Yeah, and they'll leave sex practices alone...

[billc]

Many democrats say that the republicans want to control what you can do in the bedroom. I would counter that the democrats want to control what you do everywhere else, and then when they are done with that, they will move into telling you what you can do in the bedroom. As an example of how this will go, here is the mayor of New York, trying to force women to breast feed their children, and if they don't, the medical staff at hospitals are supposed to "lecture," them...

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/mayor_knows_breast_WqU1iYRQvwbEkDuvn0vb1H

Mayor Bloomberg is pushing hospitals to hide their baby formula behind locked doors so more new mothers will breast-feed.
Starting Sept. 3, the city will keep tabs on the number of bottles that participating hospitals stock and use — the most restrictive pro-breast-milk program in the nation.
Under the city Health Department’s voluntary Latch On NYC initiative, 27 of the city’s 40 hospitals have also agreed to give up swag bags sporting formula-company logos, toss out formula-branded tchotchkes like lanyards and mugs, and document a medical reason for every bottle that a newborn receives.

While breast-feeding activists applaud the move, bottle-feeding moms are bristling at the latest lactation lecture.
“If they put pressure on me, I would get annoyed,” said Lynn Sidnam, a Staten Island mother of two formula-fed girls, ages 4 months and 9 years. “It’s for me to choose.”
Under Latch On NYC, new mothers who want formula won’t be denied it, but hospitals will keep infant formula in out-of-the-way secure storerooms or in locked boxes like those used to dispense and track medications.
With each bottle a mother requests and receives, she’ll also get a talking-to. Staffers will explain why she should offer the breast instead.
“It’s the patient’s choice,” said Allison Walsh, of Beth Israel Medical Center. “But it’s our job to educate them on the best option.”
Lisa Paladino, of Staten Island University Hospital, said: “The key to getting more moms to breast-feed is making the formula less accessible. This way, the RN has to sign out the formula like any other medication. The nurse’s aide can’t just go grab another bottle.”
Some of the hospitals already operate under the formula lockdown.
“New York City is definitely ahead of the curve,” said Eileen DiFrisco, of NYU Langone Medical Center, where the breast-feeding rate has surged from 39 to 68 percent under the program.

Yeah, this will all get easier when the government controls your access to healthcare. If they can tell you what washing machine to use, what light bulb to use, how much pop a resaurant can serve, what toilet you can buy, and all the other things they now feel they can tell you what to do...and now they are trying to deny mothers infant formula...why would you think they will leave your sex life alone?

 

[granfire]

Is the sky falling yet?

The nursing nazis are already out in full force, naturally not to protect the new mothers from the (mainly women) who are grossed out by nursing...


Alas...what happens in public is actually enforcable with minimal intrusion of privacy, what happens in the privacy of one's home - not so much.

 

[shesulsa]

Uhhhhh ... what the hemlock does breastfeeding infants have to do with sex practices???

 

[billc]

Easy. The nanny staters are pushing into every aspect of life and they don't take "no" for an answer. A parent has a choice, breast feed or don't breast feed, get the literature, investigate and then decide. Uh, no, says the nanny state, big government believers. It isn't enough to leave that decision up to the parents, they need to step in and pressure the parents to make the right decision. This is a very private decision that is well outside public control. The state wants to control it so it is no longer a private decision. Now, take sex. The average person of the left believes that sex is an intimate, very private decision, that is outside public control. This is delusional thinking by the average person of the left. The big government statist type lefties will eventually get around to controlling sexual activity as well. Babies born out of wedlock may take up government resources, so having sex falls in the realm of public decision making. The transmission of sexually transmitted diseases is in the public realm as well so they will eventually get around to investigating what people do in the bedroom. They have already started requesting that people put down their sexual orientation on various government forms, it is a request now, it will be mandated later. The fact that government lefties believe they can do what bloomberg is doing is just the camels nose under the tent.

 

[shesulsa]

Dude ... You *seriously* need to pull your head out of the sand. Truly.

