Will the Cambridge, MA Government Control Your Food Choices...in Private Restaurants?

Banned French lesson phrase for Cambridge, MA restaurants?

This is a follow up on our previous post The Regulation (not Education) of Food "Choices".

The City of Cambridge, Massachusetts is pondering banning soda and sugar-sweetened beverages in restaurants. This is because high intake of soda and other sugar sweetened beverages increases the risk of diabetes and obesity.  The government will make it easy on the citizens.  No thinking required.  No decisions to be made. 

The city will save you from yourself.  I imagine the founding fathers are rolling over in their graves.  Americans are independent thinkers, not dependent on a centralized authority to tell us what we are allowed to eat or sell in a private restaurant.

Remember these "choices" are not only for food.  The government has also sourced out educational standards to private companies so your local school board and state don't have to make educational decisions and be held accountable for results.  Just think of the memo linked here as the federal takeover of state/local educational decisions.  Soda and cake decisions taken away in the future by governmental agencies, standards/assessments and curriculum decisions taken away now.

 Just what is the difference from this proposed ban on sugary drinks and the prohibition on alcohol?  History has not treated prohibitionists kindly.  The zealots determined to save others from the effects of alcohol are often portrayed as busybodies even if their original intent was admirable:

Many women, notably the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, had been pivotal in bringing about national Prohibition in the United States of America, believing it would protect families, women and children from the effects of abuse of alcohol.

 How do you think history will view the Epicurians who are redefining food choices as moral choices?  Can they save us from ourselves or will they go down in history (like the Prohibitionists) as interfering with individuals' freedoms to make their own choices? 

But let's look at the bright side of governmental control.  Maybe a new job opportunity will be the construction and operation of illegal soft drink stills so the unemployed soft drink distributors and employees can make some money when their livelihoods are reduced by governmental regulations.