Nanny Nancy’s Brave New Capitol Lunch Counter
Politico takes time out from hatcheting candidates to cast a skeptical eye on changes in Capitol Hill eating options mandated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The results give insight into the rather peculiar and nanny-ish authoritarianism that lies just beneath the surface of the “progressive” program to force people to share their environmental ideologies.
The clearest expression of this authoritarianism comes at the end, when Pelosi’s designated arbiter of culinary political correctness dismissed customer complaints about biodegradable straws that tend to melt in hot liquids with nothing short of blatant arrogance:
Ventura said customers would have to change their behavior to accommodate the environmentally friendly products.
“We have had a few people observe that [straw] phenomenon and we had to tell them, ‘Sip your coffee like a normal human being,’” Ventura said. “We’re trying to save the planet here.”
This snooty dismissiveness towards those who do not willingly share in the mandatory eco-craze extends also to the food itself, with exotic names and ingredients selected to burnish the egos (as well as possibly the pocketbooks) of elite environmentalists forcing underpaid staffers to absorb the resulting increase in costs.
The cities of Chicago and New York have already banned the sale of food products that the enforcers of mandatory healthy eating deemed improper. Moves are on to extend the reach of these government-mandated dietary restrictions even further. And now Speaker Pelosi puts the full weight of the third highest office in the land behind a drive to enforce political correctness in soup spoons and “free range chickens” and to hell with the ignorant wishes of the great unwashed.
This sort of thing is what makes people detest liberals even as they might otherwise be sympathetic to many liberal ideas. The more that liberals seek to make their lifestyle choices mandatory, the more they betray their own supposed principles about individual rights and freedoms. Today it is the lunch counter in the Capitol. Tomorrow, it is your kid’s school lunch program. The day after that, it is your refrigerator.
Welcome to Pelosi’s brave new world.
From the same article:
To most Hill denizens, the cornucopia of choices is cause for rejoicing — a significant switch from a menu that previously relied heavily on iceberg lettuce and vanilla pudding.
“It’s been long overdue that there should be more healthy options,” said a congressional science fellow who was not allowed to speak on the record. “It was hazardous to my health to eat almost anything they had here before.”
Ventura said a popular outcry had prompted the changes.
“We had [diminished] satisfaction surveys with [the earlier contractor],” Ventura said. “People were getting disenchanted with the food quality.”
Jason, did it ever occur to you that your ability to see liberal totalitariansim everywhere is perhaps on a par with Bush Derangement Syndrome at it’s "finest"?
Regards, C
No, Cernig, I do not agree at all.
While I think several of the systems for animal treatment in the US should be banned and that establishments should have the right to offer only foodstuffs that comply with ethics and the environment it is a bit silly and wrong to deny people the right to straws that work.
I agree that there is a tendency to overreach and be a bit quick to spread one’s values. I prefer to legislate away the truly bad and harmful ways of the foodstuffs industries and encourage eco-friendly lifestyles instead. Forcing people to pay extra for smaller steps that are a drop in the ocean is arrogant and
far away from the results-oriented liberalism I want to see.
I do find the column to be quite overreaching and empty in substance as well, but I can still see that this is not the equivalent of BDS.
As Jason rightfully points out (and as I did as well) the net effect of the change is to restrict the choices of the majority consumer in the market (congressional and building staff) while boosting their costs and subsidizing the haute cuisine meals of the more affluent minority consumer (congresscritters and lobbyists).
Latte liberalism at its finest–the masses pay for the goodies of the more powerful, not just in price but in freedom of choice.