Another Sign of Europe's Dying Civilization

Eat Bugs: New EU Food Policy 

Promotes Less Meat, More ‘Alternative Proteins’

Virginia Hale
Breitbart London

Europeans must move to a “more plant-based diet”, according to new EU food policy, which also revealed the bloc will promote “insect-based proteins and meat substitutes”.

The European Commission’s Farm to Fork (F2F) Strategy for creating a “fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly” food system insists that such a transition “will not happen without a shift in people’s diets”.  “Moving to a more plant-based diet with less red and processed meat and with more fruits and vegetables will reduce not only risks of life-threatening diseases, but also the environmental impact of the food system,” asserts the strategy, which was unveiled Wednesday.

In order to promote such a diet, the strategy said research in Europe will focus on “increasing the availability and source of alternative proteins such as plant, microbial, marine, and insect-based proteins and meat substitutes.”  A change in eating habits is “critical” to reducing obesity, according to the Commission, which also acknowledges in its F2F Strategy that Europeans want food that is “fresh [and] less processed”.

The Bug Burger

It is unclear how promoting a move to eat less meat will address these concerns, however, as plant-based meat substitutes are considered to be “ultra-processed” foods, which research has linked to weight gain as well as poor health and early death.

Some activists were disappointed with the strategy, an earlier draft of which reportedly suggested that the Commission would propose to “stop stimulating production or consumption of meat”.

The Good Food Institute Europe (GFI Europe), which lobbies on behalf of the plant-based meat substitute industry, hailed the strategy as a “significant step forward”, claiming so-called alternative proteins “play a critical role in Europe’s transition to a more sustainable, healthy and just food system”.

According to the EU document, the F2F Strategy is “at the heart of” the European Green Deal, the Commission’s “roadmap” to making Europe “the first climate-neutral continent by 2050”. 

“It maps a new, sustainable and inclusive growth strategy to boost the economy, improve people’s health and quality of life, care for nature, and leave no one behind,” boasts the unelected EU executive.

Many scientists are sceptical about plans to drastically slash carbon emissions, however, with Cambridge engineering professor Michael Kelly warning that scrapping reliable energy sources such as coal and nuclear in favour of renewables would be an act of “total madness” that would necessarily result in a collapse of living standards.

“In energy terms the current generation of renewable energy technologies alone will not enable a civilized modern society to continue,” the Hughes Medal-decorated physicist wrote, in a 2016 paper which noted that renewables supplied only seven per cent of global electricity needs while “the rate at which fossil fuels are growing is seven times that at which the low carbon energies are growing”.

“The call to decarbonize the global economy by 80 per cent by 2050 can now only be described as glib in my opinion, as the underlying analysis shows it is only possible if we wish to see large parts of the population die from starvation, destitution or violence in the absence of enough low-carbon energy to sustain society,” he warned.

Exploding an Urban Legend--Red Meat Not Carcinogenic At All

No Problems With Red Meat

Outrage After Researchers Can’t Confirm Red Meat Causes Cancer

Victoria Friedman
Breitbart London


Scientists have found there is little evidence that eating red meat causes health problems.
The research, led by Dalhousie University and McMaster University in Canada, counters official guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO), which in 2015 labelled meat a carcinogenic.

The paper was based on the research of a 14-strong international team of specialists and published on Monday in Annals of Internal Medicine. Bradley Johnston, associate professor at Dalhousie University, said: “Based on the research, we cannot say with any certainty that eating red or processed meat causes cancer, diabetes or heart disease.”

The study’s author elaborated: “From 12 randomised controlled trials enrolling about 54,000 individuals, we did not find a statistically significant or an important association in the risk of heart disease, cancer or diabetes for those that consumed less red or processed meat.”

Johnston remarked on how this should affect meat-eaters’ diets, telling the BBC: “The right choice for the majority of people, but not everyone, is to continue their meat consumption.”

Some in the academic community praised the report’s rigour. Open University emeritus professor of applied statistics Kevin McConway said it was an “extremely comprehensive piece of work”.  Professor David Spiegelhalter, from the University of Cambridge, said: “This rigorous, even ruthless, review does not find good evidence of important health benefits from reducing meat consumption. In fact, it does not find any good evidence at all.”

The Importance of Niacin--a B-Group Vitamin

Worth Consideration

A close friend suggested some months ago that we should read a book about the importance of niacin, a naturally occurring vitamin.  She has an adult child whose health improved remarkably when she began to take regular doses of this substance. 

Eventually, we secured a copy of the book and read it.  [Hoffer, Abram; Saul, Andrew; and Foster, Harold, Niacin: the Real Story, (Basic Health Publications, Inc.)]  All three authors have PhD's.  We have no medical, nor scientific training.  But knowing the struggles of my friend and her daughter over the years, and also hearing about the striking improvement of her daughter once she began to take Niacin (with her doctor's approval and encouragement), we were more than curious to read Hoffer, et al's book. 

