From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: alt.politics.british,sci.med.nutrition,uk.politics.drugs
Subject: Re: prohibition extended to include vitamins.
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 13:02:44 -0700
Message-ID: <a6j2p4$ii1$1@slb5.atl.mindspring.net>

"james t kirk" <james_t_kirk@lycos.co.uk> wrote in message
news:2a8f35e1.0203110603.536a207a@posting.google.com...

> You may be asking what you can do to prevent this act of villainy. The
> answer is nothing. The EU is not democratic and answerable to nobody.
> You will do as you are told or face the consequences


COMMENT:

A nice description of the law anywhere. But of course the poster is
hysterical. The EU is manifestly democratic: if all the people of all the
member nations demanded vitamin rights, and refused to elect politicians who
didn't support them, then the EU would have no voting members who didn't
feel the same way.

But Europeans are sheep. They're watched by videocameras, they've given up
their firearms, and now that their governments are in their bathrooms
rumaging around in their vitamins bottles, they'll permit that, too. With
only a little squawking-- not enough to make any difference. You see, they
long ago gave up any idea that the government was not all-wise, and should
control anything having anything to do with ways in which persons might hurt
their little selves. Which means, everything.

Get used to it, James T. Kirk. This is not Star Trek. If you live in Europe,
you're not only not the captain of a starship, you're not even captain of
your own intestines. Sad for you, but there it is.

Have you thought of moving to Alaska?

SBH

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: alt.politics.british,sci.med.nutrition,uk.politics.drugs
Subject: Re: prohibition extended to include vitamins.
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 13:55:24 -0700
Message-ID: <a6lq3k$vup$1@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net>

"Fred Bloggs" <mrfredbloggs@altavista.co.uk> wrote in message
news:fa2f473d.0203120750.75220211@posting.google.com...
> > But Europeans are sheep. They're watched by videocameras, they've
> > given up their firearms, and now that their governments are in their
> > bathrooms rumaging around in their vitamins bottles, they'll permit
> > that, too. With only a little squawking-- not enough to make any
> > difference. You see, they long ago gave up any idea that the
> > government was not all-wise, and should control anything having
> > anything to do with ways in which persons might hurt their little
> > selves. Which means, everything.
>
> Be sure to post again in a year or so the the Feds get laws to do
> whatever they want to US citizens regarding gun control, internet
> access, encryption, freedom of travel etc... hope you`re whiter than
> white (in terms of both criminal record and skin color



COMMENT:

I am actually whiter than white. I've joked that I have the kind of face
with which I could come out of a bank where alarms are going off, with a
full pillowcase slung over one shoulder, and cops coming up would still say
"which way did they go?" and I'd point, and off they'd run.

I am disgusted that this should be so, of course, and I'm more than
disgusted at the kinds of basic freedoms we in the US are about to lose due
to 9-11.  And that's with the Republicans in charge. If it was the
Clintonian Democrats, it would be far worse.

However, Europe has less excuse. Australia and Canada have even less excuse.
America rebelled against the British empire, and has ever since had a
suspiciouness of government, tempered by the long presense of the Western
frontier, in which the small densities of people made self-sufficiency
mandatory.  We're now 112 years after the closing of that frontier, and
overgovernment is now creaping toward us Westerners from both coasts.

I presently live in Utah, which is an island in the middle of the basically
waterless and empty Western US (West meaning everything West of the
Missouri, excluding the California coast), and is therefore isolated in the
middle of this creeping government madness. Places like Montana and Alaska
are other islands. When they're finally gone, there won't be anyplace left.
Even here.

Personal freedom is ever the victim of fear, crowding, money interests, and
just plain emotionalism.  Even in Utah, concealed carry permit holders were
prohibited from attending the olympics with weapons-- this in a state in
which they can carry firearms into churches, schools and many government
buildings (by the way, no crime with a concealed weapon has ever been
committed by a holder of such a permit in this state, in the history of the
law).  Still, what Utahns have formerly seen as a basic state constitutional
right was inturupted by the publicity-crazed legislature for 3 weeks, in the
interests of money (boosterism) and vanity (the mad desire of Utahns not to
look too funny to the rest of the world, which also warped the admittedly
Puritan public drinking laws here for a few weeks).  If that can happen for
lesser reasons such as those, it can happen for many others.  I despair.

SBH

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition,uk.politics.misc,uk.people.health
Subject: Re: EU to ban all vitamins
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2002 15:30:44 -0700
Message-ID: <a6okbf$leu$1@slb4.atl.mindspring.net>

"ciderman" <ciderman1979@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ae9cd66c.0203131241.17174049@posting.google.com...
> mightyhugh@yahoo.co.uk (Hugh Easton) wrote in message
news:<3c8e823c.9643351@news.eurobell.co.uk>...
> > The EU are about to pass a directive which will make nearly all the
> > vitamin supplements on sale at health food stores illegal.
>
> There are two questions which spring to mind. (a) What business does
> the government have preventing people from eating substances which do
> not have noticable negative effects upon their behaviour? and (b) What
> business does the EU have making policies on issues, which do not
> require international co-operation? I am fundamentally
> internationalist in outlook and support the EU in principle but it
> seems remarkably good at producing bad legislation like this and
> remarkably bad at producing good legislation. Come to think of it,
> what good legislation has it ever produced? I can't think of any. Is
> this because (a) I have a selective memory, (b) When the EU does make
> good legislation the media doesn't report it or (c) The EU does not
> produce good legislation?


If you don't believe in international organizations making policy except in
areas where international cooperation is affected, then your
"internationalist outlook" is certainly not the common one.

Why, that would be like the US federal government staying out of domestic
lawmaking, except in matters of interstate conflict and crimes which cross
state lines.  Yuk, yuk.  Not exactly like our present federal government
which tells you how big your bathroom stalls can be at your business (even
if not open to the public), what drugs you can take, what can go in your
toothpaste, what stuff your kids can or should learn in their school down
the block, and so on, and so forth, ad infinitum.

A general principle of efficiency is the principle of forward command. As
good old Gen. Patton used to say: the people who make the plans should be
the same people who will be executing them. Similarly, the farther away a
law is made from the people who are intended to have to abide by it, the
worse the outcome is likely to be. It's a simple matter of information.

Alas, with the EU as with anywhere you've fighting the human urge to amass
power and control, to dominate larger and larger areas and more and more
people, farther and farther away. This urge works away in all organizations,
large and small, at all levels, all the time. The urge to dominate and amass
power has to do with sex and reproduction, and it's automatic in humans.
You're about as likely to stop it in the office and in the government, as
you are to stop people from overeating.   All you can do is fight it. Point
out how inefficient it is, what stupid decisions it produces, and how much
pain and suffering it has cost people in the past (see Communism). Finally,
keep pointing out that what goes around, tends to come around.  I wish I had
a nickel for every liberal I've ever met who said they want a great big
giant powerful government, except for just this ONE little area in their
personal lives they find an outrage and intrusion....

SBH