the freedom to choose slavery

   The great state of M'sippi will take this  liberating trend begun by a judge in NYC even farther:

"A bill now on the governor’s desk would bar counties and towns from enacting rules that require calorie counts to be posted, that cap portion sizes, or that keep toys out of kids’ meals. “The Anti-Bloomberg Bill” garnered wide bipartisan support in both chambers of the legislature in a state where one in three adults is obese, the highest rate in the nation."

This is really sad. In order to enable corporations to kill us for a proft, a majority of Americans apparently embrace the idea that "freedom" means that we should be at liberty to drink sugar until we get diabetes, smoke, ride without a helmet, own an AR-15 (for "self-protection" of course), drive a 12-cylinder pickemup truck with tall tires, cut ourselves with machetes, etc. 

The fact that this notion gives absolute power to corporations and advertisers to penetrate our lives in any way they want, and that even under these circumstances, their toxic and dangerous products are adopted by Americans, supposedly by "choice," shows the true extent or our enslavement.

Freedom, as George Orwell wrote, is "the freedom to say that two plus two equals four." I would add to that that it's the freedom to overcome our own conditioning, and to recognize that we've been brainwashed by non-stop advertising and propaganda into worshipping the profit motive. 

I don't think there's ever been a country where the abstract principle of "freedom" is held in such high regard, with the actual practice of it almost nonexistent.