Niacin: the Real Story does indeed contain remarkable accounts.  The general layman's position should probably be something like a recognition that Niacin is a B-group vitamin and that it has remarkable properties to assist the health and well being of humans--that is, us.  It is certainly worth while having a discussion with one's doctor on the subject.  Niacin is widely available as a health supplement on the open market.

Veganism For Children Outlawed

Belgium Will 'No Longer Tolerate' Parents Who Force Their Kids to be Vegan


Dan Satherley
News Hub

Belgian officials will "no longer tolerate" parents who force their kids to be vegan.  It follows a number of cases in the European country of children being hospitalised and suffering health complications, and even a death in 2017, linked to vegan diets.

Government children's rights official Bernard Devos asked the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium to make a ruling on the controversial diet, whose adherents avoid eating meat and dairy, and avoid using products made from animal-derived sources.  The academy did so on Thursday, reports local paper Le Soir, saying it was "not ethical" to impose veganism on children.

"This restrictive regime requires ongoing monitoring of children to avoid deficiencies and often irreversible growth delays," the academy's report said.  "It is unsuitable for unborn children, children, teenagers and pregnant and lactating women... This concept of nutrition is similar to a form of treatment that it is not ethical to impose on children."  It's reported around 3 percent of Belgian kids live in vegan families.

"It's For Your Own Good, Little Children"

Meet the Calorie Gestapo! 

UK Government to Bring Back Rationing

James Delingpole
Breitbart London


For the first time since wartime restrictions were finally lifted in 1954, the British government is planning a return to rationing.
This has nothing to do with food shortages caused by Hitler’s Germany but with a different kind of totalitarian menace: health and safety Nazis.

The lunatic plan emanates from a body of grotesquely overpaid bureaucrats called Public Health England (PHE)

According to the Daily Telegraph:

Calorie limits will be imposed on thousands of foods sold in supermarkets and restaurants in a bid to combat obesity.  Draft proposals seen by The Telegraph set out detailed caps for ready meals, sandwiches and even portions of vegetables served across the country.

The plans, drawn up by Public Health England (PHE), suggest a limit of 544 calories for any convenience meal – far below many of those sold today.  Sandwiches and main meal salads would be capped at 550 calories, with a limit of 951 calories for restaurant main courses, and varying limits for other specific foods depending on where they are consumed.  The efforts are part of a Government childhood obesity strategy which promises to cut the calories in common foods by a fifth by 2024.

There are a number of problems with these proposals, starting with the fact that – as Christopher Snowdon of the Institute of Economic Affairs notes – they will effectively ban many of Britain’s most popular dishes, including fish and chips.

Where Do These Folk Come From?

Embarrassing Advocacy

The syndrome of the embarrassing advocate is well known.  It is manifest when a public advocate for a cause or principle is so embarrassing the issue ends up tainted by the follies and stupidities of the advocate.

Dr Darren Powell is a lecturer in health education at the faculty of education and social work at the University of Auckland.  He is a member of the "food police".  The very use of that term--which is now common coinage--indicates the way embarrassing advocates have damaged the cause.

When it comes to food and diet there are plenty of sane advocates.  They will talk about balance in diet, rather than removing foods.  They will reason with their audience to be self-disciplined and prudent when it comes to diet.  "Moderation in all things" is their mantra.  Such advocates do not get plastered with the "food police" label.

Dr Powell has written a piece in the NZ Herald which truly casts him as an embarrassing advocate.  Confusion, misdirection, and suppressed ideologies infuse his written opinions.  He risks defaming the cause of responsible dietitians.  He is all in a lather over advertising junk food which appeals to children.  Sadly, his language is confused, to say the least.

Another Urban Myth

Eating All That God Has Given

For most of the period following World War II, the West--or at least the US, Australia, NZ--has been told that eating fat is a gross dietary sin, insofar as it makes the one who ingests obese.  Consequently we have been hectored without end to avoid fatty food.

The largest exporting dairy company in the world--Fonterra--recently sponsored a piece in the NZ Herald debunking this particular urban myth.

Myths are difficult to debunk - look how long the old saw that people must drink eight glasses of water a day to avoid dehydration has been around. Here's another one: fat makes you fat.  The eight-glasses-a-day mantra is still a thing. So are fears that fat will make you, well, fat - and will play havoc with your heart, weight and make it more likely you'll develop conditions like diabetes.

Now many scientists are beginning to re-draw the boundaries of nutritional knowledge, shifting away from the old thinking that saturated fats (as found in dairy) should be avoided and that the rush to 'low-fat everything' may have been misguided. In fact, in some instances, what we replaced saturated fats with may have been worse.

