Seeing The Writing On The Wall, Pepsi And Coke Pull Soft Drinks From Schools

News today is that Pepsi and Coke will no longer be selling their sugar-based drinks in schools globally. And who can blame them? With Michelle Obama and other government nanny staters (backed up, as always, by the trial lawyers salivating at yet another round of class action lawsuits) zeroing in on sugary drinks with blame for making kids fat, they had to do something.
They can’t just argue that they sell their products to people who choose to consume them and that the responsibility for overconsumption lays with the consumer. That might imply that we are each responsible for our own actions, and that just doesn’t fit the narrative.
Because well all know it’s the company that makes the product, not the individuals who abuse it, who shoulders the blame for the abuse right? It’s not the man who eats Big Macs three meals a day who is to blame for his heart condition. It’s McDonald’s for making the hamburger. It’s not the murder who is at fault for shooting his wife. It’s the company that made the gun.
What’s sad that, as a society, we’ve been working to this for some time. We’ve decided that bars can be held responsible for people drinking too much and driving. We’ve decided that tobacco companies can be blamed for people smoking too much and getting lung cancer.
In fact, finding someone else to blame for our problems and afflictions has become a national pastime. And that abdication of individual responsibility, which is quickly followed by an abdication of liberty as others take on responsibility for our individual actions, is increasingly dangerous.
Here’s a memo to parents of fat children: It’s your fault that your children are fat. Stop buying them soda and fast food and get them more exercise. You can do this during the time that you’re currently wasting blaming other people for your children being fat.