Fear your government
In Raeford, North Carolina a state government worker inspecting lunchboxes decided a preschooler’s packed lunch wasn’t nutritious enough and substituted a school-made chicken nuggets meal.
At West Hoke Elementary School a government worker going class-to-class inspecting lunchboxes discovered a near tragedy: a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, apple juice and potato chips. Yes, you’re thinking “O – M – G.” Thank God the state stepped in before nutritional child abuse could occur.
This is what happens when the government decides it knows better than the child’s parents. New regulations, implemented by the Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services, require all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs meet USDA guidelines.
The new regulation states that when home-packed lunches do not include all of the required items, child care providers must supplement them with the missing ones. Effectively the federal government is saying you don’t know how to properly care for your children, so we’ll do it for you.
Not surprisingly, the lunch brought by the student sounded much healthier than the chicken nugget tray the government substituted; a meal the mother was billed for $1.25. Apparently the child would’ve preferred what her mother had packed, eating only three of the chicken nuggets. Even if the tray of chicken nuggets was more nutritious, how much nutrition is gained if a child won’t eat it? Of course a mother would know what a child prefers, not the government.
A note sent to the child’s mother said that students who did not bring “healthy lunches” would be offered the missing portions and that parents would be charged for the cost of the cafeteria food.
A government that cares for you, owns you
Whether you use the term “nanny state” or “mandate” the message is the same: the government knows better than you what’s good for you and your children. Was the child showing signs of malnutrition? The note from the government didn’t indicate so. This is the logical consequence of a government transitioning from suggestions, such as the food pyramid, to seizing control of your life.
What if a parent doesn’t agree with the nutrition guidelines prepared by the government? Tough luck folks; the government knows better than you. When a government doesn’t respect your individual rights it’s hardly noticeable when they hijack your parental rights. Should we stand by while our government intrudes to this degree in our personal lives? At what point do we say enough is enough?
There is no doubt that many kids don’t eat as well as they should. Parents that raised kids more than 30 years ago had very few resources, other than commonsense, when planning what went into a kid’s lunchbox, yet most of those 30+ adults seem to be doing quite well. Peanut butter and jelly, bologna and cheese with Ruffles, maybe an apple or whatever didn’t kill us off; had it done so we wouldn’t be staring at a Medicare and Social Security crisis.
Not only doesn’t the government know better, it’s constantly demonstrating complete incompetence. Do we want the same folks that chose Solyndra to build solar panels, borrowed money from China to provide foreign aid to China and just requested $800 million in foreign aid to a country holding our citizens hostage, choosing what our kids consume?
Doesn’t make much sense does it?