 

[Makalakumu]

When is the State going to force me to breastfeed? This is definately discriminatory treatment.

 

[Empty Hands]

Makala, the truth of your signature quote becomes more obvious to me every day. In many, many ways.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I do not agree with the general tenor of this post, but the crust of the biscuit has validity, IMHO.

...
"With each bottle a mother requests and receives, she’ll also get a talking-to. Staffers will explain why she should offer the breast instead."
...
“It’s the patient’s choice,” said Allison Walsh, of Beth Israel Medical Center. “But it’s our job to educate them on the best option.”


This is the core of coercion, and it saddens me that more people don't see it. The condescension is rampant, and it's coupled with an assumption of authority where there is none (at least not yet).

It begins with the determination that 'we' know what is 'best' for everyone else. This may nor may not have a basis in fact, but it's often used as the basis for further action whether it is right or wrong.

It proceeds to an 'education' that is mandatory, not optional. Instead of providing the new mother with educational material, she is given a 'talking-to' which she is forced to listen to.

What is not seen in the quotes above is the end-game scenario, which often follows the first two steps. When 'education' doesn't provide the desired results, the next step is to change the laws so that is it no longer "the patient’s choice." This is seen in laws banning such things as trans-fats, salt, large-sized soft drinks, and other substances which are legal but deemed 'unhealthy' by authorities and busy-bodies.

It is also difficult to have a discussion about this phenomena because quite commonly, the response is a shocked "but it's NOT HEALTHY for you!" as if that were all the justification needed to restrict someone's liberties. It is impossible to discuss freedom and liberty with people who think that the state has a legitimate right to make you do the healthy thing, for your own good, even against your will.

For the record, since a couple clot-brains will find this impossible to infer, I firmly believe that natural mother's milk is far better for infants than formula. I also believe that's not the point, not the point at all.

As to whether or not this will lead, as billcihak says, to invasion of the bedroom by regulating do-gooders, it's possible, but I would guess not, at least not right away. If it were the case, the health-nazis would already have locked up all the gay people and the illegal IV drug users because AIDS was originally transmitted primarily by way of anal sex and sharing dirty needles. They did not do this because they believe that a person's right to put their phallum bway bway wherever they wish to trumps the state's interest in them making wise health decisions. They do not see the food we eat or what we feed our infants in the same light.

 

[MJS]

IMHO, I think that alot of the 'talking-tos' that happen, be it in the hospital, where they're trying to dictate how YOU should feed YOUR child, all the way to the schools, who push a healthy lunch, are nothing more than a waste of time. Can't formula be purchased in the stores? So why are the hospitals turning into dictators? You don't want to give me the formula without the lecture? Fine, I'll just get it elsewhere..lol. Do the schools not understand that it doesnt matter if they do away with the fruit pies, candy, cookies, and twinkies in the cafe, that little Johnny can simply buy it on his own, get it from a friend, etc.

No matter how much preaching the gov't does, the fact is people aren't going to listen

 

[Bill Mattocks]

No matter how much preaching the gov't does, the fact is people aren't going to listen

More importantly, it isn't the job of government to preach. That is the first error the government makes, as well as those who support such actions.

It leads to certain smarter-than-average hunchbrains to eventually twig to the fact that, as you said above, the people are not listening.

But an ill-formed assumption that it is the government's job to preach the healthy lifestyle, combined with the realization that preaching isn't working, leads to laws to MAKE people listen.

And let us not pretend that doesn't happen. The crack down on 'unhealthy' food is on in NYC, and I expect such laws to become the norm across the country as people adopt the idea that government should be telling us what to eat and when to eat it, coupled with the realization that we, the taxpayers, will now be footing the bill for those who choose unhealthy food and suffer the consequences for it; with more government-provided or subsidized healthcare, it becomes our business what Joe-Joe the Dog-Face Boy eats or feeds his kids.

From such well-meaning roots, oppression is spawned. The term 'health nazi' is not really that far off the mark.

