Shouldn't that be between you and your doctor?

More government intrusion is on the way. A government panel has issued a call for doctors to screen all their patients for obesity. When someone is determined per a BMI to be obese, the doctor is to send that person for "intensive nutrition-and-fitness help." 


My theory is that this is leading up to rationed care. If you are obese, you won't get that surgery or chemotherapy or other drug you need. A person who is obese realizes it. And a person who wants to take off the weight badly enough will sacrifice and discipline himself to try to do it. I've seen it happen.


But a person who isn't personally motivated to drop the pounds probably won't do it no matter how much "intensive nutrition-and-fitness help" he gets. 


It all comes back to your basic philosophy of governing. Do you want to take personal responsibility for your life, liberty, and happiness? Or do you want a nanny state to nurse you through every twist and turn of life? If you choose the nanny state, then you can forget the liberty part of the equation -- and probably the happiness part as well.


"Screening for obesity urged in checkups." The Dallas Morning News; June 26, 2012; p. 5A.


Answer to yesterday's quiz: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Scary, ain't it?