The more pertinent question is if we start taxing the fat where will it stop?
Tax the fat? - money wasted on healthcare Tax the anorexic/bulimic? - money wasted on psychological treatment Tax the mentally and physically disabled? - they shouldn't have been born.......... Tax the ugly - why should we look at them?
What's next ethnic cleansing? I've never heard of such a stupid idea. Oh yes I have actually - some of the people on here who perceive that if you are overweight/obese you will be totally unable to provide an impartial opinion, therefore presuming some lack of intelligence.
This is very dangerous territory.We will step back about 100 years if we start imposing such brutal restrictions.
Surly the best way to stop the drain on the NHS is to get the welfare state in order. There is a much bigger picture here. There are thousands of people fraudulently claiming benefits in this country causing about a £2 billion deficit every year. We are currently at war with Iraq and whether you agree with it or not this is draining money from the country.We are one of the most generous countries in the world we paid out around £8 billion last year to foreign aid.Whether you agree with it or not we open our arms to any non - national fleeing the devastation or violence of their own country and provide them with a home,food,benefits and work.
Is it totally ridiculous for me to suggest that we need to address some of the above expensive payments Britain makes every year before we start 'picking holes' in people.
Have you noticed the strength of the pound recently? There is no reason for a country with an economy as strong as ours to have to resort to this.
The way forward is promoting healthy eating at school, in the workplace,and through national long-term campaigns. But more than that, much, much more, we need to inject life into playing sport in this country and spend money on tennis courts, athletics stadiums and swimming pools etc Unlike our fellow Australian's we spend far too much time watching sport than playing it.
Whether you agree, doesn't matter. What matters is that we all think about the bigger picture.
Mr Coran is entitled to voice his opinion, I hope that's where it ends.
why not post this in one of the multitude of existing tax the fat threads? Or are you so special that you need your own thread ?
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Tax the fat? - money wasted on healthcare Tax the anorexic/bulimic? - money wasted on psychological treatment Tax the mentally and physically disabled? - they shouldn't have been born.......... Tax the ugly - why should we look at them?
I'd tax the fat and the underweight if they burden society.
Why would anyone want to tax the ugly? Are they are burden to society ? Absolutely not.
So basically you completely misunderstand the arguement that the journalist in the documentary was making.
hoorah for you.
Tax the mentally and physically disabled ? I would if they incapacity was their own doing, but I wouldn't if it wasn't. (ie it wasn't the fault that they found themselves in a particular situation).
Euthanasia is the subject of another thread for another time. If you want to discuss that then start a thread.
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What's next ethnic cleansing? I've never heard of such a stupid idea
whoa - that's a bit of a jump, and actually gives a bit of an insight into your uncurrent racism.
Has anyone suggested that anywhere in any of the threads?
What has ethnic cleansing got to do with taxing people who are the cause of their own health problems?
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some of the people on here who perceive that if you are overweight/obese you will be totally unable to provide an impartial opinion, therefore presuming some lack of intelligence.
who said that ?
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There are thousands of people fraudulently claiming benefits in this country causing about a £2 billion deficit every year.
I'd ban anyone doing that from claiming benefits ever again.
Furthermore I'd have every single person on benefits doing community service every single week. If they don't then they don't get benefits.
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Have you noticed the strength of the pound recently? There is no reason for a country with an economy as strong as ours to have to resort to this.
if you haven't noticed our healthcare system is in tatters - it spends far too much on the healthcare of those who have ended up needing care because of their own choices.
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The way forward is promoting healthy eating at school, in the workplace,and through national long-term campaigns.
that's been on going for 20 years without making any difference.
Start taxing those who are lazy and unwilling and hence punish the people who are the cause of the problems. You'll soon see a quick turn around.
Malkie how can you say the promotion of healthy eating has been going on for 20years when Jamie Oliver only turned school dinners around after years of rubbish, 2 years ago!
I think you've hit on a very important point here, Charla. We are, in fact, doing worse than potentially taxing the physically/mentally disabled. We are in the midst of being able to exterminate them. There are many disabled people alive today who have contributed much to society, Stephen Hawking being an example of a fine mind trapped in a severely disabled body. Winston Churchill, whether one agrees with his politics or not, springs to mind as an eminently robust and intelligent person in a rather corpulent body. If I remember right, he went on to a rather grand age, and no doubt contributed taxes during this time.
