This morning I saw a commercial on the idiot box from the bottlers of Coke, Pepsi and Dr. Pepper/Snapple.
The premise was that they had removed “full calorie” drinks from school vending machines and, in doing so, they were helping school kids “make healthier beverage choices”.
Umm, no they are not.
What they have done is remove the supposedly “unhealthiest” of the choices so that the kids only had a supposedly “healthy” selection of drinks to choose from. Replacing Coke, Pepsi, 7-Up, Sprite, etc. and replacing them with the diet versions of these drinks and juices and water is not “helping” anyone make a “healthy choice”.
It would be like the government coming in and stating that they were removing all the Japanese, Korean and German built cars so that American’s could more “Union-Friendly” choices in selecting their automobile.
Or, to put some hair on the argument: It would be exactly like the government outlawing abortion, sending all the subsidy money they give to counselors, etc. to funding orphanages and then coming along and stating they were helping Americans make more “Fetus-Friendly” choices.
It’s all bullshit either way you look at it since more and more government run schools were coming down on said bottlers because of pressure from Concern Troll dot-orgs to take the “unhealthy drinks” out of the schools anyway.
The bottlers got to look like the responsible ones, save themselves from any potential lawsuits, and all they had to do was come up with some language that made it sound like they’re “freeing” the wittle childrens from themselves.
Heaven forbid that a 17 year old think they can make decisions for themselves about what to drink.