As is so often the case, the "advice" of the health police turns out to be bad actors.

A Nation Lives By Its Stomach

Do the Hard Yards

Stupid parents load their children up with sugar.  Maybe it's because they don't love them enough to regulate their eating.  Maybe the parents are lazy and too busy with other things.  Maybe they have lost any sense of discipling and ruling the lives of their children and indulgently go with the flow.  Maybe they love sugar themselves and think that to protect their children from it would be hypocritical.  Maybe it is a combination of  "all the above".

The UK (along with most Western nations) is facing a sugar crisis.

Hunger Is a Great Discipline

Indulgent Parenting Leads to a Nanny State

There are at least two perspective on offer when it comes to the nurture and raising of children: the first is the world-views requiring parental indulgence; the second is world views requiring parental discipline.

Whilst it is a generalisation-- we trust not a hasty one--the Chattering Classes and the Commentariat generally favour parental and societal indulgence when it comes to raising children.  The little tykes are assumed to be nascent adults and the more they are treated as if they were adults, the more quickly they will mature.  In contrast, those adults whose parenting involves consistent rules, structure, and discipline are regarded as harmful agents, implicitly guilty of child abuse.

A recent newspaper piece illustrates this great divide.  The issue was food--the right food--for children.  Some parents complain that whilst they know sugar-saturated food is bad for their bairns, the whole world conspires against them

The Poison of Nanny McPhee

 A Disastrous Diet With Deadly Consequences

Never trust "official science"--that is, the science being pushed by government agencies.  If scepticism is the good oil of solid scientific research, once the science becomes "official" in the sense of being accepted by government programmes and enforced by government regulations, healthy scepticism withers on the vine.  At that point, science has become intermingled with, if not captured by, propaganda: the trustworthiness of science diminishes substantially.

To make matters worse, there are lots of vested interests vying for commercial advantage when science becomes "official".  Engineer a government "tick" and millions can be made.  Achieve the promulgation of a government programme, and millions can be parlayed into billions of dollars.  It becomes, in the coarse words of US Vice President, Joe Biden, a "big . . . deal"--that is, a crude joke.

It is now becoming clear that generations of diet advice--official diet prescriptions--backed by scientific research, is wrong.  In fact, it has done enormous damage to human health.  A significant essay recently appeared in the Wall Street Journal, by Nina Teicholz:

Deadly Official Dietary Advice, Part II

Public Policy Demands Science Be "Settled and Certain"

Public Policy Requires Junk Science

In our previous post on this subject, we canvassed how much  "official" dietary and food advice of the past fifty years is turning out, not just to be counter productive, but actually harmful.  This advice has been delivered with emphatic certainty, as if those giving it were utterly convinced of the accuracy and truthfulness of what was being purported.  And they no doubt were.

The reason for such certainty turned upon the overwhelming veracity of  Science.  The discipline which exploded all myths, errors, and superstitions, replacing them with certainty and truth was Science.  That is an overwhelming presumption of our world.  "Science says" is tantamount to the word of a god in our  understanding--an understanding held in common by officials, governments, scientists, the Commentariat and even the common man.

Much of the research into diet and human health relies upon statistical research and analysis.  Much of the research and inferences there-from are flawed.

Deadly Official Dietary Advice, Part I

The Ministry of Food Propaganda

Almost everything the "authorities" have told you about bad food over the past forty years is wrong.  The assertion was made in The Guardian by  Joanna Blythman. There are at least two aspects to this story, equally important.  The first is to expose the errors, fallacies, and chicaneries for what they are.  The second is to expose the research methodologies, posing as scientific, for the sugar puffs they often are.

First, the exposure of the errors.

Could eating too much margarine be bad for your critical faculties? The "experts" who so confidently advised us to replace saturated fats, such as butter, with polyunsaturated spreads, people who presumably practise what they preach, have suddenly come over all uncertain and seem to be struggling through a mental fog to reformulate their script.

Last week it fell to a floundering professor, Jeremy Pearson, from the British Heart Foundation to explain why it still adheres to the nutrition establishment's anti-saturated fat doctrine when evidence is stacking up to refute it. After examining 72 academic studies involving more than 600,000 participants, the study, funded by the foundation, found that saturated fat consumption was not associated with coronary disease risk. This assessment echoed a review in 2010 that concluded "there is no convincing evidence that saturated fat causes heart disease".

No convincing evidence.  None.  Nada.

Doug Wilson's Letter From Moscow

God’s Bistro

Posted on Tuesday, February 4, 2014  

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog and Mablog

What is the balance to be kept when it comes to saying that God “doesn’t care what you eat,” which He doesn’t, and saying that we are to exercise dominion in all that we do? If there is no neutrality anywhere, and there isn’t, then how does this fit with statements like “God doesn’t care”?