In my above post, I am not concerned with abortion, but rather with whether, once it is known that a baby is mentally/physically disabled, a parent would be obligated to terminate the pregnancy because of the future financial burden to society. This seems to be what the "fat" threads are about. Malkie has agreed, somewhere in the dim and distant past, I think, that a person can be prone to obesity through genetics. Therefore is he suggesting that people with "fat" genes should be aborted and only "unfat" babies allowed to carry on to term, thereby sparing him from having to use his hardearned money to support them, should they ever need medical treatment.
(1)The very point of the silliness of taxing the ugly and the jump (as you put it) to ethnic cleansing is how this sort of thing can spiral out of control given a few years. After all lets actually look at Ethnic cleansing. It is the 'expulsion' of an an undesirable population from a given territory due to a certain broad or narrow discrimination.
(2)I am NOT racist quite the reverse. This is about the facts. We do provide 'leave to remain' to many refugees in this country.
(3) How an earth could someone claiming Incapacity benefit or disability living allowance undertake community service
(4) The NHS is in tatters because of bad management not fat people.
3) What's stopping them? Community service isn't simply collecting rubbish and other physical activites, it could be non-physical activities such as letter filling, manning community telephone or help lines. Besides, the thrust of my point was the make the healthy and abled to do community service each week to "earn" their benefits.
4) I didn't say that fat people were the sole cause of the issues in our health system. You need to read what people actually post, and not what you *think* they've posted. However, it's clear to everyone that fat people are a burden on the NHS, and should be made to pay for their own healthcare.
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Malkie how can you say the promotion of healthy eating has been going on for 20years when Jamie Oliver only turned school dinners around after years of rubbish, 2 years ago!
How incredibly narrow minded and uneducated are you?
For example the WI have been campaigning for improved food for children since the 60s, as have the BDA. Furthermore the NHA and WHF have been doing similar for almost as long. Heck, even the NUT have attempted to make a difference.
I am extremely well educated thank you. This is a forum designed to discuss issues with freedom. Nobody is on trial here. I do believe you are nothing more than someone sitting at home trying to get a rise out of everyone and that's very sad. Good Luck I'm sure you'll get someone to bust a gut soon, but it won't be me.
Whether you back up your argument or not is the whole point of a public discussion forum: choice. I personally choose not to justify any part of my argument to you. Whether I am personally convinced of my opinions or not, is a matter purely for me and my conscience.
Originally posted by Charla: I am extremely well educated thank you. This is a forum designed to discuss issues with freedom. Nobody is on trial here. I do believe you are nothing more than someone sitting at home trying to get a rise out of everyone and that's very sad. Good Luck I'm sure you'll get someone to bust a gut soon, but it won't be me.
This is why Malkie uses emotive words and aggressive statements, rather than mature discussion and argument, hoping that someone will bite; and why he has chosen to post on a subject that attacks people personally, i.e., body image.
Not sure why there's a 3rd thread on this but Malkie's argument on this debate has already been shown to be a farse.
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If the health issues were due to them being overweight at some point in their life then they need to be held accountable for it.
I interpreted this to mean that if someone gained weight during childhood (i.e. before were they were mature enough to actively decide to watch their health) and ran into trouble in adulthood, such people also deserved to be 'punished'. He has as yet failed to explain to me how this interpretation isn't perfectly accurate; clearly he can't because it is.
Basing his argument on an embarassingly submental approach to social medicine has lead to him losing this particular debate hands down.
sorry, but I've answered this point several times already.
If someone is the cause of their own health problems then they have to be held accountable. This includes gaining weight during childhood - I simply don't buy the arguement that they aren't mature enough to make decisions regarding their health.
Any kid knows that apple=good, and chips=bad.
Furthermore, gaining weight as a child (then losing it when you become 'mature' (your definition, not mine)), then there is a far lower chance of developing health issues in later life.
A young body can repair itself, whereas an old body can not.
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embarassingly submental approach to social medicine
there's no such thing as "social medicine", and it's an attitude like that which causes all the problems.
You DO know that too many apples = bad as well (lots of fruit sugar) Malkie...?
Homemade chunky oven cooked chips rolled in a small amount of olive oil, with a sprinkling of paprika (or is it cayenne) and black pepper, and roasted to perfection in the oven can be healthy and yummy!
How can you expect a child to take responsibility for what they eat? They don't earn money and go shopping and choose what food goes on the table or in their packed lunch. Their parents/guardians do. If they have school dinners their school does. Most children get what they are given. There isn't a nutritional chart in the womb. You are not born knowing that an apple = healthy. The sad fact is that many parents still don't either.
