GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS, UNBELIEVABLE NEWS
by James W. Harris

Georgia Tea Party

"Sweet tea," for those not familiar, is a distinctly Southern
dining tradition. It's ice-cold tea that has been heavily sweetened with
copious amounts of sugar while brewing.

For many Southerners, lunch without sweet tea is akin to breakfast without
grits -- unthinkable.

So when Georgia resident John Noel visited an Atlanta restaurant, he was
shocked and outraged to find out that sweet tea was not on the menu.

Any ordinary citizen would have simply decided to patronize another restaurant.

But citizen Noel is also Rep. John Noel (D-Atlanta) -- a member of the
Georgia state legislature. And what is the politician's inevitable solution
to anything he doesn't like?

Pass a law, of course.

So Rep. Noel -- along with four co-sponsors -- introduced a bill that would
make it a misdemeanor ''of a high and aggravated nature'' for any
restaurant in Georgia that serves iced tea not to also offer sweet tea.

The bill does allows restaurants to continue to serve unsweetened tea -- a
sop, one supposes, to Yankees and other foreigners -- but stipulates that
any restaurant that does so must serve sweet tea as well.

To make sure there is no confusion, the bill specifies the tea must be
sweetened when it is brewed, in the Southern way -- not merely sweetened
afterwards.

The penalty for refusing to comply? Up to 12 months in prison.

When asked, Noel says his bill is tongue-in-cheek.

However, he has also said he wouldn't mind if it becomes law.

This petty tyranny, which almost certainly will not become law, has
provoked a lot of good-natured laughter. But ridiculous as it is on first
glance, it is also enormously revealing. At its heart lies a totalitarian
assumption that is genuinely frightening -- the notion that the government
has the right, and the power, to mandate at gunpoint even something so very
private and personal as what food can be served at private restaurants.

And think about it. Is forcing restaurants to serve sweet tea really any
more absurd, or any more tyrannical, than outlawing nude dancing or smoking
in restaurants? Or mandatory seatbelt and helmet laws? Or seizing private
property to benefit business interests? Or any of the thousands of other
meddling, harmful acts that state governments routinely engage in?

Mandatory sweet tea. Could there be a more perfect example of the political
mind at work?

(Source: Associated Press/ Athens Banner-Herald:
http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/032703/gen_20030327077.shtml)

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