Re: Are we protected from Junk Food Corporations?

From: Lictor (ghostmlNOSPAM-REMOVE_at_online.fr)
Date: 08/31/04 

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 09:58:49 +0200

"DonQuijote1954" <nolionnoproblem@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:4e4a3f58.0408301741.398c2001@posting.google.com...
(snip)
> I think that's a nice strategy with the lion: Either he can
> self-regulate or he's tamed by regulation brought down on him. That's
> sure to please libertarians and socialists alike...

Thanks for the article. Sweden, and the Scandinavian countries, always make
for interresting experiments. Though, they are pretty hard to translate to
the rest of the world, because these countries, as the few true welfare
states in the world, are very specific. But I think similar laws on ads
should be passed. If you don't put limit to what is open to advertisements
or not, they will just permeate everything. I'm glad to live in one of the
countries where you can still watch a movie or series on TV without
advertisement cutting it in the middle.
The only part I disagree on is the ban on violent toys. This is a trend we
see worldwide about video games too. I think people underestimate children,
there are areas where they are far superior to adults. Symbolic violence and
catharsis are among these. Children have a rich fantasy world, and they
fully perceive the difference between it and reality. But they have the
ability to go back and forth between the real and fantasy world. They are
able to discharge violent real world emotions into their fantasy world. The
only danger from violent toys come from kids who have been psychologically
(and often physically) harmed in such a way that they have lost that ability
to distinguish between and operate in these worlds. Banning violent toys is
not going to help these kids, they need deep psychological help. The large
majority of normal kids have no problem with violent toys, playing with them
is actually part of how they grow up and learn to manage their inner
violence. That's typically one of the area where we try to impose adult
moral values on kids, when kids do not even operate on these values.