast food restaurants, but you could limit the amount," Rivera said after the hearing.
Yeah. And you could unjustly enrich some fast food restaurant owners. Because that's what monopolies -- even limited ones -- do.
And please, none of this "but the public pays their health care costs!" crap. To that, I say this:
Tonight I am going to come over to your house and take ten dollars from you. I don't care whether you want to give it to me; I'm simply going to take it. I'm big and have lots of guns, and if you resist I'll eventually kill you. Save us both the trouble and just gimme the ten dollars, OK? I'll also take ten dollars from your neighbor -- but not the guy across the street, because he's poor.
Tomorrow I'm going to offer ten of the twenty dollars I collected to your neighbor, so he can buy a box of Band-Aids and some Neosporin to treat the scrapes and cuts he suffered when he fell off his bike. He won't take the money, because he already has Band-Aids and Neosporin. He has a job, you see. But the guy across the street will take the money. He has no job, because he'd rather spend the days riding his bike.
The day after tomorrow I'm going to proclaim that neither you, your neighbor, nor the guy across the street can ride bikes. If I catch you breaking my rule, I'll slap you around. If you resist, I'll kill you. Why am I doing this? Because all these damned bike accidents are costing me too much money!
Three days from now I'll only spend four dollars on medical bills for bicyclists. My rule is working! Does that mean I'll return the remainder of the money I took from you and your neighbor? Noooooo. The kid up the street just fell off his skateboard . . .
"Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread."
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
"Laws provide against injury from others, but not from ourselves."
Oh, TJ, where are you when we need you? You were a little loony, but we could use your kind of loony right now.