The answer is that God cares about everything, but He doesn’t care about things the same way we do. Our job is to learn how to care the way He does, instead of invoking His name to make it seem like He cares the same way we do. There is a way that seems right to a man, but the dead end of that cul de sac is death (Prov. 14:12). Men have a way of esteeming things that God considers below dumpster scrapings. “And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16:15).

So there no neutrality anywhere, but this is not the same thing as saying that everything matters in the way we want it to.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Eating the Bag Itself

Posted on Tuesday, July 9, 2013  

By Douglas Wilson 

This morning I sent out a link to what I called an edifying food rant, which you can read here. Having done so, I thought it might be good for me to summarize a few basic observations about food and the modern Christian. This is by no means exhaustive, but it should give the lay of the land. This is why this subject is of such major concern to me.

The basic food law for Christians is love. The basic food law for Christians is that of reducing friction to table fellowship. Adding diet barriers increases potential points of friction. Whenever diet barriers are necessary for medical reasons (as they often are), we should work with them, of course. But we should all recognize what our shared goal should be — free table fellowship, for all Christians, in every direction. Two Christians, with completely different brown bag lunches, should be able to laugh and talk together over those lunches, even though one bag is filled with food that is full of pure thoughts and the healthiest thing to do with the other lunch would be to eat the bag itself.

Whenever I write about food, which I am constrained pastorally to do, one of the standard dismissive responses that I see in comments and web chatter is that I am not educated on the subject, that I have not read the right studies, etc.

Selling Our Souls Down the River

State Control of Stools and Urine

The electronic communication zone is running hot over some inane comments by some "researchers in public health".  These illuminati were interviewed on national radio and had the temerity to utter the following inanity:

Obesity, she said, was "not a problem with individual choice and self-discipline, which we've proved successfully doesn't work".  Instead it's the fault of "big institutions and the market".

Most of the criticism rightly points out that for 99 percent of the obese population their condition is caused by three things--what they ingest, how much, and what is not done to burn the calories off.  It is a completely self-inflicted condition.  Quite right.

Deadly Vegetarianism

Ordering the vegetarian meal? There’s more animal blood on your hands

Mike Archer argues that vegetarianism kills more animals than a diet of meat eating.

The ethics of eating red meat have been grilled recently by critics who question its consequences for environmental health and animal welfare. But if you want to minimise animal suffering and promote more sustainable agriculture, adopting a vegetarian diet might  be the worst possible thing you could do.

Evolution, Science, and Urban Legends

Superstitions of the Age

The current age thinks itself the best and the brightest. This is an effect, in part, of the reigning paradigm of the current scientific community: evolutionism. This scientific meta-theory propounds that things develop by natural order and law: that is, they evolve to higher and higher planes of existence, from the simple to the more complex and advanced.  

Under the influence of evolutionism, each generation tends to consider itself superior and more advanced than those that have gone before. One upshot is the denigration of history to irrelevance. Why study primitives--except to set a backdrop for our comparatively advanced and sophisticated state?

One manifestation of this self-claimed superiority is medical science. Pop-medicine regales us with accounts of how superstitious and primitive the medical knowledge and treatments of former generations was. Implication: we are so much better and smarter now. One example of a medical procedure once widely practised in the West is bleeding. There are many others.  "How stupid and ignorant those doctors and medical scientists were," is the overriding discourse.

Conveniently, we overlook the embarrassing implication that generations to come will look back at us and likewise chortle with amusement at the ignorance and stupidity of the medical profession at the "turn of the century". This is not to deny that knowledge via the hard sciences does increase and grow. There is a very important sense in which we now know far more than the "bleeders". The Christian attributes this to the coming of the Kingdom of God upon earth, as man fulfils the commands of subduing the earth and making it bring forth and bud, on the one hand, and makes disciples of Christ of every nation, on the other. This is gradual, developmental process is the fruit of God's unfolding human history for His glory and the blessing of His people. It is not the result of the "law" of randomness, as the evolutionist propounds.

The Christian also knows through rigorous historical research that cultures and ages do not necessarily retain the knowledge they acquire. Things known now can be lost to future generations, through wars, famines, plagues, earthquakes and other calamities. It can also result from civilisations crumbling from with--partially at times as a result of scientific and technological error. The Roman's proclivity to use lead pipes almost certainly contributed to the decline of that civilisation.

This raises the possibility that current prevailing medical consensuses may turn out to be profoundly ignorant and damaging to society. Take for example diet. We are threatened, we are told, by a plague of obesity. A new term has entered the lexicon: morbidly obese. Nutritionists, funded by the state, lecture us on what we should eat, and not eat--to escape the scourge. But obesity is just the latest food-related plague. Prior to that it was heart disease.

