Guest Post from Dr. Jon

A guest post from my good buddy, Dr. Jon, owner of The Heart Attack Grill in Phoenix. A link is on the right.

I’ve NEVER liked radicals. Conservative radicals… Liberal radicals… Black radicals… White radicals… Feminist radicals… Chauvinist radicals… what ever type of radical they are… I just flatly DON’T like them!

Do you know why? Because if they spent 1/10th of the time that they do protesting silly causes, on improving their job skills, the world would be a much better place to live in. Give me; Shoemakers who strive to create better shoes… Dentists who strive to take better care of teeth… Policemen who strive to keep neighborhoods safer… Strippers who strive to give better lap dances…

In short give me quality, give me excellence, not pathetic activism. I know what you’re thinking…

“This article is writhe with hypocrisy Dr Jon! You’re a Burger Surgeon. Shut up, get back to the grill, and make me a better Bypass Burger!”

… but there comes a moment in life when every surgeon must set down his spatula and take a stand for the greater good. So yes I, Doctor Jon, have now officially joined the lowly ranks of activism…

DIET COKE?
NOT NO, BUT HELL NO!

Looking for new ways to steel from the American public, the Senate Finance Committee, under the guise of “health reforms” wants to, attach a federal excise tax to full sugar soda pop, yes SODA POP! Not on diet sodas with cancer causing artificial sweeteners, but the good old fashioned all American cane sugar drink that our moms would reward us with when we were good kids.

It seems that a vocal group of academics are promoting this nuisance tax by claiming that it would cut consumption of high-calorie soda and help obese Americans lose weight. “Sodas stick out like a sore thumb as a cause of obesity,” says Harvard’s Walter Willett, “Soda plays a unique role in weight gain”. Well gosh “Walter” are you trying to say that drinking too much soda will make you fat? Really? Wow, that’s some pretty amazing research! Did they teach you that at Harvard??

“Soda’s are mostly empty calories that don’t provide any nutrients to the diet”, says Barry Popkin, nutrition professor at UNC. Well wrong ‘Marry Poppins’ soda does provide the most important nutrient of all… HAPPINESS! Hey and while you’re at it, I’d like a side order of FREEDOM, damn it!

Academic types all scream that obesity is a problem which should be dealt with by the government. They seem to forget that increasing taxes on alcohol have not significantly affected abusive consumers. All the abusive consumers will do is shift to something cheaper but continue to drink abusively. So really all you are doing is punishing moderate consumers, who gain health benefits from their moderate consumption.

In the New England Journal of Medicine, Yale University’s Kelly Brownell promoted the soda tax stating that such a tax could raise “billions of dollars of revenue”. Well ‘Kelly’ you may have a girl’s name but at least your honest about what the true intention is here… money! Or more specifically… you, the American soda drinker’s money!

No matter how much scientific evidence these “experts” can drudge up which “proves” that soda consumption increases the risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease, they are still missing the real point:

Sodas don’t make people fat.
People make people fat!

Of course one could scream this till they’re blue in the face, but don’t plan getting through to academic types. They’re comparable to the jerks at the American Medical Association who refuse to recognize my achievements in the area of human happiness. The “experts” will always conjure up studies that show Americans are consuming way more calories from soda than they were 25 years ago, and that 70% of Americans are now overweight or obese! Well we’ve all heard that our heavy brethren carry a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc.. and many other health problems. In fact, we’ve heard it so damn many times that we’re frankly sick and tired of all the negativity.

Well if you want a real study, I personally treat tens of thousands of obese patients each month and I can conclusively say that soda pop is not the villain in America’s battle of the bulge! My medical practice is based upon simple thinking: “a calorie, is a calorie, is a calorie, is a calorie!”

The key ratio to consider:
Units of Happiness / Calories Consumed.

Of course the control freaks in Washington DC don’t really care if you’re happy or not. In fact they don’t even care if taxing soda makes even the slightest dent in the obesity statistics either. They just want a new method by which to appear noble while taxing the shit out of you!

The “experts” are trying to demonize the soda companies by pointing out that the American soda consumption has doubled in the last 40 years. All that means to me is that soda companies are doing a better job at manufacturing and marketing their products. Holding a gun to the consumer’s head will not be effective in making them switch. In fact the only effective method is for juice, water, dairy, and other types of beverage companies to get off of their lazy buts and whip the soda companies in the fair game known as capitalism.

The Historical Cycle:
STEP 1: Tax something
STEP 2: Outlaw something
STEP 3: Black Market is created
STEP 4: Associated criminality runs ramped.
STEP 5: Repeal the prohibition.
STEP 6: What 50 years until the next looting government repeats the cycle.

Rather then understanding the core tenant of how the real world works, government agencies are bent on corrupting the free market competition for the consumer’s food dollar through unfair and prejudicial taxation practices. The food Nazis want to destroy the ‘affordability’ of what they do not want others to have. The USDA has stated that, “junk food products simply may overwhelm a person’s judgment and, for that reason Junk food has to get more expensive”.

The bottom line is that ALL taxes hurt ALL people not just poor families struggling through the recession. But let’s imagine for a moment that there was some type of ‘wonder tax’ which could actually benefit both our nations physical and economic health. If that really were the case, should we institute such a tax? (for clarity please refer to the title above)

Never, EVER, be so naive as to think that the government will stop at just taxing your soda pop. Localities like Nassau County on Long Island are already trying to enact a tax on fast-food restaurants. Now of course this will ultimately be based on which restaurants that meet their definition of fast-food. Or better put, the highest bribing special interest groups definition of “fast food”

One of the great interrogative exchanges in American history occurred between Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, who was incarcerated for refusing to pay taxes which supported America’s war effort against Mexico. Emerson was outraged over Thoreau’s refusal to post the bail necessary to get himself paroled from jail.

“What are you doing in there Henry!?”

With one simple response Thoreau put everything into prospective:

“Ralph, what are you doing out there!?”

We must fight against this government’s continuing encroachment into our freedoms. The most effective time to do so is now, before they can pass this tax into law. I urge you all to join in the official HAG letter writing campaign and tell your elected representatives. If we procrastinate, and the scoundrels are allowed to sneak this one through, then we must all take our turns behind bars as proud and civilly disobedient citizens. Otherwise we are nothing more than the spineless subjects of government which grows ever more totalitarian by the day.