Confounded by Responsibility

According to sports writer Jason Whitlock, who is known for his large size as much as his inane opinions, McDonalds is a criminal enterprise comparable to a drug dealer. In a recent column about himself while deriding capitalism he wrote:

Most Americans have no idea Ronald McDonald is killing their kids. No clue… You can spin the argument like you’re doing it for the good of the country. No different from Ronald McDonald standing on every corner slanging your 5-year-old a Happy Meal.

A mom in California apparently feels the same way about McDonalds and is seeking the courts to do something about it:

we have to say ‘no’ to our young children so many times, and McDonald’s makes it that so much harder to do. I object to the fact that McDonald’s is getting into my kids’ heads without my permission and actually changing what my kids want to eat.

Pondering these opinions and the resulting lawsuit I wonder how it is that I made it to adulthood. When I was a child I ate at McDonald’s regularly and almost always had the same thing, a cheese burger happy meal with fries and orange drink. Plus a toy guaranteed to break within a week. If it had been my choice I would undoubtedly have eaten McDonald’s much more often than I actually did but my parents *surprise* did not find it overwhelming to be parents and determined how often I could indulge in a happy meal.

I no longer frequent McDonald’s, mostly because I find it bland. I have many friends that still enjoy McDonald’s and I often make fun of them for it but it is without malice. I don’t care what anyone else chooses to eat. None of them are obese.

As the father of a toddler I know that soon my son will like McDonalds, often request it and sometimes I will take him and sometimes I will say no. And he may act out and I will respond by sticking to my decision, regulating his behavior so that it is not over the top and hopefully encourage perspective. Happy Meals now have many more options than when I was young even including fruits and juices. I do not need or want some government entity “helping” me with the decisions relating to my son’s diet.

And that’s the point. Because Whitlock seemingly ties his large size and likely lack of self-control to Happy Meals consumed as a youth and a mom in California is overwhelmed, both think the government should control what children consume because he has to blame someone other than himself for his problems and she either can’t or won’t make decisions for herself. We live in a wishy-washy kind of society now where many people act helpless and cry out for government oversight to help in their specific issues. The problem is that they are pushing the government to make those same decisions for others who are not helpless.

It is often said that if the government subsidizes a certain activity or commodity (think long term unemployment or ethanol) we will get more of it. The same goes for overbearing nanny like oversight. And while the government can be incredibly inefficient, the one area in which it is always expeditious is in delivering hard to understand rules and regulations telling everyone how to live, robbing all of us of freedom.