In case you haven’t noticed, New York’s Nanny Mayor Michael Bloomberg has forgotten that Americans have certain inalienable privileges supplied to them by the nation’s Founding Fathers. Like many others of his political ilk, he’s abandoned the constitution and slapped down the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, among those surely are the right to make decisions for one's self.
It’s unconscionable to think otherwise. Even when one is sympathetic to the goal of the New York soda ban – tackling America’s growing obesity epidemic – Bloomberg’s policy is, plain and simple, an infringement on individual freedoms.
And because of this, Bloomberg, one of America's richest men, according to Forbes, has found himself up against giants of the industry. Such American staples as Coca-Cola and McDonald's have accused the mayor of overriding New Yorkers' freedom of choice.
Proponents of the measure, however, like New York University professor and nutritionist Marion Nestle, argue that this resolution helps Americans make better choices in the face of relentless soda marketing.
The city "has the ability to do this and the obligation to try to help," Bloomberg, said last month, though the help is not exactly desired.
Calling it "undemocratic" and "racially unfair," both the NAACP, America's oldest civil rights organization, as well as the Hispanic Federation, an umbrella of about 100 Hispanic groups in the American northeast, have both supported legal challenges to the ban.
The mayor is, according to Hot Air's Jazz Shaw, "assuming that the American people are so brainless, helpless and hopeless that they cannot resist anything being pitched in television commercials and we need Big Brother to shield us."
In spite of the objections and the detriment done to New York businesses, many restaurants are already downsizing in preparation of the changes set to take place this week, including swallowing the added expenses of reprinting menus and changing promotions and advertising, while many more are hoping that last minute court challenges strike down the restriction.
"I don't know if the state should be our surrogate parent," Peter Sarfaty, 71, said in Manhattan last week. "You get the information out there, but to tell people what they can or can't do? As if it's going to stop them."
In light of legal challenges, fines, which will be issued against businesses breaking the ban, will not go into effect until June.
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