For the Children

Perusing our local paper, two items of interest caused me to pause.

Efforts to raise the smoking age in Washington from 18 to 21 is just another example of creating a law which does nothing except make law-breakers out of normally law-abiding people.  I can’t think of a single instance when kids who are smoking  care one whit about the legal age.   If 18 is the age of consent, the age when you can enter the military, the age when you can drive a car and the age when you can sign legal documents – – why make it against the law to smoke.   It makes no sense and just amplifies the argument that government has run amuck.  Just because a poll of adults finds 55 percent of them in favor of raising the smoking age doesn’t mean it has to be done.   Lets think this one over for a few more years before we take any stupid action to make more people criminals.

You can feed kids healthy meals but you can’t make them eat it.   That’s what’s happened with Michele Obama’s effort to make school lunches healthier.  The problem fell into two areas.   A requirement that all breads be whole wheat has been met with millions of pounds of uneaten food being thrown away by the kids.   Low sodium requirements meant that the food they were eating didn’t taste good – and it too was junked into garbage cans.  We all want our kids to eat healthy – – and we want healthy alternatives.   The government regulations didn’t allow kids an option and they showed their disgust by rebelling.  Thank goodness someone has finally gotten the smell of the rotting food.  Congress is now looking at lifting some of the strict food requirements.