Without legal push to make everyone work in unison there will always be an entity (a corporation) willing to invest enough to push the right buttons and coax people into the most unhealthy habits. After all the profits will belong to that company while the expense is paid by society. The overwhelming majority of individuals are completely unqualified to see through the onslaught of marketing (especially the covert kind), the social pressure, or even to understand the risks they're taking.
Corporations are an easy scapegoat that also fits a political ideology on the left.
It's also a complete fallacy to claim that people cannot see through things. People are not stupid they know that it is their diet that makes them fat. People deserve at least this credit and respect.
Alcohol and cigarettes sales to children are obviously completely different and a very poor analogy.
So... Following the logic, either we accept that people are free to make their own decisions, that parents are responsible for their children, or we take children away from parents because the state knows best.
Personally I think we should do the maximum we can to teach good diets at schools, and perhaps provide classes for adults, and to label products then people can do whatever they want but live with the consequences.
But I think the likely outcome (as we start to see in some countries), which must be politically acceptable and cheap, will be similar to the path taken for cigarettes: PR campaigns and tax. This is a way to let people do what they want while nudging them, and to let them pay for the consequences (healthcare where it is financed through tax).
When it comes to children parents won't be blamed (although they should be) because this is not good to win votes. It will be easier to continue blaming ads and corporations, and to ban things.
Calling things 'left', 'ideology', 'fallacy' and randomly saying things are 'completely different' aren't great arguments if you keep it at statements instead of an argument.
Marketing is _very_ effective. Further, people are paid for to ensure it is effective. Having rules to restrict that behaviour does go against some peoples idea of what a government should do. IMO that's exactly what the government should do, protect the people (among other things!).
> When it comes to children parents won't be blamed (although they should be) because this is not good to win votes.
You're making this a parent thing, and an either/or thing. It's much easier to do multiple things at the same time. Ensure parents are educated, ensure children cannot be marketed.
When they lobby (pay) to get more influence than you have as a voter then I'd say they they are nnot just "scapegoats" but actually guilty together with the politicians they bri... I mean lobbied with. And corporations get to profit from this while the society as a whole pays the price for the fallout.
> political ideology on the left
Why do some people always need to turn everything into a political ideology thing? Contrary to your belief it adds nothing to your argument, if anything it subtracts most of the little weight it had to begin with. Off the bat after a single line your comment holds about as much weight as a wet paper bag.
> are obviously completely different and a very poor analogy.
Is it? It's the state banning something considered unhealthy in one way or another. Why is drinking 100% sugary drinks totally acceptable but a glass of wine or beer, or a piece of pornographic material are illegal?
> So... Following the logic
Then by all means, follow the logic don't just replace it with your skewed one and pretend that it was somehow a natural progression of what I said.
> then people can do whatever they want but live with the consequences.
So... Following your logic governments shouldn't be allowed to ban anything. But people can still do anything they want. They will just have to live with the consequences exactly as you said. In this case the consequence is that if you sell this stuff to kids you get a fine.
Ban them, tax them, disincentivize people to buy them, claw back from the corporations the costs of having a society hooked on, disabled, or slowly killed by those very products. It just has to be a clear sign that the state and the society at large shouldn't bear the costs of supporting a person who has severely undermined their health from the age their brain and body are still developing. And it's also society protecting itself by protecting kids from parents' mistakes.
