If you were in power?

1. Nothing. It's their business.

2. Tax them for every pound over 20 pounds over normal weight. Their fatness isn't just a personal issue because it shifts costs to the rest of us through health insurance, etc.

3. Fine them. Their repulsiveness isn't a mere matter of choice, it pollutes the aesthetics of the community.

4. Force them to lose weight. Sparta kicked ass for a reason. America needs to shape up for its coming battles.

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Does anyone think it's weird that the two biggest goals of our time are "tolerance" and "zero tolerance"?

why would someone need to do anything? I don't care if fat people are fat.

I would say "do nothing". This is their choice. Besides who decides what is "normal weight". I see and know of a few people who are supposedly overweight yet can move pretty fast and kick some serious ass. These people dont have any medical conditions that I know of so there isnt any "extra cost" to taxpayers and they have their own medical insurance.

Then there is the aesthetics issue...Some people just look better with some extra meat on them bones. Actually I prefer to look at a football player than say a sickly/skinny computer nerd.


And as far as Sparta goes...If and when the end of the world comes. Those with extra meat will die last of starvation. They have further to go before they shrivel up.

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Only the dead have seen the end of war - Plato

America today would kick Sparta's ass because overweight, computer literate nerds are designing advanced weapons systems. Give Xerxes a single platoon with Metal Storm weapons, and 300 Spartans are gone in less than 300 seconds.

Who needs to block out the sun with arrows when you have Apache helicopters?

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No one ever asks whether the glass is too big!

Make all bars fat people free environments.

I'd ask them to pigpile on William Joyce.

Unless the skinny people become cannibals.

to be clear, I certainly wouldn't add obesity to our list of status discrimination protection.

Gotta go with #1 - do nothing.

Fat people have it tough enough. They have bigger grocery bills, are less attractive (by most people's standards, anyway), smell worse, have less energy... and even if that's not true for all individuals, those are prejudices society will form. Maybe I'm just an asshole, but it definitely ruins my day when I board a plane and get seated next to a fatty - sure to make my flight less comfortable.

There's plenty of incentive for overweight folks to get in better shape - being fat is already tough enough! I don't think we need to penalize them further.

Unless, of course, universal health care becomes reality. Then I'd definitely hike up taxes on everything that could potentially hurt one's health - junk food, alcohol, cigarettes.

Personally, I'd prefer to have my freedoms and live with the consequences of my choices.

Of course, but what if you knew that because of health insurance, taxes or the socialized medicine to come, YOU WERE PAYING DEARLY for others' 'freedom' to be fat?

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Does anyone think it's weird that the two biggest goals of our time are "tolerance" and "zero tolerance"?

Oh, good point. A 490-pound body on a 5'8'' frame is normal weight, if that person doesn't think they're fat. Problem solved.

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Does anyone think it's weird that the two biggest goals of our time are "tolerance" and "zero tolerance"?

Recent studies are showing that being over weight has much less of an effect on heath than lack of exercise.

Ohh so we should force everyone to exercise then?

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The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

-Bertrand Russell

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable

-Laurence J. Peters

I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.

-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007)

Once again, you are setting up straw men. She did not say that, and only a bitter psychotic would infer that she did.

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No one ever asks whether the glass is too big!

Sure thing retard. You should have one of your staff read things for you on this board so you do not look the fool all the time.

It really is a simple concept. The thrad is about poor health and forcing others to pay for it. Now I personally disagree with the premise that the Government has any right to tell anyone how to live their life, what to eat and when to exercise, but responding to the fat issue with a comment that exercise is the problem fails completely to address the actual question.

Something a Lawyer should know.

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The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

-Bertrand Russell

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable

-Laurence J. Peters

I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.

-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007)