alert the press.....another radical!!!!

Beautiful responses, ReginaW and Kyrasdad!

If the businesses are there, people are patronizing them. If people aren't patronizing them, they close up shop.

If community activists are behind this measure, they're backing it in order to limit other people's access to fast food. And if I understand the news reports, they're doing it in order to "protect" those other people from making poor food choices and becoming obese. That's paternalism.

Personally, I don't want someone else deciding what's best for me and limiting my access to things deemed harmful. I'm an adult. I'm a fairly smart adult. If I need help deciding what to eat I'll ask, ok? I eat at McDonald's all the time. And I'm still losing weight.

Non-smoking sections in restaurants and no booze on the beach are different sorts of issues entirely. If I go to a restaurant, I want to be able to eat my meal without cigarette smoke. If I go to the beach, I don't want a bunch of drunks and beer bottles around. When I ask that cigarettes and booze be banned from those venues, I'm doing so to help me - not the smokers or drinkers. As far as I'm concerned they can do whatever they please - elsewhere. The commons is for everyone.

When I eat at McDonald's, I'm hurting no one but (arguably) myself. I'd like everyone else - especially the government - to butt out. Thank you.

Yeah, I thought the line of thinking on beaches and restaurants was a bit of a red herring. An obese man eating a bucket of chicken does not really affect those around him, but cigarette smoke & alcohol consumption in public spaces does affect those nearby. In particular, at the beach.

Working market? Try making that argument to those people for whom the market has obviously failed them at every level. The choice between crap and crap is not really a choice. Spouting the McDonald's company line might make you all feel better, but massive community groups and the Los Angeles city council, unanimously, think that their health is more important than free-market fiction, as politically correct as it is these days among bloggers.

Who needs democracy with markets like this, eh? The question is not if the people of the poor neighborhoods of Los Angeles would laugh at your ideas of what a market is, but how hard they would laugh. Next you'll be telling them that if they don't like it they should just move to a better neighborhood.

Pretend you only have access to fast food, and only three bucks to feed yourself. Then, pretend someone rich walks up to you and starts talking about markets.

Yet the arguments against these are EXACTLY the same. Hey, if you don't like smoke while you eat, don't go to restaurants! Hey if you don't like drunks and cutting your foot on broken bottles buried in the sand, don't go to the beach!

"Doctor, it hurts when I do this."

The societal costs of the poor health that fast food joints facilitate affect my pocketbook. Higher insurance costs, increased societal dependence on drugs to compensate for poor health, lowered demands for healthy food, e.g., locally grown without artificial stimulation or disease suppression (leading to lower supply of same) all affect me indirectly but substantially.

Look, I don't actually care if they attempt to legislate fast foods out of any particular neighborhood, even mine, since I don't eat at those places, but you haven't answered the question. You made the point that everyone is engaged in Los Angeles, unlike those here in Oklahoma or Missouri, you guys "get after it."

So if that's the case, why are the fast food joints still there? Wouldn't they be out of business if the entire community (as you portray it) is determined to be rid of them? They shouldn't be able to sell so much as a couple orders of fries in an enlightened environment like the one you have, and that apparently we do not.

It's entirely possible that the activist groups simply do not reflect the will of the community, if they are still doing profitable business there. I know, I'm now "spouting the company line" but if you cannot directly answer that question, then this discussion needs to go no further.

The argument about poor people with only $3 to buy lunch is bogus. Remove the Taco stand. Does the $3 magically double? Do vegetable stands with $3 brocolli and chicken breast meals suddenly appear? What happens to the three bucks?

So: if the community is dead set against it, why do the fast food joints still exist? How do they stay in business? And is it possible that the activists and the actual community aren't really in synch on this?

Not at all - and I know you're smart enough to realize that and must be employing rhetoric at this point.

In terms of restaurants and smoke, most of the anti-smoking stuff has actually come from employee rights. While I could avoid places that allow smoking, the people who work there cannot. As I understand it, that's been the driving force behind eliminating smoking in those spaces. And, actually, once the industry understood that it increased revenues when it banned smoking, it happily went along - there was more money in nonsmoking restaurants than there was in smoking ones.

On the beach, of course, you have to know how ridiculous it is to make that comparison. The beach is an explicitly public space. The public has much more of a right to impose rules on behaviors in those spaces than it does in commercial ones that it does not own or have dominion over. It is pretty commonly accepted that smoking or drinking at the beach directly affects other users in profound and negative ways.

That argument doesn't apply to taco stands and hamburger joints in particular neighborhoods. While they certainly aren't good for the areas they inhabit, nobody there is required to patronize them. Those that do, do not harm those that do not.

What businesses will open in those spaces instead of fast food restaurants? Liquor stores! LOLOLOL

It is helpful to understand that no business (unless it is subsidized) can survive without turning a profit.

If the business is not subsidized and is profitable, it means that enough clients pay for the product/service offered.

So, if you are against the said business' products or services, you can simply choose to spend your dollars elsewhere.

If nobody wants this business' products or services, they will be forced to close shop.


No need to involve politicians.

I'm not convinced that fast food is the culprit in the obesity epidemic. Or at least it's not alone as a culprit.

Personally I gained my weight during a period of time when I ate no fast food. I was a vegan and living on vegetables and fruits and whole grains and legumes. I was a real snob about fast food places. Turned my nose up at both them and their denizens. Gained weight like there was no tomorrow.

Now I eat at McDonald's regularly. No time to cook breakfast? Round eggs at McDonalds. They're just eggs. No time to pack a lunch? A Big and Tasty without the bun at McDonald's. It's just hamburger, veggies, and mayo. (Too much salt, though!)

I'm losing weight. My blood lipids are improved. My blood pressure is down. I'm no longer pre-diabetic. I no longer have a fatty liver. It's going to be a tough sell convincing me that McDonald's has had an adverse effect on my health.

I've tried to buy quick lunches at the grocery store, but almost everything has sugar in it. Even the beautiful roast chicken at the deli was prepared with sugar.

Ultimately the problem I see is that banning fast food in order to "save" me and other fatties from themselves will set us down that slippery slope where the government is telling me what I can and can't eat. And frankly I don't believe the government is smart enough for that. What if they take a look at me - at 210 pounds - and decide I shouldn't be consuming eggs and cream and butter and steak? What if they decide that in order to save taxpayer money I have to return to my former "healthy" diet - or something similar? I'll tell you what - I'll blow up like a balloon, my health will deteriorate, and I really will be on tons of meds for diabetes and blood pressure.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

I hate the fact that this is being dubbed "libertarian" paternalism. It's paternalism, pure and simple. I consider myself a libertarian, and the bottom line for libertarians is, we just want the government to butt out.

A big part is played by the uber-infusions of HFCS that most people buy with fast food. In that regard, fast food has substantially increased obesity. When did we begin to think that having a large Coke with every meal is "normal?"

Yes, that's a good point. I hesitate to even call Coke or any soda a "beverage" because after all, they don't really hydrate. Still, I wouldn't want the gov't telling me I can't drink it. It's none of their business.

Exactly! I was confused by the term "libertarian" in the article too.