Expensive as compared to pre- or post-insurance human medical services?

Well you're right, I'm comparing to post-insurance human services. But the last time I looked into pet insurance, I still had quite high co-pays and plenty of things that weren't covered unless I paid far more than I pay for my own medical insurance.

:-)

This is the kind of crap you guys should be up in arms about the government even entertaining.

And no shit, it's being proposed by private industry/special interests:

Mandatory spyware to monitor copyrights

The government requested comments and recommendations from everyone. I would assume that the EFF also provided such comments. Are you surprised that the MPAA, et al., want to put our nuts in a vise?

BTW, a recent GAO study found most of claims of enormous losses suffered because of "piracy" and counterfeiting unsubstantiated.

It would seem that it's already happening. You may feel that salt is "poison", but that is not well established. Even if it were, it's hard to argue that this isn't the Therapeutic State in action (Thomas Szasz's term for totalitarianism in the name of public health). It appears we will all be forced to eat healthily (according to some governmental definition), whether we wish to or not. I'm not even surprised it is happening so quickly. What surprises me is that people still refuse to see the monster of collectivism until it's too late.

I'm glad to see the FDA doing this. They're not telling you as an individual how much salt you can consume. Go nuts and put salt on everything you eat. They're getting companies to reduce the amount of salt they add to processed food which help boost the flavour profile of something that could otherwise be shite tasting. A lot of people have NO IDEA how much salt they're consuming because they fail to take into account the amount of sodium present in packaged or pre-prepared food.

IMO, this is the FDA exercising quality control, and I hope that the equivalent body in Canada does something similar.

I'm the first to point to slippery slopes, but this is such a huge stretch that it's laughable. I think there's more commotion to be made about the virtual police state we're already living in as evidenced by the actions of some police employees, border guards, security guards, etc.

A limit on the amount of sodium put in packaged foods does not limit the amount of sodium you're allowed to eat. You can put as much salt on your food after you take it out of the box as you want.

I think TJ wants to see the government privatized - they're already doing the bidding of many large corporations, it's amazing the FDA can hold its own balls and try to make this happen.

BP Oil calling the shots, the government enforces: http://www.newsweek.com/2010/05/26/the-missing-oil-spill-photos.html

TJ wants people to be allowed to buy what they want, and more importantly, he wants people to be allowed to make what they want and sell it as long as it is fairly represented. Every packaged food item has sodium content clearly labeled, so your comment that people have no idea how much sodium they are eating is ridiculous. Adding salt to something already cooked is quite different from adding it while it's cooking, from a flavor point of view. Both of you are so brainwashed you can't conceive of a citizen as a free moral agent rather than an infantile subject who needs to be cared for by *someone*. I don't want to privatize any of this, I want to eliminate it.

It would be okay, then, to put arsenic in food as long as it was clearly labeled on the packaging, huh?

I don't think we need to be cared for, but I do think the government should be there to prevent us from being exploited. Sodium in food is an edge case, admittedly, but they're not telling people what they can and can't do; they're telling companies.

Personally, I tend to avoid the oversalted packaged food, as I think it tastes terrible, and is clearly oversalted in order to hide cheap ingredients. But if you really like that much salt in your food, there's nothing preventing you from cooking it yourself.

In the real world, companies are completely amoral. If they can do something that will make them more money, it doesn't make any difference what the other repercussions might be. I think that we need an equally powerful counteragent, and government fills that role. Admittedly, they often don't do it terribly well, but it's better than nothing.

The thing is, I want to be able to buy an admittedly small amount of pre-packaged food, and I want it to have as little sodium as possible. The problem is, there really isn't all that much available. When you do find something with less sodium, the company responsible treats it as a specialty item and charges more for it. Campbell's soup for instance.

I'm sorry TJ, but what you're seeing the FDA doing here is advocating for the people.

Pick your battles and voice these opinions for causes that actually mean something. Where injustices are being perpetrated on a regular basis. As I've mentioned countless times before, I see a lot of people complaining about the government when they're clearly doing the work of the populace, but I don't see the same people speaking out against illegal seizure and arrest, military spending, the patriot act, slush funds, governing by dollars, etc. Those are some of problems with "big government" one should be most concerned with.

Bitt, I agree with you about companies -- they are amoral. What I'm arguing is the morally justified reasons for regulation. I am not a free-market fundamentalist that believes that markets and corporations can run without regulation with only the market to guide them. But creation of a utopia of public health is not a good reason to regulate the market.

Yes, they should be able to sell arsenic if it's clearly labeled as such. They should not be able to sell food containing arsenic without people's knowledge. Before you say that's ridiculous, consider that what many people consider poison, such as tobacco, trans-fats, marijuana or heroin, other people consider worth the deleterious side-effects (trans-fats have a different texture). The philosophy of liberty says that it's up to people to make those decisions for themselves, not the government to decide what "good" is for everyone.

Sorry, but the FDA is advocating for some people at the expense of others. YOU want low-sodium food, so rather than creating a company to make that food for people like you, you think it's OK to use the legal system to force everyone to eat according to your preferences (or at least manufacture according to your preferences). What you're describing is mob rule, where the current fashion of the majority is foisted on the rest of the people. It's fine if you believe that's OK, but the American system was created explicitly to prevent this. As I've said before, our system is the way it is to protect those with unpopular or deviant values (as long as they don't harm others). You are arguing for collectivism, which I find immoral, anti-liberty, anti-enlightenment, and anti-American.

And you have seen me speak out against all of the other injustices you mention. The reason to focus on things like salt bans is because "liberty is seldom lost all at once." When thinking people like you and Bitt can support this trivial stuff, then things like the Patriot Act are inevitable. Salt ban is easy to understand and argue the philosophical points of view. It's a microcosm. I'm making a philosophical argument, not a practical one and simple cases make the philosophical points easier to understand. I guess what I'm saying is that I *am* concerned about the big government issues to mention, but I believe that the solution is a philosophical change.

You may not be a fundamentalist, but you are definitely a zealot to your near-fundamentalism.

My point about companies being amoral is that there is a difference between an ideal and reality. If the world were ideal, then I don't think there would be any need for the kind of regulation that you're talking about. People would have perfect knowledge of the products they're buying, and there would be limitless choices.

But that's not the way reality works. No one asked for trans fats to be put in their cookies, and no one did any real medical research to find out if there were any deleterious effects. They were put in there to make cookies more "shelf stable" — to increase their shelf life.

Yeah, trans fats do have different properties than other vegetable fats. But they were developed to replace animal fats. Pie crusts are a common place where trans fats are preferred, but pie crusts existed before Crisco. They used lard instead.