 

[Makalakumu]

The government regulates all kinds of substances it thinks you should or shouldn't put in your body. The Drug War and compulsory schooling laws are the perfect example. The exact same reasoning that can force your child to school or stop you from smoking a joint can be employed to force you to breastfeed your children. Either we do have liberty or we don't.

 

[Empty Hands]

I do not agree with the general tenor of this post, but the crust of the biscuit has validity, IMHO.

Yes, it does. There is a fine line between promoting the good, and mandating/enforcing the good, and someone like Bloomberg tends to drift over that line into the bad side of things.

However, the OP, and the article it is drawn from, is disingenuous and arguing in bad faith. For the OP, I will leave it at that. However, the article pulls a real bait-and-switch on us. The headline is "Mayor Bloomberg pushing NYC hospitals to hide baby formula so more new moms will breast-feed." The first 2 sentences are "The nanny state is going after moms. Mayor Bloomberg is pushing hospitals to hide their baby formula behind locked doors so more new mothers will breast-feed." It is not until the 3rd sentence, 3rd paragraph that we see "Under the city Health Department’s voluntary Latch On NYC initiative, 27 of the city’s 40 hospitals have also agreed to give up swag bags sporting formula-company logos, toss out formula-branded tchotchkes like lanyards and mugs, and document a medical reason for every bottle that a newborn receives."

The bolded parts are key. The program is voluntary. Not all hospitals have agreed to follow it. Those that keep formula under lock and key and lecture new mothers do so on their own recognizance, not under government mandate. In fact, the very way the article is structured even after this key information is giving is trying to give the impression that this is a mandatory government mandate (i.e. also agreed, etc.).

Is this program a bad idea? It certainly sounds like it. But it hardly counts as the heavy hand of a tyrannical government when the only participants do so on their own choice, and almost half have not chosen to. Criticize the bad without lying. There is plenty of bad to criticize, but only so much integrity to go around without squandering it until you have none left. A lesson that would be well learned by some.

 

[MJS]

More importantly, it isn't the job of government to preach. That is the first error the government makes, as well as those who support such actions.

It leads to certain smarter-than-average hunchbrains to eventually twig to the fact that, as you said above, the people are not listening.

But an ill-formed assumption that it is the government's job to preach the healthy lifestyle, combined with the realization that preaching isn't working, leads to laws to MAKE people listen.

And let us not pretend that doesn't happen. The crack down on 'unhealthy' food is on in NYC, and I expect such laws to become the norm across the country as people adopt the idea that government should be telling us what to eat and when to eat it, coupled with the realization that we, the taxpayers, will now be footing the bill for those who choose unhealthy food and suffer the consequences for it; with more government-provided or subsidized healthcare, it becomes our business what Joe-Joe the Dog-Face Boy eats or feeds his kids.

From such well-meaning roots, oppression is spawned. The term 'health nazi' is not really that far off the mark.

Exactly! What is it they're doing in NY? Banning a certain size soda container? Ok, but are they stupid enough to not realize that you can still go tot he store and buy all the soda you want? Hey, I'll be the first to admit, there are alot of overweight people in this world. But, like its been said, there's only so much that can be done. Where there's a will, there's a way, and if people want something bad enough, they'll most likely get it.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Mandates come later. We're now mandated to buy insurance. We're now mandated to donate money for a psudeo-retirement fund. Government knows whats best for us, why is that too hard to understand. Just sleep....sleep...sleep.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

The government regulates all kinds of substances it thinks you should or shouldn't put in your body. The Drug War and compulsory schooling laws are the perfect example. The exact same reasoning that can force your child to school or stop you from smoking a joint can be employed to force you to breastfeed your children. Either we do have liberty or we don't.

You make a valid point, and it's hard to refute it. Let me amend my response to say that in the area of foodstuffs, it has never been the role of government to tell us what we may put into our bodies. I personally find it a lot more objectionable when the government tells me to put down that 32-ounce soda and step away from the hamburger than if they tell me to put down the bong and step away from the needle. I do take your point, though.

