Mocking the obese should be "illegal," but mocking anti-vaxxers considered media sport

(NaturalNews) The trouble with regulating behavior is that the social change artists who want to lord over what people think, say and do are never satisfied. And, they are hypocritical.

Case in point: A British "obesity expert" and researcher, Dr. Sarah Jackson, has a rather authoritarian solution for anyone who jokes about fat people: Put them in jail.

Jackson is basing her stance on the belief that poking fun about obesity should be on the same level as racism or discrimination.

As reported by The Telegraph:

Obesity expert Dr Sarah Jackson said that the law should protect against weight discrimination, in the same way at it prohibits singling out people based on their age, gender or race.

Dr Jackson, of University College London, spoke out after conducting two studies into the physical and psychological effects of fattism.

Her latest study, of more than 5,000 British adults found that those who were made to feel ashamed of their size suffered more symptoms of depression.

They also had a lower quality of life than those who didn't feel victimised.

Either she or the paper even invented a new word: "Fattism."

What -ism will be outlawed next?

"In the United Kingdom, the Equality Act 2010 legally protects individuals from discrimination on the basis of age, sex, race, disability, religion or beliefs, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy, or gender reassignment; making it clear that discriminatory behaviour of this nature is not to be accepted," she said.

"However, our results indicate that discriminatory experiences contribute to poorer psychological wellbeing in individuals with obesity, but there are currently no laws prohibiting weight discrimination," she continued. "This might send the message to people that weight discrimination is socially acceptable.

"If weight was a protected category it might help to reduce the prevalence of weight-related discrimination and thereby improve quality of life and wellbeing for a significant proportion of obese individuals," she concluded.

Any reasonable person could (and should) conclude that this notion is absurd on its face -- punishing people for a joke or off-color comment. Next thing you know, there will be calls to make it illegal to make fun of skinny people (skinnyism), loud people (loudism), short people (shortism), tall people (tallism), bald people (baldism), people with warts (wartism) and so on.

But what is really ridiculous about this Left-wing kookery is that people who advocate for it are blatantly hypocritical because they are all too often selective about their ire and outrage.

Take for instance people who choose not to vaccinate their kids; they are pilloried in the press and by the traditional medical community, and characterized as loons, wackos and extremists who should be forced -- forced, by law, threat of fine, lawsuit or punishment -- to expose their children to vaccines which have the potential to do them harm.

"We have, for now, a functioning civil society..."

They are mocked endlessly by "shocked" journalists and pundits who claim, erroneously, that the "science is settled" -- vaccines are all good, all the time, and as such should be forced upon society in the same way that Dr. Jackson wants to force her point of view on all of British society.

This is ludicrous. What's more, it's a major infringement on free speech. But as Natural News editor Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, points out, that doesn't seem to matter to the PC Police; they want to decide who gets protected and who doesn't.

As Heather Wilhelm, writing over at , notes, there are not supposed to be no-dissent zones, especially in the land of the free. Writing about the insane uproar by the Left over Indiana's new religious freedom protection law, which is modeled after a federal law and which is just one of 19 other laws in other states, this push to demonize certain groups, certain behaviors, certain speech and certain activities is bound to end badly:

We have, for now, a functioning civil society. But with the rise of the "You Must Approve" mob and its powerful partners, cracks are beginning to show. Ironically, the freedoms that the mob seeks to destroy--the freedoms of religion, speech, and association--are the very same freedoms that separate us from places like Saudi Arabia. If certain groups get their way, they might not be around for long.

Sources:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk

http://www.naturalnews.com

http://www.realclearpolitics.com

http://gawker.com