Pizza Politics. [View all]

In view of the recent posts on how pizza company political donations go almost exclusively to Republicans, I'd like to offer up another pizza-based observation.

So you've got a group of people, roughly half of whom want to eat nothing but the most unhealthy of foods, and the other half or so of whom want to eat pizza. Everyone in each of the subgroups has been somewhat peer pressured by others in their group, such that no one in either group really dares to suggest that once in a while they try to get together for salads, say.

So one group goes off and eats all sorts of sugary, fatty, horribly unhealthy stuff.

And the other group goes off and eats pizza. Maybe not all THAT much better, but certainly far better in some ways.

But there's still internal tension. Because even in the pizza group, the people in the majority demand that toppings must be chosen by voting among the group, and that the votes have to be binding, and everyone must eat pizza with the toppings chosen by the majority. And time and again, the majority votes for the exact same sorts of toppings, and everyone is always forced to eat what they want. But they declare it's all perfectly fair to everyone, because it's majority rules. So every single time, it's anchovies and olives.

Over time, fewer and fewer people bother to vote, because they don't see the point. The outcome is basically predetermined. No matter how many times the votes are cast, the ham and pineapple people never win. And if they complain, they're mocked and told that if they don't want to eat anchovy and olive pizzas, they probably are just junk food eaters in disguise. And that if they want to eat ham and pineapple pizza, they just need to get more people to vote for ham and pineapple.

And heaven forbid they even suggest a salad. Cause somehow that's even worse than junk food.

It's a rough little analogy, and no doubt needs work, but just an observation.