On July 4, 1776, America’s founding fathers signed their names to the Declaration of Independence in an effort to affirm basic liberties. But they never dreamed that anyone would someday attempt to strip the American people of the fundamental freedom to control what we eat and drink. In the spirit of throwing off the shackles of harassing powers, we offer our Declaration of Food Independence.
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for freedom-loving people to dissolve the bands which bind them to the will of Food Cops, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Consumers are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that whenever any aspiring Big Brothers become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the Consumers to alter or abolish that relationship.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, including taxes, finger-waving, and food demonization, evinces a design to reduce the freedoms of responsible adults under dietary despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such tyrants. Such has been the patient suffering of we freedom-loving Consumers, and such is now the necessity which impels us to alter our former tolerance of Food Cop abuses. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid public:
- Self-titled “food police” at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) have taken it upon themselves to stamp out one of a child’s most valued liberties: the birthday cupcake.
- The very same CSPI activists have clogged our nation’s courts with frivolous lawsuits, including one aiming to tarnish the name of a national hero – Colonel Sanders.
- The world’s richest animal-rights organization, the Humane Society of the United States, has attempted a phony blockade of Canadian seafood destined for the plates of Americans.
- Scaremongers are busy distorting science on foods like tuna fish, creating the eminently false impression of danger.
- City councils across the nation are taking it upon themselves to determine what Americans can and cannot eat. In both New York and Chicago, power-hungry politicians are using government to trample on foods they disapprove of.
- Irresponsible journalists liken Girl Scout cookies to the work of Al-Qaeda.
- A long list of activist groups design false food scares to push their hidden agendas. Offending groups include, but are not limited to, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, the Environmental Working Group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Organic Consumers Association, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and the deceptively named Center for Food Safety.
In every stage of these oppressions we have responded with skeptical inquiries, humorous retorts, and a healthy dose of common sense. Our repeated efforts have been answered only by repeated attempts to tax, control, and cajole us. A Food Cop whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to rule over free Consumers’ meals.
We therefore solemnly publish and declare that Consumers are, and ought to be, sovereign adults trusted to make their own food decisions. They have full power to eat, drink, and purchase without fear of harassment, violence, or tyrannical taxes.
It’s your food. It’s your drink. It’s your freedom.
