More on this story,

Sandy of Junk Food Science called Mayhall (who wrote the bill) and had this to say on her blog:

“I called lead author, Rep. Mayhall, and asked if this was serious legislation or tongue-in-cheek to make a point. He kindly took a moment to answer my question while the legislature was in session. He said that while, regrettably, he doesn’t believe his bill will pass, this is serious. He wrote it, he said, because of the “urgency of the obesity crisis and need for government action.” He hopes it will “call attention to the serious problem of obesity and what it is costing the Medicare system.”

I relayed this to the soldier.

“Okay so they say it’s a drain on the system,” I said. “This is how they get this by the people? There is an aging population, not enough resources to go around so they are trying get rid of some people. Like in the UK, they want to limit access to health care to people who smoke, or otherwise lead lifestyles deemed unhealthy.

Don’t treat the old and unhealthy, say doctors

“Yep, that’s it exactly.”

“Well it appears you’re right,” I said. “Look. Medicare is limited so we better create a caste system so we can decide who gets what care based on who is valuable according to us.”

“Yeah, and right now fat people are being targeted for taking up resources. Old people, babies, smokers and now fat people. It is open season on those four groups of people and you can put that on your blog. You can say I said that because it’s the truth. And next it’ll be something else they want to get rid of, say spice! Big spice. They’ll come out with some study saying spice is no good for you so from now on you’re all going to eat this bland tofu and you’ve got nothing to say about it. Eat this, it’s good for you. Eat it or we cut you off from your health care. And we’ll be living out in the country somewhere and they’ll hear about me. They’ll hear there is some guy sitting out there, eating trans fat! We better go get him! This guy has a donut, better go take care of that. And they’ll come out… I’ll have all these signs up and when they get close I’ll start firing, blow their asses away.”

“If you kill someone over your food we will have to go to court. We will wind up in court,” I said per my personality which always seems to wind up in court.

“Fine, then we’ll go to court. And I’ll say why can’t I just get fat? Why do I have to go to jail and get knifed, huh? Put me in jail for what? For eating a jelly donut? You think putting people in jail is not a drain on the system? Dumb asses. Just let the people eat what they want, smoke if they want, get fat if they want. This is a free country or at least it’s supposed to be!”

“You better not go to jail.”

“No, I won’t go to jail. We’ll leave the country before that happens. Won’t be the first person in my family that’s had to do that. We leave countries all the time. If the country is going to shit, you get out. If it goes to shit, you leave. Let’s see. How many countries have we left..?” He starts ticking them off. “And I bet your family has had to leave a country under some certain circumstances before. Sometimes circumstances come up you know and you just gots to go.”

“My family? I’d say it’s a given,” I said.

“Your family? Yeah.  So that’s what we’ll do. We’ll leave if we have to. I mean I would like to stay. I love this country and have fought for it my whole life but if people want to give up their rights and let the government run things for them, tell them what to do, we aren’t staying and it should be no surprise. I will fight and die for my freedom. I am perfectly willing to die for my freedom but if I am the only one who wants to fight, fuck it! We’re leaving and we’ll find us a new country. You, me, your kids and Lucky. Dora (his dog) if she’s with us.  I’ve already smuggled Dora out of one country, I’ll smuggle her out of another. We’ll just pack up and be gone.”

“What about your son?”

“My son is a man, he can fend for himself.”

“True.”

“Won’t be riding on no Lido deck though, P. Probably all be locked on a box down below but at least  we’ll get out.  Go somewhere where the people aren’t going to let the government run their lives for them.  Don’t worry about it. We’re going to have a great life one way or the other. A life where we can eat what we want, that’s for sure.”