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Here’s today’s COMMENT FROM AN OLD FART: Mayor Bloomberg of New York City has announced that he plans to appeal a court decision overturning his soda ban. David McLaughlin, Chris Dolmetsch and Henry Goldman report in the Bloomberg News  article, New York City Appeals Soda Size Ban Court Defeat:

New York City challenged a ruling throwing out Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s proposal to restrict sales of large-size soda drinks, calling the decision by a state court judge “contrary to law.”

All, moi can say is really. There is no doubt that sugary drinks are bad, but so are other conditions which cause harm, Probably, those who over-consume sugar by choice are morons, but the trend appears to be that we only condemn the morons that WE do not like.

A case is point is the level of single parent births in communities of color. Child Trends and DataBank reports the following in the article, Births to Unmarried Women:

Importance

Children born to unmarried mothers are more likely to grow up in a single-parent household, experience instability in living arrangements, live in poverty, and have socio-emotional problems.^1,2,3,4 As these children reach adolescence, they are more likely to have low educational attainment, engage in sex at a younger age, and have a birth outside of marriage.^5,6,7,8 As young adults, children born outside of marriage are more likely to be idle (neither in school nor employed), have lower occupational status and income, and have more troubled marriages and more divorces than those born to married parents.⁹

Women who give birth outside of marriage tend to be more disadvantaged than their married counterparts, both before and after the birth. Unmarried mothers generally have lower incomes, lower education levels, and are more likely to be dependent on welfare assistance compared with married mothers.^10,11,12,13 Women who have a nonmarital birth also tend to fare worse than childless single women; for example, they have reduced marriage prospects compared with single women without children.^14,15

A majority of unmarried births now occur to cohabiting parents.¹⁶ Between 2006 and 2010, 58 percent of unmarried births were to cohabiting parents: in 2002, the proportion was 40 percent.¹⁷ Children born to cohabiting parents are more likely to see their parents eventually marry than are those born to non-co-residential parents.¹⁸ Nevertheless, children born to cohabiting parents experience higher levels of socioeconomic disadvantage, and fare worse across a range of behavioral and emotional outcomes than those born to married parents….¹⁹

Differences by Race and Hispanic Origin²⁰

There are large differences by race and Hispanic origin in the share of births to unmarried women, with non-Hispanic white women and Asian or Pacific Islander women much less likely than women in other groups to have a nonmarital birth. In 2011 (preliminary estimates), 72 percent of all births to black women, 66 percent to American Indian or Alaskan native women, and 53 percent to Hispanic women occurred outside of marriage, compared with 29 percent for white women, and 17 percent for Asian or Pacific Islander women. (Appendix 1) However, the difference between black and white women in the percentage of births that are nonmarital has been shrinking consistently since 1980, while the difference between white and Hispanic women has been widening. (Figure 1)

Figure 1: Percentage of Births that were to Unmarried Women, by Race & Hispanic Origin, 1960-2011

http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/?q=node/196

This is a problem which never should have been swept under the carpet and if the chattering classes, politicians, and elite can’t see the magnitude of this problem, they are not just brain dead, they are flat-liners. There must be a new women’s movement, this time it doesn’t involve the “me first” philosophy of the social “progressives” or the elite who in order to validate their own particular life choices espouse philosophies that are dangerous or even poisonous to those who have fewer economic resources. This movement must urge women of color to be responsible for their reproductive choices. They cannot have children without having the resources both financial and having a committed partner. For all the talk of genocide involving the response and aftermath of “Katrina,” the real genocide is self-inflicted.

Both the choice to consume sugary drinks and to have children out of wedlock are defined as personal choices. Bloomberg and others won’t touch this issue with a hundred foot pole. Why? Too many of their electorate would be pissed for a variety of reasons and they don’t want to chance their wrath. Scholastic News has a concise description of why the Bill of Rights was added to the U.S. Constitution in the article Bill of Rights:

The debate over the need for a bill of rights was sparked by a proposal made by a dissenting minority in the Pennsylvania ratifying convention. Some delegates believed that guarantees of certain basic rights and liberties were missing from the proposed Constitution. They called for a number of amendments that would secure a wide range of liberties, such as the free exercise of religion, freedom of speech and press, and protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. Majorities in the ratifying conventions of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina also called for numerous amendments to the proposed Constitution. Although the substance of these recommended amendments differed from state to state, most contained provisions that would limit the powers of the new federal (national) government and protect the people from inconsistent and oppressive rule. http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/constitution_day/background/index.asp?article=billofrights

So, a behavior that statistically is more damaging than consuming sugary drinks is never condemned. The child born to a single poor mother is usually condemned to follow her into a life of poverty. Yet, the same rigor of dissuasion is not applied to young impressionable women who are becoming single mothers in large numbers as is applied to regular Coke or Pepsi addicts. Personal choice is involved, some of the snarky could categorize the personal choice as moronic in both cases. Government intervention is seen as the antidote in the case of sugary drinks, but not single motherhood. Why? Because we like to pick the morons we want government to control. The fact of the matter is that government control is just as bad in the case of sugary drinks as it would be in regulating a individual’s reproductive choice. The folks like Mayor Bloomberg who want government to control some behavior really don’t want to confront the difficult, for them, political choice of promoting individual personal values and responsibility. It is much easier to legislate a illusory solution. So, the ruling elite will continue to focus on obesity, which is a major health issue, while a disaster bigger than “Katrina” and “Sandy “ sweeps across the country with disastrous results.

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Tags: Bill of Rights, Births to Unmarried Women, Child Trends and DataBank, Comment from An Old Fart, current-events, Dr Wilda, Mayor Bloomberg, New York City, New York City Appeals Soda Size Ban Court Defeat, politics, Scholastic News, u s constitution