 

[Makalakumu]

You make a valid point, and it's hard to refute it. Let me amend my response to say that in the area of foodstuffs, it has never been the role of government to tell us what we may put into our bodies. I personally find it a lot more objectionable when the government tells me to put down that 32-ounce soda and step away from the hamburger than if they tell me to put down the bong and step away from the needle. I do take your point, though.

I guess I see it as a slippery slope that's been well proven. The reasoning for regulation may seem to be worth the use of government force, but that only opens the door for other do gooders.

 

[Steve]

i want to say that the reasonable concern of baby steps toward too much intrusion is something I agree with.

But, considering the sodomy laws on the books throughout many of the most conservative states, and the reluctance on the part of many conservatives to allow gays to enjoy the state benefits of marriage, and the conservative reluctance to end the prohibition on weed, and several other obvious examples, it's ridiculous to assert that this is a liberal issue.

It's a government issue.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Hi Mr. Hospital Man. I see you're not involved in out **** for Tots program. As you know, natural mothers milk is one of the best things you can feed a new babe, and we're looking for you to come on board. We'd like to to encourage Boobies for Babies in your hospital. The easiest way we've found is to make it more difficult for mothers to have a choice. Choice just confuses people and they don't always do what we know is breast for them. haha. So step one is to reduce your stock of formula. When they request it, make sure that they receive a mandatory 30 minute lecture each time on the benefits of natural mothers milk. Weve found the best time for that lecture is when they want to feed their babies. The cries of the hungry infant help reinforce the lesson. Smart moms know to just shove a tit in the tot, thereby avoiding both the babies cries, and your min-wave drone's droning.

Now we want to emphasize that participation is completely voluntary. Just as we have a choice about which hospitals we give additional grants and subsidies to, so too do you have a choice. By the way, how's your autoclave's test results this week? Be a shame if they failed the spore test wouldn't it.

So remember, participation is a wonderful thing.
As are intact knee caps.

We're from the Government and we're here to 'help'.

Signed,
A. Nus,
Head of Special High Intensity Training, FECA.

 

[billc]

Who likes and supports big government more? Right now, the democrat politicians need the votes of the hard left, and the hard left doesn't want any intrusion into sex, at all. However, once these healthcare bureaucracies get set up, and have become symbiotic like the borg collective, then all of a sudden the closer look to how much is being spent on those AIDS drugs will come to some bureaucrats attention. It won't happen soon, but it will happen. How can anyone think otherwise when the government types are into every other aspect of life, down to soda size to breast feeding?

Do you think the voluntary notation of sexual orientation on some government forms now, won't be mandatory later, and won't be used to determine healthcare treatments after that?

 

[elder999]

Your doctor tells you breast feeding is better, and then you do-or you don't.

Your doctor tells you to cut back on salt, and red meat, and then you do-or you don't.

Your doctor tells you to get more exercise, like a half an hour, three times a week,and then you do-or you don't.

Don't really see any reason for alarm here, people-it's what doctors and nurses are supposed to do after all. The day may come when the government can tell someone that theyre overweight, and limit their license to purchase certain foods, but that day is far, far off, and we won't live to see it, because the food industry-mostly giant corporations like ConAgra-doesn't want it, and our government pretty much does what corporations want.

ConAgra wants you fat-so the government wants you fat.

As far as sexual activity goes, it could well become a health care issue-it is a health care issue-why do you think life insurance for a married man my age costs less than that for a single man? Eventually, all that information will be plugged into actuarial tables (if it isn't already) and used to calculate insurance rates. Insurance companies are, after all, corporations, and about making profit where they can-and adjusting their projected costs to fall on their customers.

Colonial Penn wants to know if you're gay, so the government will want to know if you're gay.

It's not a "socialist plot," though, anymore than "Obamacare" is-Obamacare is, after all, a huge capitalist bone for the insurance companies. It's a "corporate plot," to maximize profits, minimize liabilities, and limit consumer choice.