Let's get real about this nanny state bullshit that brought about this dire threat to democracy that you so fear. I'm reasonably sure that i'm about to waste 30 minutes of my time but once more into the breach as they say. I'm just going to assume that you are pro-choice, you seem like a good Democrat. I'm pro-choice as well but not because I'm a good Democrat ( I'm a shitty Democrat who's registered as an independent but votes Democrat 99% of the time). Have you ever gone through a miscarriage or an abortion? It's heavy. I've never been party to an abortion but I've stood as supportive as I can through two miscarriages. I'll admit that I'm glad one of them happened. She was going to keep it, we were wrong for each other, I think she would have been a shitty mother, I'm sure that I wasn't ready to be a father. It was painful. Admittedly it was waaayy more painful for her than I. The second miscarriage was my wife's and we were trying to have a baby for over a year. It was devastating. It wasn't the death of a potential baby, it was the death of our child, one we had tried so hard for, one that the lack of arrival had put more strain on our marriage than anything else. There were many horrible things happening at that time in our lives and it was the most horrible of them. It was the death of our child. We have many gradations of murder in our justice system; capital murder, murder in the first degree, second degree, manslaughter, vehicular or negligent homicide. To some extent or another abortion is the taking of a human life. I don't think it's a criminal taking of life but it's not without weight or consequence, it shouldn't be a decision that is taken lightly. I'm morally comfortable with abortion in the first trimester. You are killing wad of cells, without consciousness. It's not laudable but I think it's acceptable to choose not to take the awesome step and overwhelming responsibility of bringing a new human into the world at that point in a pregnancy. I'm pretty uncomfortable ending a pregnancy in the third trimester. Its a human child that can feel pain, one that is sometimes viable outside the womb. I can see ending a pregnancy for the health of the mother or because the child will be severely ill or disabled but otherwise I don't think it's the right thing to do. I have immense respect for pro-life people who have adopted an unwanted child, especially when the child is disabled or born drug addicted. That's putting your money where your mouth is. I don't think that a pro-life position is intellectually untenable. I can understand the belief that abortion is murder, even if I don't share it. Despite the fact that I can see how someone could be pro-life and not a horrible human I still believe that abortion is a personal choice in the first trimester and it's nobodies business but the person who has to make that sad choice. Democrats say "Keep your laws off my body," "My body my choice," while they are engaged is some sort of murder. The stakes are so high and the answer is so clear. Any law that makes getting an abortion harder is a great evil. Making women get an ultrasound before termination or counseling session is 100% wrong, and I agree with them. Hold everything!!! When it comes to what people do with their bodies when it comes to soda or cigarettes no democrat gives a shit about "my body my decision". When the stakes are just crazy low all of a sudden body autonomy is off the fucking menu. No law that interferes with a women's right to get an abortion is moral but it's totally fine to judge the shit out of someone for choosing to drink a sugary beverage. I see nothing but hypocrisy. I've brought this up with Democrats before and have rarely has anyone acknowledge that there is any inconstancy with their position. For some reason people deserve 100% body autonomy when it comes to the right to kill an unborn child without government encumbrance in the first trimester but it's morally right and just for the government to interfere when someone wants to consume a sugary beverage. I think I'm pretty consistent in my belief that what people do with and to their own body is their own business and government should stay the fuck out it. I think all drugs should be legal, abortion, assisted suicide, any perverted sex you can imagine between consenting adults should be legal. I honestly don't know how I feel about seat belt and helmet laws. Only a fool would not use either safety device and there are significant downsides for society when they aren't used. I feel ok not having the right answer for these issues. I'm sure that I don't have all the answers. You clearly acknowledge that the shitty grocery bill was a direct response to the soda tax proposal. The shitty grocery bill in Oregon is a direct response to a soda tax proposal. I don't find that Democrats have any real allegiance to the idea that people should have personal sovereignty over what they do to and with their own bodies, the soda taxes certainly suggests that they don't. Being pro-choice is a Democratic litmus test. Are democrats pro-choice because they really believe that people have the right to make decisions over their own bodies? Are