Big Lizards:Blog:Entry “Salt or Cyanide?”

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December 15, 2011

Salt or Cyanide?

Hatched by Dafydd

Believe it or not, sodium chloride -- table salt -- is not a deadly poison. I have it on the highest authority. In fact, it's a vital substance for human existence.

But lately, America seems to believe the opposite: that sodium chloride is indistinguishable from sodium cyanide, and just a few grains of it will kill you. At least, so I infer from the fact that, in virtually every restaurant I frequent, I must salt (and pepper) my own food; evidently, seasoning has become a crime.

I suspect the syllogism goes something like this:

There are some people who have high blood pressure or other medical conditions that make it dangerous for them to consume more than the bare minimum of salt required to live.

Such people might, if they're not particularly bright, accidentally eat too much salt in restaurant food. They might be too dim to ask about salt content or ask if there are low-salt items on the menu; or they might deliberately ignore all the best advice of the best, bestest experts and maliciously consume salt anyway.

If they did so, then their hypertension might get worse. They could even die! (Prematurely, I mean; most of us expect to die eventually.)

If that happens, either the victim or his next of kin could sue the restaurant for not preventing him from eating too much salt. Even if there's no lawsuit, surely it must be the restaurant's moral fault for not saving him from his own folly.

Ergo, government must (a) regulate the recipes of all restaurants, or (b) at the very least make it much easier to collect damages for their own bad decisions, thus putting more and more restaurants out of business for serving deadly sodium chloride to unsuspecting customer-victims... pour encourager les autres, don't'cha know.

This lemma flies in the face of traditional Americanism, of course. Under what used to be the shared ideology of the United States, and still is the dominant one, we must assume that most individuals know enough about their own needs and circumstances to weigh, intelligently, the risks they take against the gains they buy -- pleasure, satisfaction, and fulfillment. Much more intelligently than can any small (compared to overall population) panel of experts hundreds or thousands of miles distant... and lightyears apart in worldview.

We don't need to be regulated out of salt, or Happy Meals, or lightbulbs, or exhalation (deadly carbon dioxide!); we need to be protected from the corrupt middlemen, the bean-counting regulators themselves. Or as we might say, Who regulates the regulators?

Liberals (or Progressivists, choose your poison) are natural regulators; it's in the blood! They want to regulate everything and everybody because, at core, they believe everybody else is simply too stupid to live.

But why should they think they're so much brainer? I hypothesize that they're convinced of their own superiority because, within the bubble in which they live, it's literally true... because they only hang around with fellow liberals.

It seems that even the Left is appalled by the unintelligence, irresponsibility, and dishonesty of their useful idiots! This social disability applies to every Democratic leader and liberal opinionmonger in America, certainly including President Barack H. "Bubble Boy" Obama himself: The Left hangs only with other lefties, so they believe that humanity is dirt stupid.

This simple truth also explains the Left's obsession with the "cult of youth," I believe. The cult of youth comprises not just those who are literally young but also those Lost Boys (and Lost Girls) who never grew up, despite their years; and it is coterminous with the culture of liberalism and Progressivism: a passel of impulsive, defiant, unthinking, entitled, narcissistic, dependent, nitpicky, and conveniently amnesiac "Philadelphia lawyers," always seeking the magic words that will exempt them from having to follow the same rules as everyone else and from the natural consequences of their idiocy.

In simple terms, liberalism is "teen logic" metastasized into an ideology. And that ideology has seized control of one of the two major political parties and is currently laying siege to the other. We should learn next year whether we shall force the Lost Guys and Gals to grow up, or put the inmates in charge of the asylum.

Salt or cyanide, the decision is in our hands.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, December 15, 2011, at the time of 4:58 AM

Comments

The following hissed in response by: snochasr

Take a look at the range of fast-food restaurants, who have been required to post nutrition information for several years. What you will find is that the average meal contains something like 40% of your "requirement." A supersize meal runs to more like 75%, even without adding salt to taste. But you are correct, we don't need Michelle or anybody else telling us what to eat.

The above hissed in response by: snochasr at December 15, 2011 9:58 AM

The following hissed in response by: JoeW

A restaurant making you salt your own goddamn french fries is not an example of "regulation". It's an example - in fact a classic example - of deregulation. Instead of deciding how much salt they think you should have, they are in effect saying "we feel you have the brain capacity to decide for yourself how much salt you want".

But I guess in your world it's just a lot easier to scream "liberal plot!!!"

ps - I still love your DS9 book where you killed off the entire crew and still managed to come up with a happy ending.

The above hissed in response by: JoeW at December 16, 2011 8:13 AM

The following hissed in response by: Dishman

It matters when the salt is applied.

For example, if you sprinkle salt and vinegar on a boiled cucumber, it's just not the same thing.

It doesn't increase my options to restrict how much salt a restaurant can use, because it denies me the choice of food cooked with salt.

Right now, I can choose what restaurant to go to based on how much salt they use. I have that choice. You have that choice. If you don't like the way a restaurant salts food, don't go there.

Don't shove your bland crap down my throat.

The above hissed in response by: Dishman at December 17, 2011 2:01 AM

The following hissed in response by: Eris Guy

Well once the goo-goo types have a good idea like blaming bars and restaurants for their patrons drinking too much, why stop with alcohol? Why not hold the restaurant responsible for salt, fat, and sugar, too?

The above hissed in response by: Eris Guy at December 18, 2011 10:34 AM