We Don't Serve Your Kind -- Mississippi Bill Would Make it Illegal to Feed the Obese

The Doppelganger thingie must have missed this.
Not the same source, but... :)

What is the point of all this hate legislation against "fat" people lately? It must be profit motivated for buffet and cafeterias? Could the publicity be intended to intimidate to shame people on overeating? Otherwise, I don't see why anyone would care unless "regular people" are disgusted by them. Ugly people can be tough too. What defines ugly? What if I don't like beautiful people? Where do we stop? Then comes the issue of enforcement. If they are going to enforce this legislation clinically-speaking, every restaurant will need a heavy-duty set of scales and a body-mass chart. Who will provide the scales, chart and policing?

Ugly people can be tough too.

Yes and what about people who eat with their mouth wide open? Ban the bad-mannered!

There are two groups that I would ban in public places.

The first group are the kind of people who are basically unfriendly and wont talk to you even though you are standing near them and obviously have the same interests.

And the second group are those annoying people who keep bothering me when I want to keep myself to myself.

Funny thing--not allowing fat people to eat actually makes them fatter.

"The proposal would allow health inspectors to yank the permit from any restaurant that "repeatedly" feeds extremely overweight customers."

I am certain the taxpayers in Mississippi could suggest better ways to spend their tax dollars. In addition, who is anyone to decide if one is too "fat" to be served in a public place. This opens the door to a frightening array of unconstitutional laws down the road. What's next; too skinny, too short, too tall, not handsome, not beautiful, etc.

Even fat people still have to eat.

This sounds like something born out of desperation and frustration. I suppose it's just stupid for a legislator to waste his time with something like this, but at the same time there's a lot you can learn from people's raw feeling.

OK, I am a little on the big side. I dont beleive I am obese, however if you deny anyone who is obese then you can deny anyone who is ugly. My stomach gets turned off by people talking with food in their mouths and people smaking their lips when eating, snorting, breathing heavily and honestly its not just fat people its people who eat like they have 10 seconds to live and so they must eat in 2 seconds. The ugly ones are hurrendous. They sit at a restraunt and examine everyone them, if they are that insecure then why are they out, they should be banned from a restraunt, they could turn off someones appitite or they should sit in the back, another thing is a loud person at a restraunt, one who loves to hear themselves speak, the ones who hollar and think that their conversations are at everyone topic, what about them, get rid of them, why stop there, I dont want a person who cannot speak english being my waiter, why are they getting hired. Heck if your going to pass a bill preventing people from eating then why can we stand up for ourselves and prevent illegals from working!

It's rumored that Dubya Tee Mayhall owns a vast share in TakeOut Taxi .

I read somewhere (actually right here as I was typing it) that he also has his mits involved with a large "Wash Rag on a Stick" company.

Ahhh, Mississippi. The home of discrimination since I-dont-know-when.

In some cases obesity is a disability...thyroid problems, pregnancy, depression ect can cause a person to be severely overweight. I believe that the American Disabilities Act would conflict with this bill.

What I find particularly funny about this bill is that you often see people who are against trans fat bans saying why not ban fat people from fast food restaurants too, just to make a point as to the slippery slope started by the ban.

... well it happened. Holy @!$%#.

For what it's worth we're having a similar discussion over here about a similar proposal/
discussion in England.
I'll post a link over here.

Penn and Teller (as usual) nailed this whole issue right on the head. I think Bull@!$%# should be mandatory viewing for all legislators.

this is just what overweight people need--public shaming...just imagine what will happen if they revolt. Can you imagine a Stonewall type uprising of the obese?

for those who didn't get the stonewall reference. http://socialismandliberation.org/mag/index.php?aid=393

If ever this became law, I can forsee a lot of Eating Establishments closing their doors for good.

If they just served thin people, can you imagine how MISERABLE a meal out would become?

Yeah well, thin people don't eat enough to keep the doors open. And by the way, I don't like red, so why don't we ban people wearing red? What's next?

