<We all have choices. Not all of us have a lot of choices. Some of us only have two.

Some of us don't know we have choices.

This is where the "paternalistic liberals" come in. The idea is to teach people about their choices, and then to teach them how to make an informed choice.

Free market forces already work on one end of this equation: Choose me! Choose me! Pay no attention to that Surgeon General behind the curtain!

Is it too much to ask that someone be balancing the other end of that equation?



Boy, this doesn't sound paternalistic at all. Anyone who can get his ass out of the house and buy fast food has a choice, unless he lives in one of those towns that has only a McDonalds and no grocery stores.

Of course, your idea of "teaching" is based on the somewhat dubious assumption that liberals actually have the correct answers to teach. The record hasn't been too good so far. But leave that aside for now...

Your assumption is that there is a huge number of people out there who are actually incapable of understanding that fries have a lot of calories, or that cigarettes cause cancer, or that standing in front of an oncoming locomotive might not be a good idea. Heck, cigarettes were called "coffin nails" in the 1800s.

Assuming the person is not actually mentally disabled (in which case someone else is responsible for him getting all those fries), people this clueless should probably not be allowed out on the streets. Sure as hell they probably shouldn't be voting.

We should also remember before we start out to Save The Great Unwashed, that these people are probably not really this clueless anyway, but are lying about it under the enthusiastic prodding of attorneys in hopes of a quick financial kill.

Even if one assumes that the American populace is as idiotic as liberals think they are, government force is not required to "educate" people. The facts on nutrition and many other issues are available for anyone who has any gumption at all, liberals are certainly free to educate whoever they want to, and I don't see why the government has to enter the picture at all.

In fact, if the government is the corrupt tool of the corporations that liberals say it is, why trust anything it says on this subject in the first place?