But what if the dietary preventatives for heart disease (high carb, low-fat diets) actually helped produce an epidemic of obesity? One gets an inkling that future generations will look back at us and conclude that we really were an ignorant lot.

One risk we are very clear about: when science gets married to government campaigns or programmes, the first thing to fly out the window is scientific rigour. The thing is that rigorous scientific research, particularly when dealing with human beings, is inevitably tenuous. It has to end up talking about probabilities and possibilities. Moreover, much current research is statistically based, trying to establish correlations and, from there, causality. For instance: 62% of people with bigger than average eye teeth contract gangrene in rest homes. Ergo, eye teeth size is a likely causal factor for gangrene.

Such research methodology, unless rigorously constrained, is readily subject to fallacious reasoning. But governments require certainty for public health programmes. "Large eye teeth are a danger: get your dentist to reduce their size."  Actually, this rapidly translates into state funding of eye-teeth reduction procedures.  This food is "bad"; that food is "good". Don't do this; do that. When government, who pay, require emphatic certainty, scientists readily comply. But rigour and integrity have long since flown out the window. The upshot: urban myths substitute for effective cures.

When all this takes place within the prevailing discourse of evolutionism, flattering the age with the idea that we are the best and the brightest thus far, superstition and easy credulity can rapidly become the order of the day.

Crocodile Tears and False Pity

Personal Accountability and Constructive Compassion

There is a long standing Christian civil tradition not to speak ill of the dead. A corollary is that one should not seek to make political capital out of them either.

Over recent days we have been treated to the unedifying spectacle of a public inquiry into the death of Folole Muliaga in South Auckland. Mrs Muliaga, you recall, died when electric power was cut off to her home due to the unpaid electricity bills, since she was apparently dependant on an oxygen respirator.

The unfortunate case proved to be a gift for those wanting to engage in pure political theatre. Rich capitalists were portrayed as preying upon the vulnerable. Dirty profit was being put ahead of human beings. Mrs Muliaga was Polynesian, so the incident had racial-overtones. Public socialised healthcare was implicated as partially responsible because the lady should have been receiving professional medical care.

Particularly repugnant was the media manipulation (the media, were apparently willingly and credulously co-opted into the scam) by a politically ambitious union official, who happened to be related to the family by marriage. He played every one of the above themes to perfection. The man had a talent of sorts. He subsequently became the Labour Party candidate for the area in the forthcoming election. The funeral of the poor lady was attended by no less a personage than the Prime Minister herself. Political theatre at its best.

The overwhelming themes in the entire tawdry episode were carried along upon a wailing emotional aria of pity, coupled with its inevitable doppelganger, a swelling chorus of guilt. Someone, some institution, some influence, something was to blame. Our job was to find out, and sheet home the blame. Then our guilt would be assuaged and atoned.

The politics of guilt and pity—ever the whipsaw of Athenian liberalism—marched up front and centre. The conductor was the unscrupulous, ambitious brother-in-law. The musical performers were the sensationalist media. And so the band played on.

Now we have been confronted with the facts and evidence of the public inquiry. The best thing to say about this—which is really a waste of public money—guilt and pity money—is that the reality is finally emerging. As so often is the case, the reality is far from the sensationalist melodrama of political theatre.

A brief summary of the facts (hat tip Halfdone) which testimony has elicited to date is:

1. Mrs Muliaga was near death, being morbidly obese, and the respirator was “window dressing.”

2. Her doctors had decided that Mrs Muliaga was not to be resuscitated if she collapsed in hospital.

3. Her case nurse repeatedly warned her about her diet, which overused fatty foods, and of her lack of exercise. She warned her that if she did not radically change her lifestyle, she would die within twelve months. Mrs Muliaga said that she found it very difficult to change.

4. Mrs Muliaga admitted to her charge nurse that she was erratic in taking her medication, despite being shown an x-ray of her enlarged heart, and being warned that it would not cope if placed under stress.

5. As a result of the one time that she complained about power costs, the hospital helped arranged an emergency payment to cover the bills.

6. She was told that for the respirator to be effective it had to be used 16 hours per day. Mrs Muliaga admitted that she was irregular in the use of the oxygen machine. Her medical advisers testified that she could have died at any time even if she were on the respirator at the time.

7. The Muliaga's had been sent 50 overdue power bill requests in seven years, including eight urgent disconnection letters and four final disconnection notices. It was once disconnected, then reconnected the next day.

What is Jerusalem's perspective on this? Clearly, every death is part of the tragedy of the human condition, ever since the Fall. Mrs Muliaga's passing from the sight of mortal men is no exception. But the salutary note which modern Athens is morally incapable of acknowledging, but which must be duly regarded, is personal responsibility. Human beings are in God's image: therefore, everyone is accountable and responsible for their own actions. Unbelieving Athens is a society built upon the opposite proposition: that we are without guilt, but that someone else is to blame.

