CONSERVATIVES DEDICATED TO MAKING THEIR CHILDREN LOOK LIKE BUTTON GWINNETT

    Here's another example of spin from the National Review. This particular issue-- childhood obesity and school lunches-- bugs me in a way a lot of more talked-about ones do not.
  A mocking article about Michelle Obama casts her as a person who wants to treat Americans like children. And some statements from her do in fact use metaphors that open her up to criticism of that sort. So, while I don't share their feelings about her, I can at least understand their perspective.
  Except when this narrative control exercise is used to justify ignoring Michelle's suggestions about feeding less shitty food to our children in school. This may be another example of how liberalism and conservatism are fundamentally different. To many conservatives, business is good, government is bad. In this context, that means that if a corporation can make a bunch of money producing shitty fucking food for school kids, we love it. But if the federal government tries to fix this, that's bad because it's treating us like children who can't make our own choices.
  Well, I don't like it when The Man (or, as in this case, The Woman) tells me what I can or can't read, or think, or what have you. But treating this like another one of those mockworthy examples of government overreach reveals a disturbing reality about conservatism-- where's the outrage over state/local governments collaborating with corporations to fatten our kids up like Christmas geese?
It's embarrassing to live in a country where the right to fill our kids up with empty calories, which we've been long conditioned to do by advertising, fast food, etc., is seen as a quintessential part of being American. I've seen pundits slam Obama over this sort of thing in the past, and it's always framed as if pushing back against do-gooders is a kind of heroism. I can accept, in the abstract, not wanting the government to teach your kids about science, or tolerance, or sex, or just about anything else, but when this discussion daintily steps around the burning issue of the childhood obesity epidemic, kids are being used as political footballs. Political beach balls, really, at this point.
  It's a classic example of narrative control-- we're often told that liberals try to fix problems and then fail spectacularly. Sometimes that does happen. But sometimes when liberals actually do come up with a workable solution, the response is to discredit the liberal approach on other grounds than effectiveness, while pretending the problem doesn't exist. I'd say this is a fundamental flaw in the psychology of both parties. In theory, we should all be dedicated to fixing problems. But sometimes we just don't want the other party to accomplish anything. And we are apparently willing to sacrifice our children's health to serve this principle of always "winning" against the other party.