"At its heart lies a totalitarian assumption that is genuinely frightening..."

Georgia Tea Party

by James W. Harris

“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 )

Published in THE LIBERATOR ONLINE, March 20, 2003 / Vol. 8, No. 5