Giving the Fat Police a Heart Attack (6)

I was in Portsmouth, New Hampshire recently and had lunch in a local restaurant called Fat Belly's. Awesomely enough, Fat Belly's serves a 'Belly Busting Burger,' which consists of mushrooms, bacon, cheddar cheese, and a fried onion ring, all heaped on top of a one-pound hamburger patty. I'd guess it's around 2,500 calories. In a pinch, it could feed a family of four.

No, I didn't order the Belly Buster, but now I kinda wish I had, just so I could show you a picture (I found a pretty good approximation on the Net, though!). Fat Belly's monster burger surely dwarfs the piddling McDonald's third-pounder that Mickey D's caught so much flak for recently because it was deemed "too big."

Which leads me to dark thoughts about something that never fails to get my goat: selective indignation.

I doubt that even the most clenched-fisted food nanny has ever picketed or publicly railed against Fat Belly's or another non-franchise, non-chain restaurant. But why not? Given that Morgan Spurlock and his comrades object to supersized portions of fattening food, why don't they go after the places that really know how to pile on the calories?

I think it's because, mixed in with food activists' aversion to supposedly unhealthy meals, is an intense dislike of capitalism with a capital C. It's the 'big is bad' syndrome that has its purest practitioners in the preening, moping malcontents of the whole Adbusters scene. These people also harbor a deep grudge — no less bitter for being latent — against the tens of millions of Americans who freely choose to dine at fast-food restaurants, who like it there, who wouldn't want it any other way.

It's amusing to realize that while Schlosser and Spurlock and the rest of their gang are likely to embrace the dictum that all politics is local, they insist on fighting only what is global. This perhaps makes sense as a PR strategy (no one likes the meddling mofos who picket the neighborhood Sloppy Joe's). But the approach lacks principle. If you object to a business because you believe it does something evil, you're honor-bound to raise your voice even more against a business that does the same evil things times three. Either that, or you should cop to the fact that your principles are malleable, your sincerity doubtful, your actions duplicitous.

This selective indignation is also a sign of gutlessness. Attacking a faraway mega-corporation takes no courage and entails no social risks. Personally getting into the face of of the neighborhood Al Delvecchio, however — well, though I'll defend anyone's right to eat anything in any quantity, I'll lift my châpeau to whoever has the balls to do that.

Comments

[Phil]

Thought I agree with your last point (and have no love for Spurlock), namely, that attacking McDonald's takes about as much balls as kicking a kitten, I think the general idea isn't so bad: You try to take down the biggest target you can find for the given problem. Slavery abolishinists (and yes, even the sad folk of the alcohol prohibition movement) in an earlier time didn't just go after the local slave owner (graned, Brown did, but that didn't work out so well).

To maximize the time you spend speaking .vs. the effect you have, you go yell at the biggest dog in the pen.

Ostensibly, from the safest height possible. Big dogs are tough.

[Myrtle]

Perhaps a third element of their dislike is those who enjoy activities involving any sort of risk and believe that the risk is worth it...people who choose quality of life over longevity.

I may be a fat woman on my death bed but I'll be saying, "I sure did eat some good food during my life."

you think thats bad, chek out the heart attack grill: http://www.heartattackgrill.com/ Home of the double, triple, and quadruple bypass burgers!

This guy never had to do any advertising...the media and the health critics do it for him!

[tom k]

Talk about selective indignation. If libertarians put more passion and energy into restoring habeous corpus and less into whining about seat belt laws, smoker's rights and health advocates they might be taken more seriously. Entertaining post, though, it's always fun to watch a cat chasing its own tail.

[tom k]

It's early, forgot one thing

Love,

Tom

[Rogier]

Tom K:

Three answers:

(1) Selective indignation? You mean when I completely ignored this administration's abuse of the rule of law in posts like these, and at least two dozen others?

http://www.bakelblog.com/nobodys_business/2006/09/the_torture_bil.html
http://www.bakelblog.com/nobodys_business/2006/10/i_have_hope_bec.html
http://nobodysbusiness.typepad.com/nobodys_business/2005/01/pretty_words_vs.html

You mean THAT selective indignation?

(2) The libertarians I know all do what they can, from running think tanks to running for president. They organize symposiums and put out magazines and write books and go on talkshows and yes, some of us blog. And they let Bush have it every day, and not just on health policy and seat belt laws. If you'd stop fawning over Glenn Greenwald (whom I admire) long enough to pay a short visit to reason.com every once in a while, you'd see how broad the issues are that libertarians address -- and that Bush and Gonzales and the Defense Department and all the other dubious players get clobbered like there's no tomorrow.

(3) And what do YOU do? Do you write a blog? A book? Have you started a political organization, or even joined one? How are YOU trying to make a difference?

Love 2U2,

Rogier

[markm]

Burgers? That's nothing. The size of your mouth limits what they can stuff into them.

In a hotel restaurant in a small town in Germany, I once ordered the "farmer's meal." This was served on a 10 inch square wooden "shovel blade". They filled it with home fried potatos, two inches thick. On top of that, a layer of pork chops, breaded and deep-fried, completely covering the potatos. On top of that, an omelet nearly an inch thick and big enough to cover the whole thing.

And it was good all the way through, but for some reason I wasn't very hungry the rest of the weekend...