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Vermont about to pass GMO-labeling bill

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Songbird, Apr 17, 2014.

  1. daemon

    daemon Well-Known Member

    What's the alternative? Eliminate labels entirely so that people have NO idea what's in their food? Your blind spot is that you view government as an entity that acts on its own volition, when, in reality, it acts at the behest of the people, and at some point the people decided that, rather than requiring anybody who wants to know the ingredients in their foodstuffs to pay for them to be laboratory tested, companies should disclose that information themselves, just like the people of Vermont decided that, rather than requiring anybody who wants to know whether their foodstuffs contain GMOs to do the research on their own, companies should disclose that information themselves, and while you might disagree with the people's decision, or the government's execution of the people's decision, the fact remains that, in a constitutional republic, the will of the majority rules, and you are not in the majority on either of these issues. Frankly, it seems like it would be far more costly and inefficient to require individuals to ascertain the exact composition of all of the food they eat than it would be to require companies to disclose that information. I happen to agree with many of your points on the inadequacy of food labeling, but the solution to me is not to eliminate the information that does exist. I'd go the opposite direction. Require public disclosure of the entire chain of custody of a foodstuff, accessible on the Internet. If I buy an apple from Piggly Wiggly, I should be able to find out that it was grown on X farm, sprayed with X pesticide, injected with X chemical/hormone, stored in X warehouse. Consumers can then investigate all of the variables on their own, and make informed decisions about their food.
     
  2. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    I understand how representative democracies work in third-grade textbooks, Daemon.

    I also know that state legislatures often pass horrific or silly bills.

    It doesn't preclude my right to have an opinion. For example, last year when the Arizona state legislature passed a bill that effectively allowed businesses to refuse to serve gays, my reaction on that thread was, "That is terrible and wrong."

    I missed you on that thread with the civics lesson telling me that it was the will of the people of Arizona, so it was all cool.

    Those state legislatures, in reality, are bastions of special interest and idiotic, populist politics. Yes, they are elected bodies. Whether they usually (let alone always) actually represent anything resembling popular will is debatable -- people would have to care enough to hold them to account.

    Even if every state legislature IS the people (your words, whatever that means), there are lots of rights that SHOULD preclude straight up and down votes, in my opinion. We don't just let majority rule in this country. We have rights that are SUPPOSED to be guaranteed, no matter what the majority wants.

    For example, when Southern states all had Jim Crow laws, would you have been the on front lines saying, "If you disagree, or think that is terrible, you need to shut up, because the majority won and you are in the minority"?

    In my opinion, we SHOULD have the economic freedom to conduct commerce without arbitrary regulations that impinge on that very basic right (that notion was pretty foundational in the forming of our country) -- for example, the Vermont State legislature randomly stepping in to put its hand into your package design.
     
  3. daemon

    daemon Well-Known Member

    In a 2011 poll, 87 percent of the public wanted products containing GMOs labeled as such.

    http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/why-arent-g-m-o-foods-labeled/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

    You keep painting this as the Vermont legislature "arbitrarily" deciding to enact these measures. It's just not the case.

    As for Arizona/Jim Crow, I'm guessing you understand the silliness of any comparison to GMO labels, unless you think that a similarly strong argument can be made against the constitutionality of requiring GMO labels.
     
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