Dartblog

Todd Zywicki reveals the news that “the long-anticipated lawsuit against soft drink manufacturers for contributing to children’s obesity is expected to be filed in the near future.”

This is ridiculous. Of course soda is to blame for the plumpness of our children. And, as is widely known, our children are the future. Soda is therefore to blame for the fatness of the future. But suing the soda makers is the wrong way for a society to seek redress and salvation. Coca-Cola’s involvement is merely at the paper level. Its white-coated scientists write down some icons and initials on a Post-It Note. That secret document, using many ingredients from all o’er the world, yields a syrup. The syrup is then shipped to regional bottling companies. These regional bottling companies combine the vile essence with bubbled water. It then becomes the deathliquid that so plagues our future. The regional bottling companies ought to be sued.

Upon revisit, such an avenue will probably not solve the problem. The central issue is not with the brewer: this is a free country and free people can mix at their leisure. But the justice system must forfend the stuff come near us. And, it is clear, only by being within our grasp does soda inflict its damage—this is no carbonated ICBM. But the siren song of its brown stickiness is too much to bear in any proximity. Mack Incorporated is to blame, for their eighteen-wheeled whales bring the soda nearer us, and are the instrument of the future’s death.

Although, fairness and existing law dictates that anyone with a commercial driver’s license has the right to drive commercially. We cannot stop the trucks from trucking the sludge. What we can do is shut it off at the source: the supermarket. Foodstuffs circulate everywhere throughout the land, itching to make our children and the future fat. But they can’t do it if we have no access to food. The supermarket unjustly stocks soda in bright red cans in broad daylight with the implication that we are to buy it! Anyone can fall victim to this subversive form of marketing. Shutting down the supermarkets is the only way.

No, no. Their legal eagles have thought ahead. Next to those devil cans is placed bottled water. Captured dihydrogen-oxide—pure, clear, clean, saintly. A faerie’s fluid, contained, and wrapped with an artist’s rendering of a mountain. In offering this alternative the supermarkets self-absolve of guilt. Cruel, cruel, but true. This water-product is tastier, less expensive, more bountiful, and unmurdering of the future.

But the fact remains: soda kills. It kills our children and the future. It burns green sapling oaks to the ground: I’ve seen it. Yet it would be pointless to sue the soda maker or the bottler; the trucker or the grocer. There is only one entity left to blame for the unhealthy result of excessive soda consumption: the consumer.

I therefore heartily recommend that the Massachusetts lawyers behind the aforementioned lawsuit cease, desist, and sue themselves. It is the only way to save the future.