Mississippi Politicians Want To Ban Fat People
W. T. Mayhall, Jr., John Read, and Democrat Bobby Shows are Mississippi legislators, members of the state’s House of Representatives
They have introduced a bill that would make it illegal for state-licensed restaurants to serve obese patrons.
What penalties would be incurred for illegal servings is unsaid, nor what would occur when all the restaurants in the state go under…
Posted: 1st, February 2008 | In: Anorak In New York, Food & Fat Comments (6) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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February 6th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
I think this bill is pathetic! Why ruin the business of restuarants if they are so worried about mississippians being overweight there are other things that can be done. I myself live in MS and I know that it’s not the restuarants causing people to be obese…if they would take a second to step back and look….The majority of Mississippians receieve foodstamps and if they take the number of obese people and match it with the number of the ones who recieve assistance they’d see theya re really close….if they want to do something about weight then they should make it to where oyu can only purchase healthy food with foodstamps. It burns me up for my husband and myself to go to the grocery store and spend $400.00 of our hard earned money on GROCERIES I MEAN FOOD FOOD and then the person infront of us using an EBT card has $500 worth of groceries that our taxes are payin for and they have every kinda of snack cake,potatoe chip,soft drink,and frozen dinner in the store….nothing that is nutritional all JUNK and bags of candy….so don’t put restuarant owners in a position to ruin their own business or hurt someone b/c they are overweight.DO something about the JUNK our tax dollars are buying!!!
February 6th, 2008 at 6:25 am
When I was told about this I thought it was a joke…until I made a quick check on the internet. What the hell is wrong with these clowns! Is this how sad our political system has become. When our elected representatives come up with something as stupid as this, yet don’t seem to worry about alcohol and tobacco health issues. Why not worry about people with no heath insurance. What about child abuse. Mississippi must be the perfect state to live in if the only issues they have are worrying about overweight people eating at a restaurant. If they are really so worried about public health maybe they should make tobacco and alcohol illegal. I sure hope these clowns are up for re-election soon and the people make an example of them.
rel:dr:06.02
February 5th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Interesting… you’re not bothered by the fact that Government is seeking deeper ways to intrude into the private lives of its citizens… you just want them to ban what *you* consider dangerous. You’re no better, philosophically, than they.
February 3rd, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Considering these are two Mississippi Republicans and a white Democrat who, presumably, share the prevailing regional philosophy that government doesn’t have the right or ability to regulate the height of the doorway in the state house, the bill has to be an attempt to make a POINT of some kind. You know.. the kind of “fox guarding the henhouse” theory of political agitprop that leads Republicans to appoint coal industry execs head of the EPA or supreme court justices who only regard every other amendment to the constitution as valid. My bet is they are just all sore up inside about the whole tobacco industry lawsuits and are just making the point that if the smoking industry has to pay for decades of hiding the truth of smoking’s ill health effects.. then the food industry will pay for it too and it starts right here in Mississippi. No doubt they’ll make that point self righteously over the next few weeks… ending up no doubt in an appearance on Sean Hannity’s show where all will end up making the point that government regulation is not a good thing and well.. gee.. maybe if we didn’t HAVE this medicare thing that will just collapse under all this diabetes and obesity.. we’d all be better off. Isn’t it amazing that Mississippi isn’t as economically prosperous as Connecticut with such whip smart political activists at the helm?
Too bad these morons couldn’t actually put all that free time to good use and maybe do something useful. How about a law against the use of high fructose corn syrup in food? I’m pretty sure some sugar cane growers in Louisiana and their home state might actually gain from such a law. Oh that’s right.. THEN they’d lose the ability to complain that ethanol production is forcing people to starve throughout the third world! How about inviting the beloved Pat Robertson down to lecture about the harms of white flour and an overabundance of refined sugars in the American diet? 30 minutes of outdoor exercise mandatory in all state schools? Try to increase the number of public swimming pools? There’s something the state government could do, couldn’t it? Might some time be well spent on these things? Of course not!!!
February 3rd, 2008 at 2:05 am
Health care costs are going up and that obesity is a problem in America, but this is ridiculous. I am an overweight girl. We feel angry for this act. So from now on when the waitress hands out menus to everyone at the table the menus she gives to the fat customers will have to be blank inside?
edit:dr:03.02
February 2nd, 2008 at 9:24 am
The second Mississippi story today!
Given that about 80% of the people in Mississippi are, shall we say, big-boned, have they considered the impact of this on the restaurant trade? Obviously this is a war on purveyors of food…
And with the exception of the skinny one on the left, the Politburo may find themselves refused service in those establishments that choose to serve only the anorexic…