Answer to a personally responsible national health care system:
Make it compulsory for everyone over the age of twelve
and under the age of 70
to train for and run a marathon
twice a year
and do it under eight hours
It matters not how a man uses his feet,
if only McDonald’s Big Macs he will eat.
It matters not how a man uses his legs,
If every breakfast he eats a dozen eggs.
It matters not if his body is a work of art,
If every artery is clogged leading to his heart.
It matters not how much workout equipment he buys,
If before the age of forty from a coronary he dies!
That’s not really my counter-argument, though. My counter-argument is people should be allowed to eat and (lack) exercise as much as they want to, provided they have the money for either health insurance or to pay their own medical bills. You would save a lot of money, though, by forcing people who receive Medicare to stay in shape and eat properly.
Oh man…I don’t even know where to begin with this post…
Three times a day is infeasible for the masses.
What kind of exercise? Sweating is not exercise. Running? Swimming? Throwing stones? Sitting in a sauna? Lifting weights?
The obese need to eat less and healthier, not what they feel like. They don’t know what eating right feels like; they’re not in tune with that part of their body. They can learn it, but exercise alone isn’t going to accomplish that.
There’s also such a thing as food addiction.
Despite the slow pace of eight hours, not everyone can walk a marathon even if they’re healthy from a variety of afflictions.
Well, one group has deffective legs, the other a deffective brain. Out of a combined group of twenty, you could actually build a team of ten marathon runners. Though there would be some collateral damage.
Seriously
the crashing health care system that is threatening to bankrupt the country
is not he fault of Insurance companies
who are crudely making a buck out of our carelessness
If people do not take individual responsibility for maintaining a state of good health
and expect their weight to be carried by others
in one way or another
then Big Brother should step in
and make all of us comply
Big Brother is already attempting to make us comply, have you heard of the, “Soda Tax,” that might be going through?
I think it is supposed to be a tax of $1.00 for whatever unit of soda you plan to buy, maybe they’ll make an exception for individual cans/bottles, who knows?
To what extent should the Government step in, though? Close McDonald’s, Doritos, Burger King, Frito-Lay? Have junk food ration cards given to every citizen and track your junk food purchases by Social Security Number? Make Burger King more expensive (via taxes) than a four-star dine-in restaurant?
The wages are shit, don’t get me wrong, but you’re talking about some of the largest (quantity) employers in the country, here. In addition to that, these represent some of the only companies that were still healthy at the bottom-point of this recession.
I make pretty good money, and my wife contributes as well so we have the luxury of going out to a restaurant that serves healthy food every week, but for many people a trip to McDonald’s is the equivalent of that.
The soda-tax isn’t really a tax though, it is just a correction to a pre-existing subsidy. Because of corn subsidies, it is cheaper to take corn, mill it and get corn starch, process that into corn syrup, and enzymatically treat that to high fructose corn syrup than it is to take juice from a fruit.
Think about that. Squeezing a fruit to get juice is more expensive than all those other steps. Not because it is actually more expensive from a production standpoint, but because the government has set up a system of subsidies that makes it so. Taxing soda, one of the most regularly consumed corn products, seems a sensible way around this since removing the corn subsidy itself isn’t politically feasible. I know people who drink soda every day. Every day. That is just loving absurd! No reason for that what-so-ever. This isn’t some pigouvian tax, it is a correction to a subsidy gone wild!
I return to reality
food quality is not the problem
good diet in itself cannot make one fit and healthy
The central problem is lack of physical exercise
Obesity has become pandemic
it underlies the vast majority of our health problems
the Government can and must step in
Every school should have one hour of PT in the morning
another hour in the afternoon
The military draft should be re instituted
not to get ready for war
but to get the nation fit and ready for work
three months of boot camp for evey graduate
and three week training camps every year
for the next twenty years
have a weight-sensor on the doorsteps of city-buses/lifts/taxi-seats/subway entrances which doesn’t allow anyone through who’s a fat bastard. Or better yet, one that doesn’t let fat bastards on for the return journey.
make it illegal for overweight men to download porn or play video games.
make it illegal for overweight people to buy clothes in any colour except bright yellow with purple spots.
make it illegal for fat people to own guns or cars.
build houses with maze-like interiors, full of ladders, steps, and limbo-thingies. The fridge is time locked and the kitchen at the opposite end of the house from the sitting room.
Make it obligatory for all overweight people’s homes to be fitted with a device that fills the house with teargas between the times of 7am and 6pm.
I agree with Tab wholeheartedly on this one. I’ve gotten into several involved fights with people on other message boards about how the obese ought be excluded from the moral sphere just as murderers and pedophiles are.
I must say
I am surprised at this response from you
I took you to be a more concerned social philosopher
not so self-centered
The Old Greeks determined that philosophers are born to lead
which includes every stray lamb
they not only thought this and discussed it among themselves
but also took the trouble to form academies where they could teach
This kind of flippant attitude from supposed philosophers
towards a lost global civilization
that is suffering from every manner of unhealthy addictions
mainly because they are without a clear global plan of a bright future
and led by bewildered politics
makes we wonder if i am among the right thinking people
or simply a lone voice crying in a wilderness
Our job is to propose and forward new sets of progressive social precepts
that meet the exigencies of a fast changing global paradigm
It is why I joined this and numerous other philosophical forums
It is why I have posted an entirely new Nuclear Age philosophy
in the hope of having constructive discussions with fellows
of a like philosophical bent
so that we together can define a way forward
into an increasingly uncertain future
and then reach out to others with a reasonable plan
for sustainable global stewardship
People are not sheep. Therefore, people do not require a shepherd. Government has no philosophical justification to force people to do anything - other than barring physical force between people. To pretend otherwise - you must first convince me why I should recognize your right to force me to do anything.
