Is This Appropriate for a Free People #00003

NEW YORK --
A city plan to ban restaurants from selling meals containing an unhealthy artificial fat could open a new front in a national fight over the safety of America's food supply ... Experts said New York City would take the boldest step yet ... to ban restaurants from preparing foods containing more than trace amounts of artificial trans fatty acids. ...the ban on trans fats would bar chefs at thousands of restaurants from using partially hydrogenated vegetable oil ...   -NYC trans fat ban is latest volley in fight over food safety, By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press Writer, October 2, 2006, 1:48 AM EDT

This may make more sense than a ban on smoking -- but neither is appropriate for a free people.  As the quip goes, "The result of protecting fools from their folly is to fill the world with fools."  Governments have ceratinly made major contributions to that enterprise. 

The result is sleeping sheeple who think they're being taken care of -- and thus believe they don't have to take care of themselves -- and thus a lax market place that tolerates what may be poisons -- lots of them -- in the food supply and elsewhere.   

Proof?  Here's the punchline from the above article: "public health law experts said they were stunned that New York would ban a substance the Food and Drug Administration only began listing on food labels this year."

So, the FDA is NOT protecting you from trans-fatty acids -- heck they didn't even tell they're in your food -- you are NOT demanding food that doesn't contain them -- and neither are other customers, who see no point in being informed  because there's no hope of bucking 'the system'.  Thus the normal market forces that would have caused restaurants to stop using these substances long ago have been silenced and we still have hydrogenated oils widely used. 

See, governments, just like most other ogranizations, end up working for those who have money and influence.  So the FDA, USDA, FAA, FCC and even CIA don't work for "we the people," they work for GM, Chrysler, ADM, etc.  -- and the other organizations that can afford one of the ~27,000 registered and paid lobbyists in Washington D.C. -- and they maintain the status quo.  No matter what it is.

Is this appropriate for a free people?