So a downstate elected official introduced a bill to ban the use of salt in restaurant kitchens in an effort to get the populous healthier. Do I find this intrusive? Of course I do. While moderating salt intake is a good idea, it is the responsibility of each individual to be sensible, not the government’s.
Now this same official has introduced a bill to require the use of helmets on ski slopes. He has admitted he’s never been skiing. Again, this is another attempt of an elected official to try to legislate personal responsibility. Helmets on skiiers and snowboarders? Yes, if they’re young children or if you want to but it shouldn’t be a law.
I believe this official, who’s name escapes me at the moment and I’m typing this in the car so I can’t look it up, should be relieved of his overzealous approach to governing the people at the earliest opportunity. However, I want this to go a step further.
If the folks in Albany truly cared about it’s citizens, they would introduce legislation that would split the state into two parts for bills of this nature. Elected officials that have never been north of Yonkers have no right to introduce laws that will affect people that live 400 miles away in an area that some in NYC describe as a “snowy Alabama”. This would be like a Buffalo legislator introducing a bill requiring the use of snowmobiles on all city streets in the state when there is more than two inches of snow on the ground. Upstate (north and west of Kingston) is an entirely different world than downstate and I firmly believe that both sides of that cultural divide would be better off if they split into two legislative districts. I don’t know how this would be accomplished but I wish someone would figure it out.