Christian society insists that the buck stops with each one of us. You are accountable! You are responsible! In the Christian world-view, it is as if the pointing finger of Lord Kitchener is constantly before us. You cannot absolve yourself by devolving responsibility on to someone else.

It is part of the complex of sin to seek to blame someone or something else. Modern Athens has made blame-shifting into an art form. It has successively and comprehensively institutionalised the eliding of personal accountability and the transfer of blame to others or something else. Adam said, “the woman Thou gavest to be with me,” is the reason I sinned. Eve said, “the serpent deceived me,” so she claimed that she was exploited. The Lord, of course, did not accept these excuses for a moment. The death of Mrs Muliaga, and indeed the death of every human being since the Fall, proves it.

By contrast, in the culture and ethic of Jerusalem, Mrs Muliaga was primarily responsible and accountable for her own well-being and health. Is she not in God's image? Was she not bound by the sixth commandment (“thou shalt not kill”) with respect to her own life during her days upon earth. She was not well served by family, friends, church, or the socialised health system to the extent that they individually and collectively they did not sheet home this truth to her and confront her with it. We rather think they did not, since it would be such an unPC thing to do in modern Athens. But, whether they did or not, she was still responsible.

Her family, her husband in particular, but also her adult children, had God-given duties and responsibilities to her. They had a duty to sheet home her responsibility toward herself, and her family, but above all, to her God. Was not her husband duty bound to love his own wife as if she were his own body? They had a duty to command, cajole, and assist. If she struggled with the self-discipline of exercise (and when one has become so morbidly obese, such a failing is easily understandable), they had a duty to do everything possible to encourage and assist her, exercising with her, providing both an example and encouragement.

If she struggled with getting her diet right, reducing her intake of fatty foods, the other family members should have banned her from the kitchen and the shops, taken over the cooking, and controlled her (and their) diet. They should have said, “We love you too much not to do this,” and acted accordingly.

Sadly, in the “blame-seeking” exercise of the inquiry, the family—both immediate and extended—do not appear to acknowledge any responsibility at all.

It is an abiding sadness that so many Pacific island families, migrating to New Zealand, being professing Christians, have been first seduced then captured by the ethics and values of Athenian socialism. Possibly, it has been an easy capture since they have just transferred tribal corporate ethical systems to New Zealand socialism and its institutions.

In tribal cultures, the One (the tribe) is usually more important than the Many (the individual, followed by the nuclear family). The Tribe is the ultimate provider and protector. Few tribal cultures insist upon personal responsibility and individual accountability. Few tribal cultures have reckoned properly with the original command that a man is to “leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife”—which establishes a new locus of social authority, over which the One, the Tribe, cannot be overlord.

Such tribal cultures are easy pickings for Athenian socialists who, themselves, have imbibed deeply the ethics and values of tribalism—albeit in a far worse and more degenerate form.

In Jerusalem the One and the Many are equally ultimate, each having their respective spheres of duty and responsibility. Jerusalem will, therefore, have nothing to do with the politics of guilt and pity. In Jerusalem, the One (the Church, the State) as commanded by her Lord, insists upon the politics of personal accountability and constructive compassion (otherwise known in the vernacular as “tough love”) of the Many.

Likewise, in Jerusalem the Many resist any attempts by the One to remove responsibility and accountability from them. They remain faithfully independent, insisting upon the duties and responsibilities placed upon them by the Lord.

Of these things, Gollum-like Athens knows nothing, preferring instead slyly to pass off responsibility at every opportunity. From "the Devil made me do it" to "I was not breast fed as a baby" the panoply of excuses rains down incessantly.

In the meantime, may all who have sought to create and bank political capital from the death of this unfortunate lady find their just desserts. And for the one who has passed beyond the sight of mortal men, Mrs Muliaga, may she indeed Rest in Peace.

For the rest of us, may we reflect and learn appropriate lessons, taking up our individual and familial responsibilities, even as the Living God has laid them upon us.

The S-Files

Dr Robyn Toomath: The Sinister Undertones of an Egregious Appeal to Pity.

Contra Celsum has nominated Dr Robyn Toomath, spokesperson for Fight the Obesity Trust for an S-Award.

Citation:

Dr Robyn Toomath has appeared before the parliamentary committee considering the galactically stupid Public Health Bill. She is quoted as arguing: “People are desperate for Nanny State's help. Parents are desperate for help to get their children to eat healthily.”

