Overgovernment: Meatless Mondays Edition

The LA City Council has declared the observance of “Meatless Mondays“:

The Los Angeles City Council is urging all residents to observe “meatless Mondays” from now on.

A resolution adopted on Oct. 24 reads: “Be it resolved, that the Council of the City of Los Angeles hereby declares all Mondays as ‘Meatless Mondays’ in support of comprehensive sustainability efforts as well as to further encourage residents to eat a more varied plant-based diet to protect their health and protect animals.”

Councilwoman Jan Perry, who introduced the resolution, also wants to ban new fast-food restaurants in South Los Angeles.

While I suppose that freedom lovers can take solace in the “symbolic” nature of the dictate, you just know it would be backed by the force of government if they thought they could get away with it. Even such a “symbolic” gesture can only come from the mind of person who loves the power of controlling the lives of their fellow citizens and, as we see, the resolution’s author indeed has designs on more than just symbolic demonstrations of nannyism, but also wants to ban new fast-food restaurants.

But perhaps there is a precedent here of which we can one day take advantage. In the distant (or not so distant) future when Jan Perry and all the other petty tyrants have encumbered our existence with so many rules and dictates, we might wish to symbolically declare a “Freedom Friday” in support of maintaining the illusion that choice and free will still exist in American society.