Not a happy time for Happy Meals
In a 3-2 vote of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, McDonald’s Happy Meals were stripped of their toys recently. The measure was promoted by a supervisor, Ken Yeager, who said “this ordinance prevents restaurants from preying on children’s love of toys, and breaks the link between unhealthy food and prizes.”.
This California ordinance bans restaurants from giving away toys as promotions in meals of more than 485 calories and more than 600 milligrams of salt.
There was a poll by the California Restaurant Association that showed 87 percent of county residents opposed the law. But that was of no concern to the elected body. Uppermost in their mind is a mission of lowering childhood obesity.
Will McDonald’s fight the power? Will they take the county to court? There is no word yet, but there is strong aversion by most corporations to inviting negative sounding publicity, even if public opinion is on their side. To paraphrase Shakespeare, “lawyers make cowards of us all.” Unless they are willing to duke it out, they will back down.
Isn’t that a shame? Voluntarily submitting to a kind of dictatorship over their ability, their right, to promote a product in a routine fashion, letting the magic of the marketplace determine success or failure.
One thinks of this in a larger context of the Nanny State. This city tells restaurants how much salt they can put in food; another bans grocery stores from selling sodas in plastic bottles. I remember a city manager who tried to get the council to ban further construction of drive through restaurants because he personally thought everyone should sit down inside to eat.
They all cite some problem as the overriding concern. More important than the freedom to choose. More important than a business’s right to promote a product.
Now, the target of the day is childhood obesity. Before, it was unsafe to ride in the backs of pickup trucks or drink out of a garden hose, things I did and got along just fine.
It is no wonder people are more fearful and more prone to worry about being hurt. The message from various units of government, empowered by crusading special interest groups, is everything can hurt you. It is no wonder our legal system is clogged with lawsuits from hot coffee spills. We are becoming soft and whiney.
These special interests will say to fight back against them is to be irresponsible. I would side with those who say not to fight is to sell your soul to a devil in the form of a bureaucrat. The devil only respects those who resist, who will say “no” and stand their ground. To do otherwise is to open the door to never-ending erosions of personal freedom in the name of our own good.
I’m reminded of a quote from Christian writer C.S. Lewis who penned words applicable to this subject:
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences."
---
Mike Shelton is a Yuma resident and guest columnist for the Yuma Sun. E-mail him at mikshelt@msn.com