they really just ok with killing babies and it has no real connection to personal sovereignty? Do they really just parrot the dominate paradigm of their peer group and the society they live in? Am is missing something about "Keep Your Laws Off My Body?" It's certainly possible that everyone has been telling me plain about why I'm wrong and in my stubbornness I've just missed their point. I believe that most people just parrot that which they hear, if you change their peer group they would change their values. The values they hold are mostly unexamined and don't extend beyond what they have been told to think on any given hot button issue. I don't know how abortion can be such a sacred right and other body autonomy rights that are so petty as to present no real sacrifice to preserve when compared with the paltry benefits compromising them provides. Anyway blah blah blah, you probably don't care, I don't find most people do. The party line is the important part and thinking past it doesn't seem to make anyone get along with their peer group any better. The shitty grocery tax was a direct response to a Soda Tax, it didn't pass in Oregon, so huzzah! I'm glad it didn't, if it had I'd have blamed the people who sit around drinking pinot gris, shaking their fingers at the fat stupid soda drinking plebs and thinking about more ways to make their lives better by making things more expensive. Did it pass in Washington? Anyone got any thoughts on body autonomy and personal rights in the Democratic Party? Anyone else notice the pardox between sin tax and abortion rights? Love to hear about it. All my candidates won and so far all the ballot measures went the way I hoped. I hosted two events for a newly minted city council women, hope she remembers my name when I call her office. Your own special angry little monkey cgod
Ain't nobody saying you can't drink soda. They're saying it should cost you more to drink soda. That's the fundamental basis of "sin tax" - if you want to drag down the general level of public health, you're going to pay into the public coffer. You've got an either-or thing: if Alabama wanted to tax abortions in order to pay for better sex ed, your average bleeding-heart liberal would jump all over that shit. I pay extra for alcohol in WA state. That's annoying. Try and ban liquor? Now we've got a discussion. Taxes are not prohibitions, they're inhibitions and pretending otherwise is cloudy thinking at best.I think I'm pretty consistent in my belief that what people do with and to their own body is their own business and government should stay the fuck out it.
I noticed this was a thing in Canada or at least Ontario when we had no tax days at the grocery store. I noticed a pattern between who was being charged tax and who wasn’t and realized unhealthy food was taxed more while healthy stuff had little or no tax. Barely anybody else realized either. Those poor suckers who came specifically on that day thinking it was a great deal, waited in line forever only to realize they didn’t even buy anything that had tax on it. Probably share fuckin memes about how much taxes they paid on Facebook too, but never even paid attention. Thing is though, we have universal healthcare and children get dental cleanings so there’s at least another argument there, ya know? I don’t really see what the argument is in America, but I feel like a lot of the progressive states want to skip steps and do things socialist places are doing without the underlying foundation. It also depends where those taxes end up going, does it go back into healthcare or is your sugar intake paying for a road even though you walk ?
The problem is that corn syrup is subsidized by the agricultural system in the United States. Vegetables are not. This is effectively the same as disincentivizing healthy food because if you can sell corn for less than it costs to grow and still turn a profit you're not going to switch to broccoli unless it makes you money. And broccoli you're competing against large agribusinesses in Mexico and South America and besides, 95% of the farms in the US are owned by conglomerates anyway. A sugar tax is effectively a local solution for a national problem and when the national industries can take on the local municipalities, they lose. That's pretty much the beef here.
Yes, but that wasn’t really cgod’s point. He only commented on the hypocritical nature of Sin Tax in the first place which makes me think where do these taxes go. Like if we’re saying this food is largely consumed by poor people is the money raised going back into that community ? Or are we just taxing poor people to build a new public school in a nice new suburb for upper middle class families ?
Let's reframe: The human cost of cocaine consumption is principally suffered by the communities that are poorer and less informed or less able to get help for their addiction. So the government is subsidizing cocaine production, to make the farmers profitable. But that leads to more cocaine being consumed in disadvantaged communities who rely heavily on socialized services (healthcare), and use more of their share of those services. (Oops. I mean 'cola'. Not cocaine.)
