So...the only way to know anything is if our Government tells us so? I have a hard time believing the average person can't determine a diet of greasy fries and burgers and sugary shakes isn't exactly health food, entirely on their own.
First, you're making a specious argument. You're trying to use an extreme to undermine something unrelated. That is, on the one hand it is clear people "can" learn details without the government telling them so, but you also have to acknowledge that government is what forces places to make certain information available to you. That is where "watchdog groups" find out things the "average public" doesn't know, then tries to get the information out.
I understand you might have a hard time understanding just how ignornat the 'average person' is, but evidence is all around you. A _very_ surprising number of people in this country don't know how many States we have, and I'm pretty sure everyone that went to public school was told that info. It's pretty easy for me to understand just how ignorant the masses are.
Additionally, the point of the law was to make it "readily available" information so people didn't have to go out of their way to get "pertinant info".. That is, we have BILLIONS of things we'd have to go looking up, individually, as citizens, if we wanted to know everything there is to know about the things we want to
buy/consume, and, when you get into the science of it, now you're talking things that 50% or more of the society would _never_ be able to comprehend. So, who would it be then, that would review that "technical information" and make sure the product was "safe" for us to use? or at least say "that's dangerous, you must warn people of that"?
Clearly, we're back to the role of Government being to protect us.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure
domestic Tranquility, provide for the common
defence, promote the general
Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our
Posterity, do
ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
You don't need to know the % DV of carbs to figure that out. The folks that subsist on junk food didn't change their behavior based on a list of tiny numbers on their food wrappers.
But it DID allow them better information to make (supposedly) informed decisions about. ... and, how can you say you don't think the masses are that ignorant when it was right there in black and white just how dangerous this stuff is for you, and they still make it their sole source of food? duh?
The fact that it's there allows those who are coming up now to see just how bad that food is.
And it deserves to be said again: a Representative Republic is NOT a Democracy. Despite what the school textbooks say, America is not, and has never been, a Democracy.
A Democracy is three foxes and two chickens deciding what's for dinner.
Then, the fact that the public votes, by each person, to decide who represents them in their government, that's not a "democratic process"? Granted, we're seeing how gaming of our current elctoral system can thwart the will of the people, but the obvious intent is that our "leadership" is "elected" by the "general concensus", or, democracy.
What you don't want is for every person to vote on every measure that is to be decided as law, but we DO have a mechanism whereby the public CAN demand that that happen with specific measures.. ballot initiatives?
So, clearly, we're running on some kind of hybrid system, right? And in that system, it's clear to me that our "elected leaders" have a job to protect us and to help make our lives easier. If that means telling companies that they can't profit by tricking children, then I'm all for it. When it comes to laws that are not based on logic and reason (i.e. science or studies showing facts/trends), those I have a problem with.