Lets make it illegal for gas stations to sell fuel to tractor trailers too

That is the dumbest proposal I have heard in awhile. How can some waiter/waitress tell if anyone is obese? I am considered by the BMI scale to be obese. I am 6'2" and weigh 255 lbs. That gives me a body mass index of 31 which is slightly obese. I guarantee I I walked into that restaurant they would not be able to tell that I am considered obese. Besides not being able to tell whether or not someone is obese wouldn't this violate our rights as Americans. We have the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If making me eat until I can no longer walk is what makes me or anyone else happy, as long as it does not harm others, which I don't see how me being fat can harm someone else, than I should be able to eat until a I am way beyond satiated.

Otherwise, I expect this to get struck down by some court somewhere because it is clearly discriminatory.

Well, there's discrimination (i.e. choosing one thing or another) and then there is illegal discrimination.

It's only illegal to discriminate based on race or religion or gender or age or a few other things. We all know the drill. But it is not illegal to discriminate against (or for, for that matter) left-handed people, or people who like to wear shorts and no socks far too often. You are free to discriminate against people who have bad breath, tan cars, and ugly dogs, or who laugh at sitcoms.

It is not illegal to discriminate against obese people -unless it could be shown that being obese is somehow part of one of the protected groups (race, gender, etc).

Pamela, you astound me. You're as on top of this as anybody I've ever read, from notorious to obscure. -- and I've read them all, and continue to. I'm truly impressed -- and grateful.

You mentioned tobacco. You would be utterly blown away by the vortex of interconnected byzantine loyalties and connections and associations in Mississippi which involve Big Tobacco at some point of contact or another.

Haley Barbour is tobacco's original do boy. Mike Moore, former attorney general of Mississippi, and mortal political enemy of Haley Barbour, was the guy who brought the first successful lawsuit against the tobacco companies for peddling a product they knew was not only extraordinarily addictive, but lethal. It's been downhill all the way since then.

There is a current little dust-up going on involving a man named Dickie Scruggs, who headed the SKG, or the Katrina Scruggs Group. This is/was a group of people trying to bring justice to people on the Gulf Coast that Big Insurance (one of the many evil siblings of Big Tobacco and Big Pharma) was determined to defraud.

There is a related scandal in which three men are now political prisoners: Paul Minor, Judge Wes Teel, and Don Seigelman of Alabama. It is connected to the Justice Department scandal in which U.S. Attorneys who wouldn't help the Rove/Bush/Gonzales Justice Department defund and neutralize the Democratic party throughout the country were axed. All of these political prisoners are high-profile Democrats who made the lion's share of contributions to Democrats both in Mississippi, Alabama, and nationwide. Paul Minor for instance, was a large contributor to John Edwards. Dickie Scruggs is Trent Lott's brother in law. Trent Lott's surprise announcement of retirement took place 2 weeks before Dickie Scruggs was busted by the FBI.

All of these men are "trial lawyers" -- the term that the tort reform fraud of a movement has managed to morph into a description with demonic psychological baggage -- a phrase that ought to be a morally neutral descriptive phrase.

I say this all the time, but at the risk of being a broken record, this is absolutely one of the pivotal battles in the fight between Good and Evil. That legislator that you linked to is one of many here who leverage the rest of the country's unattractive need to laugh hysterically at people like him so they can be safely marginalized so they can continue their work. The thing is, he's actually a real sweet guy. Aren't they all?

Thanks Pam. Very much.

Here (Austin) it's illegal to serve alcohol to those who are obviously drunk (though, of course, it still happens), and those who do so may face charges should that drunken individual drive into a tree.

The difference being, however, the drunken individual might instead drive into an oncoming family van.

If a person is obese, they probably know it, and whereas a case can be made that laws against serving the drunk protect the public, that case would be harder to make insofar as it regards feeding the obese.

However, just as apparently it is legal for employers to discriminate against smokers, on the grounds of health care and insurance costs, I imagine that angle could be used to chip away at the rights of the obese. Not that I think it's likely, mind, as most voters are themselves overweight.