Dakota Beacon

Democrat Chuck Schumer recently hailed an FDA ruling that the senator proclaimed "should be the nail in the coffin of... dangerous and toxic drinks." Schumer has been urging the Obama administration to ban beverages that combine caffeine and alcohol.

The funny thing is that there is absolutely no proof whatsoever that combining caffeine and alcohol presents any particular danger to consumers. Nevertheless, The FDA did indeed institute the ban simply because officials believe caffeine-alcohol elixirs to be bad.

And now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants to expand the FDA's power further with passage of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). Whether or not the bill will come to a vote in the lame duck session remains to be seen.

If the FSMA were to become law, then the FDA would assume power of the same magnitude already wielded by the EPA. Just what Americans need: double the number of know-it-all bureaucrats telling us what we can and cannot buy, basically how we must live.

The Heritage Foundation has studied the FDA legislation and tells us how absurd things could get.

So just how big an expansion of government does Dingell, Pelosi, and Reid want to inflict on the American people to combat a non-existent food safety crisis? Well, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the legislation would require 50,000 domestic and foreign inspections in 2015, compared to just 7,400 in 2009. That is a sevenfold increase in government inspections. And the government would be reaching into a lot of new places as well. The act requires that all food “facilities”—including those home-based businesses that make jam, bread, and cheese for local markets—would be required to undertake periodic hazard analyses and produce “risk-based preventive controls.”

And all to address a nonexistent problem--rather like the EPA enacting arbitrary rules and regulations to address nonexistent "global warming." The FDA wants to inflict its caring into every aspect of our lives in order to "protect" us.

Katrina Vanden Heuvel, one of the most arrogant, shrill, sourpuss, elitist progressives around today, and also editor and publisher of The Nation magazine, recently called on Capitol Hill Democrats to "sharply define choices for the American people..." The angry female perfectly captured the progressive mentality. From atop Olympus, mount of the gods, the rulers of all will cast wisdom down on the ruled. And the ruled must obey.

Sharply defining choices is precisely what the EPA already does, the FDA is beginning to do a lot more, and the FDA will do a whole lot more if the Democrats establish control over our shopping lists.

In the first 22 months of the Obama administration, Americans have lost decision power over their purchases of household appliances, been maneuvered into an economically murderous energy and household products regime by the "green" movement, and lost control over their very own bodies with the passage of Obamacare.

So then, where does all this lead? How hard will the FDA, in particular, push Americans to comply with nanny-state maternalism? What happens when really smart progressives get around to figuring out that normal everyday rubes like you and I sometimes drink wine with our din-din and then chug down a cup of coffee afterward?

Get ready for sensor chips to be implanted in everyone's esophagus. The chips will sense when either alcohol or caffeine has been consumed within, say, oh I dunno, the last 60 minutes. The chip will activate a selective filtering device which everyone will also be required to have installed on their mouths. Consumption of caffeine and alcohol will then be forcibly separated by at least 60 minutes.

We will be safe.

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© 2010 Chuck Rogér