They've banned new fast food restaurants.
http://reason.com/blog/2011/03/23/reasontv-la-food-police-ban-bu
First Lady Michelle Obama hopes to curb childhood obesity by teaching children about nutrition and exercise.
But local government officials around the country have already adopted a more forceful tack, whether it's New York's salt assault, San Francisco's frown at Happy Meals or, most recently, South LA's all-out ban on new fast-food restaurants.
Reason.tv spoke with Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard Parks, one of the architects behind the ban [on new burger joints], who argues that "in order to force choice into the market, we have to limit one that is overconcentrated and attract others that provide other options."
Did you catch that? Their logic is that by limiting our food options, we can have more food options, and thus eat healthier.
I guess Councilman Parks followed Alice through that looking glass, where nonsensical things are commonplace.
"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise."
You can't expand choices by reducing them, and government intervention in cases like this doesn't work.
Here's a video on the subject:
If the player doesn't work, try this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14kwY2dkfPY
The city of Montgomery learned quite a few years ago that they they can't refuse to issue a business permit just because they don't like what kind of business it is. They didn't like the idea of an "adult store" opening up and tried to simply stop it, and paid out the nose for their efforts.
I think South LA will find out something similar in the not too distant future.
So I ask again, is government really "our friend," or do the elected officials merely follow their own agendas?
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