Every morning, over 2.5 million people have breakfast in Brooklyn. There are countless issues based on religion, culture, medical, diet requirements, preferences, what time to eat, what holiday it is and so on. A very intricate and complicated event, every single morning.

To ensure this goes off without a hitch, every day, there is an Assistant Borough President in charge of Breakfast. This office manages breakfast in all 55 of Brooklyn’s zip codes (did I miss one?). Within each regional zip code, there is a central Breakfast Management team consisting of dedicated office staff and their supervisors, as well as the backbone of this small army: the field workers who ensure breakfast is done correctly in Brooklyn every day. These Breakfast Workers are empowered to barge in on anyone (after a valid complaint is made, logged and processed) to ensure proper breakfast, as per regulations, is being served. Supporting this vast bureaucracy is a dedicated HR department and education teams to ensure the staff are properly trained in non-workplace harassment, cultural/religious/ethnic/sexual orientation/mental health status/etc. awareness and so on.

The Breakfast Department in Brooklyn oversees not just the preparation of all breakfasts but also the delivery/transportation of raw materials, training of staff, potential conflicts, etc. For example, can an Irish-American have Dim Sum at 5 p.m. if she wants it? Who decides? Are exceptions made, and for what reasons? Etc. The Finance Department decides whether the regional offices are purchased or rented. A maintenance department supports the physical locations and makes sure they follow the environmental laws, etc. Liaisons are necessary with SNAP, meals-on-wheels, etc.

Of course, the above “Assistant Borough President in charge of Breakfast” and said staff do not exist. They are not needed. Sometimes (sometimes!) people are just fine doing their own thing for their own benefit, their own way and do not need babysitters.

There is a time and place where big brother intervention makes sense and is absolutely needed. If you can’t afford breakfast in Brooklyn, there are a whole bunch of options from the government to ensure you and your family will have breakfast. Without food purity and preparation laws, we could have severe disease. Without police to ensure that a simple fender bender does not devolve into a fight, breakfast might not get delivered. Without traffic signs / common transport infrastructure/laws, chaos would ensue. Without courts to adjudicate disputes, things would break down to vigilante violence. As a nation, we need a military, telecom oversight, business and banking oversight. We need an FAA, FTC, FCC and so on. We especially need oversight on our rulers: Right now, it is the fox watching the hen house, both from the left and the right.

Having breakfast in Brooklyn, or choosing not to. Whatever you want, as long as you don’t harm or force your selves on others. There is no Breakfast Czar that says an Irish-American may not have Dim Sum at 5 p.m. since she is not ethnically Chinese. Dim Sum is not allocated to just Chinese New Yorkers from Hong Kong. If anyone wants it at 5 p.m. and the shop is willing to sell it, then go for it. This is the underlying principle of America. You want to eat candy and not take your insulin? You want to buy all the lotto tickets you can with all of your savings? You want to get lost every night on hard liquor? Smoke 20 packs of cigarettes a day? Your (stupid) choice, PROVIDED you don’t get behind the wheel of a car drunk, rob others for your spending binge, demand that others pay for your bad choices, or impose on others for your foolishness. You want whatever relationship with whoever? You want to wear green hair? No one’s business but yours. America is not China, Cuba, or Iran … Yet …

As always, the news is full of politicians (left and right) pushing the well-sounding ideas, saying “must be done!” We should be careful when a righteous-sounding idea is demanded by progressive or conservative megalomaniacs. We should think hard about whether it is wise or even moral. The citizens of Germany in the 1930s did not. They VOTED for Hitler and his National Socialists (“Nazi” for short) because of noble / “fair” / “justice” promises. Hitler was not a German. He was Austrian. He was born and raised in a different country. As a non-citizen in the early 1930s he told the Germans what they wanted to hear. He said he had the solutions to their problems. No one asked: how exactly will you do this? At what cost? Who pays and in what way? The people of Germany lived to regret it in a decade and a half.

“Breakfast in Brooklyn is a human right! The people DEMAND that everyone has a fair share!” sounds noble and honorable, like so many other promises and solutions. Words are cheap. Rhyming slogans cost a politician nothing to say.

When election time comes around yet again, beware of easy-to-remember sound bites with no specifics and no debate. The devil is in the details.

Just a thought … and … Dim Sum at 5 p.m.? Shut up and take my money!

Ira Weinberg

Saranac Lake