She also endeavoured to get everyone's heart to bleed by telling us that she keeps a notebook detailing the patients who were admitted to her hospital ward, suffering severe problems because they were overweight. “I know from my day to day experience how big this problem is.” (We are sure no pun was intended)

She claimed that her patients “were intelligent people who knew they needed to regulate their diet and lose weight, but were overwhelmed by a nutritional environment which promoted high-energy, unhealthy foods.” (NZ Herald, 24th April, 2008)

So, laying aside the unconscionable and completely irrelevant appeal to pity, let us analyse what Toomath is actually saying:

1. People are enslaved and cannot control their own lives.
2. People are fundamentally irresponsible.
3. Parents cannot train and teach their children to eat appropriate foods.
4. People know what is right, but lack the will power to do it.
5. People are conditioned by the (nutritional) environment so completely they are “overwhelmed”.

Her solution? Nanny state (yes, she actually used the term) needs to step in to help them.

According to Toomath's world-view liberty, freedom, responsibility, and accountability do not exist. Since everyone is enslaved already, the best thing to do is increase the intrusive powers of the state and make our slavery both overt and official.

Now, laying aside the ethical and philosophical and religious problems with Toomath's world-view, let us just address it on a pragmatic basis. Let's just be clear that Toomath's solution will actually make obesity worse. If enslavement has caused the obesity problem, more enslavement will not arrest it; it will make it worse. If people are unable to control their appetites now, when the state makes itself responsible for what they eat, peoples' appetites will enslave them even more. It will then becomes the government's problem that I desire and eat such things.

Secondly, one never ceases to be amazed at the inconsistency of those who argue, on the one hand, that citizens are morally incompetent, yet, in the same breath, argue the moral competence of government and government officials. There is a universal suppressed premise amongst such people that once someone is either elected or goes to work for the state they become morally perfected or escape the moral imperfections of those whom they are required to govern.

But let us be clear. If Toomath is to be taken seriously she must also argue that we entrust our lives in this matter to state officials, legislators, institutions and bureaucrats who:

1. Are enslaved and cannot control their lives.
2. Who are fundamentally irresponsible.
3. Who will be utterly incompetent and unable to teach us and train us to eat the right foods
4. Who will know what should be done to overcome the problem, but will be completely unable to carry it out.
5. Who will themselves be conditioned by the nutritional environment so that they won't be able to do anything about it.

Someone needs to send Dr Toomath a "please explain" notice.

Remember the adage—when governments step in to prevent or lessen a deemed social evil, the inevitable outcome is that the social evil multiplies and becomes worse. Toomath's “ultimate solution” will actually throw petrol on the obesity fire—or, to use a more apt metaphor, will sweeten and enrich the obesity pie.

At Contra Celsum, we suggest a far more Christian solution to this social problem.

1. Let the government declare that “You are what you eat”, that everyone is responsible, and will be made to face the consequences of their behaviour. If you become obese it is highly probable that a short and painful life awaits you.
2. The government to allocate an obesity public health voucher to every New Zealander which will entitle them to limited treatment for a range of notified obesity related health problems.
3. If a person is admitted to a public hospital for treatment for a notified obesity related health problem, and is obese, the cost of treatment will be born by their voucher.
4. Once the voucher is used up, no further publicly funded treatment for obesity related illnesses will be available. The cost will have to be met by the patient or his/her extended family, charity, insurance, or social networks.

Our solution assumes that people are not slaves, they are accountable and they are responsible. Our solution presupposes that people are thereby treated with respect. Our solution dignifies man, rather than degrades him. Our solution represents principled tough love. Moreover, our solution will radically reduce obesity over time.

Dr Robyn Toomath—S-Award Class II for behaviour that is Stupid, Short Sighted and Stupefied.

Become Obese--Your Government Needs You

Obesity: A Pseudo-Epidemic and Its False Cure

It's official. We have a new epidemic. It's called obesity. The threat is dire. The consequences unspeakable.

Athenian politicians and governments love apocalyptic epidemics. They allow them to take on the patina of being “Great Redeemers”. They are saving us from ourselves.

Recently, the NZ Government introduced an “anti-obesity” bill into Parliament. Yes, the government is going to ban fatness. The Public Health Bill claims to provide new ways for the Cabinet or the Director General of Health to act against the suspected causes of obesity. First it was tobacco. We didn't say anything because, well, tobacco is dirty. Then it was alcohol. That hurt a bit more, but, what can you do? We still did not say anything. The government knows best—and let's not forget all those super educated health professionals (aka highly paid bureaucrat—consultants.) We placidly and supinely let the government restrict, ban, control, and propagandize. We let politicians tell us what to think.

Now it is food. It's too late to do anything now. We have already let them in. The doors are wide open now, and they cannot be shut.

What will happen? Well, we will have taxes on obesity-causing food. We will have restrictions on advertising food and drink that cause fatness. We will have endless sermons and lectures and pontifications from politicians, governments, bureaucrats, and other go-gooders. The fast-food industry as we know it will be black-balled. Subsidies will be given to “Tofu Take Out” joints.