But is that where the tax is going ? That was my main point, you’ve made your point enough times, but you haven’t addressed anybody else’s point. Cgod’s point was we wouldn’t even be having this discussion if those god damn progressives didn’t want to bring in that hypocritical sin tax in the first place. He raises a valid argument ,because you marketed the very thing as a punishment for lifestyle choices by calling it a sin tax. You want to call it a getting back the money we gave to those farmers tax than his point is moot. Of course the argument to that is well why the hell don’t we just pay more for it in the first place so the farmers make more money so it doesn’t need to be subsidized so we don’t need to add tax to cover the subsidizies.in disadvantaged communities who rely heavily on socialized services
I think you nailed it there, honestly. Cities and counties, and even some states, have little to no ability to affect change in how skewed and fucked up the farming and food distribution system is. The mess of subsidies and tax breaks and weird legislation is too tightly wound - and too many scared people know that and yet rely on it for their livelihoods - that you can't fix the problem at the core: The way farming is funded. So you gotta do what you can do... incentivize better choices at the consumer end of the food chain. The is already happening at the grassroots level, with non-profits stocking gas station coolers with fresh produce and veggies, and school programs teaching kids about what food actually is, and how to make healthier food choices. Those are all positive incentives. But it is a two-sided coin. You need to make disincentives that drive people to make better decisions. You are incentivized to get a driver's license because it is useful ID, and you can use it as proof of who you are to get a loan, pick up a prescription, etc. It also allows you to operate a motor vehicle. It does not give you the RIGHT to have a motor vehicle. If you operate it in an irresponsible manner, then the cops take your license, as a disincentive. Taxing poor food choices is already done for cigarettes, liquor, and any number of other things. Nobody prevents you from buying them. The price is raised to incentivize you to think twice before getting an addictive and health-damaging substance. The base social contract of any society is that you will behave in a manner that is compatible with the society at large, and not put an undue burden on anyone else. Everyone gets enough, if people are responsible and don't take too much. But then you throw in addiction and brain chemistry, and you need to give some people an incentive to avoid those addictive substances, so they don't put an unbalanced strain on the system. Where the money goes? Honestly, who fucking cares. It's a sin tax. The whole concept is for it to eventually make itself irrelevant. Of course the argument to that is well why the hell don’t we just pay more for it in the first place so the farmers make more money so it doesn’t need to be subsidized so we don’t need to add tax to cover the subsidizies.
I get the incentive idea however I was a cashier at a grocery store where this happens for too many year to believe in it. Everybody is just floating through life paying no attention to anything but sharing memes about the life they’re barely even conscious for. The people buying healthy food don’t realize they aren’t being taxed and the people buying crappy food don’t realize there is an alternative. You give people to much credit.
It really is - we're talking about economic incentives and there are economic incentives for poor people to buy soda (it's cheap) and for large companies to sell soda (it's inexpensive and high-profit). The way to handle this is to make it more expensive to buy (taxes - which are regressive, as cgod pointed out) or more expensive to produce (end subsidies). On the local level, municipalities can pass whatever stupid taxes they feel like. My home town tried to fine people for the amount of dogshit they had in their back yard until someone asked who the fuck got to enforce it (let alone weigh it). But dealing with national issues such as our 50-year history of subsidizing corn production is far beyond the ability of your average hippie town to attempt. The end result is local attempts at national problems. That national problem is a dearth of nutrition. cgod is all about individual responsibility but at the end of the day, if there's more money in Coca Cola than there is in spinach I'm going to have a devil of a time buying spinach and an easy time buying coca cola. Ain't nobody saying you can't buy soda. But if your soda habit means you're more likely to have diabetes it means that insurance rates go up which means your soda habit directly impacts my quality of life. It's a problem of externality.
