Originally Posted by DoctorsBill

While reading over the weekend about the state of New York's proposed 18 percent tax on regular soda (but not diet soda--I guess aspartame paranoia isn't what it once was), and realizing that the Democratic Party's peeping Toms were on the move to limit choice and impinge on personal freedom yet again, I got to thinking about how it is so ridiculous that the Dems have been able to take one issue -- abortion on demand through the moment of birth -- and ride that to their reputation as defenders of individual rights. The Democratic Party is anathema to individual rights:

Their preferred education policies severely limit your right to choose your children's schools by forcing you to pay through the nose for the public school monopoly even if you don't use it (and even if you're renting, you're paying the property taxes through the pass through from the owner to your rent).

Their preferred trade policies seek to limit your right to choose the everyday products you buy, whether it be cars or toothpaste by preventing companies from selling products here.

Their preferred environmental policies seek to limit your right to live where you want to live, by heavily subsidizing cities and punishing suburbs.

Their preferred environmental policies also seek to destroy your ability to own the type of house you wish, but imposing ever higher taxes on energy that is produced and working overtime to restrict the ability of utilities to produce energy in a cost effective manner thus further pushing up the price.

Their preferred entitlement policies limit your right to choose between work and leisure by tying retirement benefits to government defined age thresholds.

Their preferred entitlement policies guarantee that your choice of balance between consumption and saving will be suboptimal by mandating that 15.3 percent of your income go toward your retirement every year, regardless of your age, family structure, or employment status -- a requirement at odds with every known theory of utility maximization and well outside the range of best practices in financial planning.

And now, the Democratic Party's nanny state has sunk to policing your choice of soft drinks. You better drink diet soda, or the Democratic Party is going to punish you with a fine for ingesting too much sugar (even though plenty of people who drink soda don't ingest too much sugar, offsetting the intake by other means).

So, what's next on your agenda, Democratic Party nanny staters?

Everyone knows that too much TV watching is bad for children, will the Democratic Party nanny state next impose a tax on the number of hours of TV viewing?

Everyone knows that failure to exercise is a health risk, will the Democratic Party nanny state next impose a fine on every household that does not purchase a gym membership, with a taxpayer financed subsidy to help the "poor" (defined, of course, as anyone making less than 3x median income) buy gym memberships?

What's it going to be?