Fatuous

In case you missed the latest instalment of the Beeb's documentary strand 'If…', let me summarise it for you: WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!

Actually, that's 90% of the Beeb's output, only the particular form of the apocalypse d'jour varies. This time it was obesity (hence the title 'If…we don't stop eating'), which gave us the always enjoyable sight of Liberals trying to square the circle. On the one hand the L3 wished to preach to us about the dangers of being a bloater, on the other there's a whole new PC victim group to coddle. As a result the program veered crazily between Jabbah the Hut lookalikes bemoaning the fact people call them fat and men in white coats proclaiming that every extra pie takes six weeks off your life.

The Zeppelins depressed me. All my life I've been waiting to get my turn as an official victim of society and when I find one group I can make the grade for, it's with this bunch of losers. Really - it was grim. One of the talking heads (described bizarrely as a 'former obese person') claimed that obesity was a word used to categorise fat people by thin people. What word she thought we should use to describe lard scoopers, she did not say. More to the point, call it what you will - it's still not healthy.

Still, at least the Sumo Squad were only interested in self-destruction. To listen to the rest of the contributors, it's a wonder any of us have survived this far. Taken at face value, their comments would stop anyone heavier than Kate Moss making plans for next Christmas. Funnily enough, they did have an answer though. Amazingly, the cure for obesity involves massive government intervention - not unlike the cure for every other L3 crisis, then.

Naturally, no true Liberal would think of blaming obesity on the obese. Nope - it's all a ….. Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Like everything else. Via a time warp from the 60s, one talking head claimed the 'system was a problem, in the way we feed our nation'. Yeah, the system, man….. we're not feeding people right - if we put the food up the nose instead of in the mouth, that would really help to cut down over-eating. Plus, there's apparently too many stimuli that encourage over-eating - meaning what ? Who knows ?

Food companies, we were assured, use the 'same techniques as tobacco companies' - which apparently means they advertise. A voice-over talking about the causes of obesity naturally featured shots of the golden arches. In case you missed the implication, the voice-over spelled it out - Britain was getting fatter, 'just like any Americanising country'. Will that Uncle Sam never cease his evil plots ? Is it just me, or do other people not think of chicken madras as health food ? How come we never see shots of fatties gobbling down Belgian chocolates ? Is there some kind of agenda here ? Ditto, the references to pharmaceutical companies investing in obesity research. Here, you have billions of pounds being spent to try and find treatments for a condition the Beeb just got through telling us will kill everyone in Britain, and all the L3 can do is sneer that the successful company stands to make huge profits from it. Let's hope they all fail utterly then!

Any remaining thought that the programme was about weight in any but the most superficial sense was dispelled as soon as a representative appeared from the 'Food Commission' - ignore the pseudo-official title, they are simply a Marxist front group which uses food issues as a Trojan Horse through which to promote their disgusting ideals. Similarly, we were informed that since obesity is most common in deprived areas, being poor makes you fat (needless to say, justifying huge programs to supply cheap, healthy food). Well, possibly, or it could be that the same personality characteristics that commonly match to extreme obesity also make these people lousy employees ? Funnily enough, no one asked that question.

The program ended on a high point when it noted that opponents of this kind of Nanny State garbage will oppose it by calling it Nanny State garbage. Liberals have always had a problem with the Right calling things what they are - hence, PC. In a supposedly witty riposte to that line of argument, one of the L3 noted that people who complain most about the Nanny State tend to have nannies. Yer what ? As Paul points out, the people who have nannies are babies - who don't really engage with public health issues. Assuming that the El Cubo meant people who employ nannies, it's still senseless. The L3 have spent forty years campaigning to get the government out of the bedroom, now they want it hiding in the fridge but it's only Lord Snooty who could possibly object ? What if you have breakfast in bed ? Would it be a civil rights issue then ? Loonier than that though, the Liberal in question then suggested there would be less opposition if they changed the meme from Nanny State to Parent State. Like, totally. Has anyone got the number for the Menendez brothers ?

The Beeb's standard Bad Dog/Good Dog rhectoric was in full flow. Trying to dictate the nation's tastes was 'bold, decisive leadership'. Government had to 'get to grips with it' rather than 'leaving it to industry'. That the contents of my fridge were not necessarily a matter for either Tony Blair or Shell was never discussed. No, government had to intervene because - and here I quote directly from one talking head - 'the slaughter cannot go on'. It says a lot about where the Beeb is at right now that even this didn't trigger the BS warning.

You will be staggered to learn that the prescriptions for getting the nation fit again all happened to be a load of statist garbage: ban advertising, cut welfare benefits to fatties, lower the price of healthy food and tax unhealthy food.

No, actually, I made one of them up. Can you guess which ?

The weirdest ides was to introduce free, compulsory school dinners. I have to admit that personally, I think this will really help kids grow up healthy since nothing will helps kids to grow up free of the mental problems associated with Liberalism like forcing them eat the products of socialism five days a week.

The closest we got to honesty during the whole program was when one L3 admitted that he worried that obesity may break the NHS. That was more like it. Obesity points to one of the major problems with the NHS - that people are relieved of responsibility for their own health. Why exactly should postmen be taxed to provide health care for the chocolate-obsessed 40 stone wives of businessmen ? Nevertheless, the Liberal in question worried about a 'brave, new, rather unpleasant world where you only get health care if you can pay for it' - y'know, sort of like how buying food works, yet still we have a problem with obesity not starvation. Who'd have thunk it ? In a similar vein, the former fatty mentioned above noted that she thought it would be unfair if lardies were held responsible for their condition.

Exactly.

This is the central hypocrisy of the Liberal position on obesity. They talk at great length about how dangerous it is, they blame McDs, the Colonel and A N Other big company, yet what of their own responsibility ? How did we ever get to the point that people can claim it's unfair to hold someone responsible for their own body weight ? Or that Big Business is forcing us to eat junk food ? We're all victims, we can't do anything about it. We can't not eat, we've been brainwashed. We need a government program. Personal responsibility ? The L3 have written it out of the picture. Obesity really is a perfect example of Liberal activism. They get to push their rancid views while all the time undermining the only thing that could cure the problem.