WOW! Holy shit I LOVE YOU, and I LOVE HUBSKI. Goddamn we have a fine group of people here. Anyway... you and I agree about 93.6% on everything. 1. Yep. My girlfriend had an abortion. Been with three others to hold their hands because their boyfriends were too worthless to be there. I know it firsthand. (Well. Holding the 'firsthand' while it happened to her.) 2. More than 90-something percent of abortions happen in the first trimester. Even within the first 8 weeks. That isn't a human. It is a bundle of cells that may or may not turn out to be viable in the next couple of months. (The "Science Vs" podcast just did a fantastic episode on abortions, will full footnotes to all the latest research on the subject, and evidence to back up all the numbers.) The number of third trimester abortions are vanishingly small, and are generally due to the reasons you state; viability, health of the mother, etc. So I think we can agree that when we talk about "abortions" we are talking about the 97% that occur within the first trimester, or for medically prudent reasons. We aren't talking about the weird edge cases that Fox News uses as case studies, correct? Now on to the Soda Tax. Autonomy and not living in a nanny-state is absolutely important, and a part of the promise of living in America. I happen to live in one of the worst nanny-states in the USA - Washington - and it annoys the shit out of me constantly. We are weirdly progressive while also being prudish about the dumbest shit. Anyway. I think we can both agree that HFCS is a key reason for the obesity epidemic in America. Right? It creates a need/addiction to sweet substances that drives the body into a hunger for more of the same, and creates a vicious cycle of crash-speed-crash-speed that leads directly to obesity, especially in children. And especially in "food deserts", which are generally in poor neighborhoods where people do not have access to grocery stores, fresh foods, and often get a large part of their nutrition from fast food and gas station markets. So now we have a cheap, addictive product (like cigarettes were), that is a key part of the diet of the poorest people, because they simply don't have access to better foods. Now let's move on to single use plastics. We can both agree - I expect - that single use plastics are quite a serious problem for our planet. Oil use, waste creates, and toxins leeching out of the plastics and inks used in them, into the local ecosystems. (Or oceans. See: Pacific Gyre.) Straws, plastic bags, and other single-use plastics have been banned in certain places because of the undeniable damage they do to our environment and waste streams. Soda comes, primarily, in single-use plastic bottles. Healthcare The obesity epidemic in America was bad in the 1980's, and has only gotten worse. It taxes every single part of our society, from healthcare to building codes, to the size of vehicles people drive. Obese people need more healthcare for a broader range of problems and require more pharmaceutical and surgical procedures than any other demographic. That costs every single person in a multitude of ways. Big Picture: The vessel is toxic and damages our immediate and global environment. The liquid inside the vessel is toxic in every definition of the word. The promotion of HCFS in every conceivable food product from soda to hamburger patties is a direct factor in the obesity problem, that puts undue strain on the system, and leaves everyone paying the bill for some people's lack of self control. Putting a price on that, and causing people to think more carefully about its use, is Good, without any caveats. Helmet laws? Seatbelt laws? Yeah. Totally support them, for the exact same reason. ==== However, when you get right down to it, this legislation was created specifically to disenfranchise the general public from using their rights as American citizens. And that - more than any potential "Soda Tax" that anyone ever presents in the future - is the key problem with this legislation. If this passes, a civil right guaranteed by the Constitution will be taken away from Americans. And that right there is the fucked up bit. Thanks for taking the time to write out your thoughts. Lemme know your thoughts, in response!
Oh. Yeah. Your question about autonomy... An abortion is a medical decision that impacts one person, primarily, and two people tangentially. On the other hand, I pay in a multitude of ways for your obesity, and it hurts our healthcare system. Like falling off your motorcycle and giving yourself brain damage, you are an unnecessary burden on the systems that we all rely upon. It's the social contract you sign, as a beneficiary of this society and systems we have created.
Your being able to do whatever you want to your body gives me a father who had emphysema his entire life and lung cancer. It’s given me family members with diabetes who never needed to suffer like that, but hey, it’s their body, right? And I had to suffer alongside of them because of that. My family members had to suffer along side of them because of that. Our healthcare system had to bear the weight of their lifestyle choices. I was almost aborted as part of a teenage pregnancy. I’m still pro choice. If somebody gets pregnant and doesn’t want the child, that’s a horrible horrible decision to have to make. We’ve witnessed Cumol have to go through that on this very site. But it’s a personal choice, it could strain family relationships and it will certainly alter a person for life. It’s a lifelong choice that impacts them for life, not necessarily those around them. If you smoke, if you treat your body poorly, that impacts you AND those around you. There’s my line of difference. There’s what I’ve had to live through.