Why? It is a simple question. Why is the government engaging in this new evangelical campaign—apart from its own moral self-righteousness? Money. Western governments are concerned about all the collateral diseases that accompany obesity, for which the taxpayer will have to fund treatment. Billions will have to be found for treatment of heart disease, kidney disease, diabetes, and other diseases that result from obesity.

Enter the fly-in-the-ointment. A recent authoritative, scholarly paper produced in Holland, published in the journal PloS Medicine (“Lifetime Medical Costs of Obesity: Prevention No Cure for Increasing Health Expenditure”) has demonstrated that obese people cost the health system less in the long run. We could also add heavy drinkers and smokers to this list.

Why is this? Obese people live shorter lives. Healthy, gym addicted, diet conscious people live longer, but tend to die from longer term degenerative diseases. It turns out that total lifetime health spending is greatest for healthy people. In other words, if the government is successful in making us more healthy in its attempt to reduce the socialised medicine spend, the more the costs of socialised medicine will rise. The government has been, and increasingly will, waste millions of your dollars trying to make you healthy. If it is successful, it will end up spending even more than it otherwise would have.

Ban fit people. Tax gyms. Subsidize fatty foods. Run tobacco education classes in schools to teach children the pleasures of the delightful weed. Become obese. Your government needs you, fat. The taxpayer needs you. Love those rolls. Let's have beautyflab competitions. I can just see the new TV reality shows now.

So, the economics don't stack up. Public health care costs are ballooning because we are living longer and more illnesses and diseases are treatable with increasingly sophisticated procedures. It turns out that trying to make us less obese by controlling what people eat will only make the problem worse.

Athens is stupid. Stupid in the extreme. But some will object. Should not Christians be concerned when people are in poor health? Surely the command, “Thou shalt not kill” requires us to do all we can to assist others to be healthy? Yes and yes. Surely, then, Christians should support socialised medicine and regard the anti-obesity campaign as laudable and do all they can to support it. No and no and no.

There is just a tiny, small matter of responsibility—personal and familial responsibility. Bluntly put, if you eat the wrong food and become obese you will likely die prematurely. Those are the consequences of your decision. If you feed your children garbage, they too are likely to have all sorts of severe health problems. You are responsible. You are accountable. If you want your children to die early, feed them rubbish. You will be allowed to face the consequences of your stupidity and folly. That is the truth. That is the authentic Christian position. The loving thing to do is to work within the rubric of personal accountability and responsibility because people are better off for it.

I can just hear the “tut tutting” Athenian liberals as they take another sip of pinot gris. “There are many who don't know how to take responsibility for themselves. They are victims. They are oppressed. We have to take responsibility for them.”

This is none other than the twenty first century version of the “white man's burden.” It was arrogant paternalism that led western nations into the reckless colonial era. The consequences are still with us today. But taking over control of countries and territories was justified as having a duty to “help them.”

A similar arrogant paternalism of western liberals has lead to a host of institutionalised evils, socialised medicine amongst them. The consequence is that it has encouraged virtually entire generations not to take responsibility for themselves and their dependants. It's always someone else's fault. Parents are now whining about food companies advertising on TV—wanting the government to “do something about it.” That will help solve our children's eating problems.

Try turning the TV off if its that much of a problem. Take responsibility. Take ownership. Be a real parent for a change. Try putting a decent meal on the table and if the kids won't eat it, take it away and tell them the next meal will be in five hours time. Lock the fridge in the meantime.

For too long successive generations have recited daily the modern Athenian liturgy:

High Priest of Athens: “We will fix it. Don't you worry. Just vote for us.”

People: “Right-oh. You fix it then. How much will you fix, by the way?”

High Priest: “Cradle to the grave, mate. Don't you worry. Cradle to the grave.”

Only it never can be sustained. It never works. It only creates bigger and larger problems on a nation wide scale. And they are here now.

The so-called national obesity epidemic is an outward physical manifestation of a widespread spiritual malaise of self-indulgence, irresponsibility, and a hand-to-mouth gratification. It is a vivid picture of the best that Athens can do. Generations have been taught to believe that others are going to run around them and their children, making things right for them. Cradle to the grave. Omni-competent, infinitely resourced governments will do the trick. We will love you. We will care for you. Just vote for us.

But Jerusalem says, that way may seem right to you, but its end is death. Stop it—now—for your own sake, and the sake of your children. You—yes, you—own the problem. Take ownership. Fix it. Be a real parent, for a change, not just a playactor. If you and your children are going to survive there are some things that are going to have to happen on your watch—and one of them is that you and your children are going to have to eat decent food—that is, if you want them to survive.

Who loves more? Jerusalem or Athens?