I really don't understand this "consumerism" they speak of. People need things, want things, and other people provide them, for a cost. Do they want a world devoid of things like iPods and cars? How do they expect people to live?

Can somebody explain to me why "consumerism" is so hated by some people? We have always been consumers. Of one thing or another, from shell beads to Fiji water.

I got sick once. Sore throat and cough. My phlegm was monstrously thick. I took antibiotics, but they didn't seem to help. I drank more water like the doctor recommended.

Then, while still sick, I went for a camp. And almost immediately, I got better. That's when I came to the realization that I had gotten sick because I drank water straight from the tap.

No boiling or filtering first, just as an experiment in cheapness and laziness. I had basically been injecting yet more bacteria into my system with every sip, overwhelming my maxed-out immune system and meds. I count myself lucky I didn't get amoebic dysentery or brain-worms.

Drink more water to alleviate the symptoms. Heh, not Malaysian tap water, bub.

The irony is - western NY water tastes wonderful. So does NYC water. It regularly comes in first in blind taste tests.

Los Angeles water - not so much. You really can taste the difference. Filter it enough and it's fine (that's all Sparklets, Crystal Geyser and Desani do) but straight from the tap it's nowhere near as good as, say, Arrowhead.

Big water has us by the throat.

My two cents - I'm only 36 so I'm not too old to remember growing up we drinking tap water (my parents had/have a well).

I find this whole bottle water thing ridulous. Americans complain about gas being 3 dollars a gallon, yet some bottled water costs up to 8.

While I can understand convinence sometimes, doesn't it seem silly to spend 1-2 dollars for a bottle of water when you get it free almost everywhere? It's part of the consumer culture of the US.

No, not trying to save the enviroment or any of that, just trying to understand where 20 years ago it was free, now you have to drink bottled water.

M. Simon - worse, Evian costs some $20.00 a gallon - and aren't they the ones who were found to be using tap water?

Next, a greenie will discover he can cut his water consumption by 20% if he replaces his water bottles with equivalent sized beer bottles.
*Bonus - consuming beer also consumes deadly carbon dioxide, so long as you don't spill it.
*Extra bonus - beer comes from Europe, so it must be morally superior!
*Super bonus - before Europe, they brewed beer in Africa!

Right after that the greens will realize that instead of letting plants die and decompose (risking deadly carbon dioxide release), it is possible to cut the leaves of plants like tobacco, burn them, and inhale the smoke into the lungs - safely away from the environment!
*Double super bonus - like the Native Americans used to!

It should be about 3 years until Frank Sinatra is the patron saint of the environmental movement.

My son works in a water bottling plant in the Midwest that produces a huge amount of bottled water in a variety of well-known labels. Basically, it comes out of a deep well naturally filtered by limestone, but after it gets filtered and treated prior to bottling it is essentially the same as comes out of any tap in the same city.

I do find it kind of amusing when the trendy water drinkers fall afoul of the trendy Puritanical scolds. There is also a large overlap among these people in that many of the 'trendies' (or trendsetters -- think Hollywood or AlGore) conspicuously consume certain items while simultaneously scolding the run and ruck of the crowd for some habit of theirs. Or they're just hypocritical, as the case of AlGore, John 'Silk Pony' Edwards and Barbra Streisand with their environmental harping and simultaneous huge footprints. Fah!

This is moonbattery at its finest. They're arguing that water is somehow "finite", and evil, greedy Americans are stealing water from the mouths of poor, starving Africans!

What nonsense. Drinkable water is a function of good government and proper infrastructure. If you have a crappy government, you probably have to boil water at best, or have to buy it from a street vendor, like I did when I lived in China.

And the Earth will still be covered by oceans long after all us humans have left the building...

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This is an offshoot of the craze for drinking 8 glasses of water a day. There simply is no need to drink that much unless you're exercising strenuously (like in a marathon). Drink when you're thirsty and you'll do fine. http://www.snopes.com/medical/myths/8glasses.asp

That tears it. At home I drink my tap water (it comes from a well and is clear and cold and just fine). But I am now going to start buying bottled water, just because these totalitarian clowns want to crush the Fijian economy.

I'll still drink the tap water. Maybe I'll use the bottled to water my lawn and fill my car radiators. Use it in my bath tub, if I work out a way to heat it (preferably by burning old tires).

Evil never sleeps and stupid never dies.

When these people are not actively working to create or exacerbate a problem, they're working to recast something that is good or harmless as a new problem to be solved, thereby distracting society from the real issues that need to be addressed.

This is the latest in a series of posts addressing the manufacting of morality.

I agree with your core observation: many topics that previously were discussed rationally are now framed in emotional/moral terms that preclude debate, and lead directly to uncivil discourse in which demonization replaces respectful disagreement.

But it's strikingly clear that only one side of the political spectrum is using this ploy: the Left. And they are using it precisely because the are still clinging to ideas that reality has already run into the ground - so rational discussion is a losing proposition, to be avoided at all costs.

You may see the moral stance of those not sympathetic to gay rights as something similar - but those moral judgements, while they may seem arbitrary to those who disagree, springs from a long history of human social experience, and religious beliefs (which have been closely argued and refined over the years). They represent a long tradition of widespread consensus among human societies.

Even if you don't hold by these moral judgements, it is not accurate to dismiss them as equal with the recently-minted, agenda-motivated moral judgements of the Left.

And many of the pro-gay arguments put forward use victimology politics and other tools of "manufactured morality".

Well, in Beautiful Downtown San Jose CA, tap water tastes awful. For some reason it tastes better in the dead of winter, though. Also, you should see the toilet bowl after about 5 days w/o cleaning. That stays cleaner in winter, too.

So, bottled water for me!

OK, travel outside the U.S. and try to not buy bottled water. Sit at a restaurant in France, Germany, Netherlands and ask for water. The only response is "with gas?"

You will be told that they are not allowed to give you tap water.

And if you are in Egypt or India, you might just want to insist on it yourself.

If you're in China, you brush your teeth with pre-boiled water, and for God's sake don't accidentally open your mouth while in the shower.

when we allowed bottles and cans to be invented.

lol

First, they invented the bottles and cans, but I did not like storing my food in gourds so I did not speak out . . .

I am cheap and I hate paying the high price for bottled water. But I am also lazy and I have found that if I don't have bottled water on hand I am more likely to grab a soft drink on the way out the door. When I drink more soft drinks I gain weight and thus I contribute to the growing obesity problem.

Impure, third world water aside, bottler's are selling pretty labels, interesting caps, varying shapes, different quantities and flavors of convenience. Not water. The whatever's-being-saved-today nanny staters are saving neither the environment nor ("Eeeeek!!") souls, but their own self love, the only morality they preach. And it is a tyranny, enforced not on themselves but only on others. "If thine eye offends me, I'll have the FCC pluck it out." This morality derives from the flawed idea of historicism, the notion that history is a continuous slow improvement, moving towards perfection, and if only the right people are in charge, applying the correct rules, regulations, mandate's, speech codes, permissable language etc. the "perhaps ...dream of a healthy world" will awaken. (They are also romantic naturalists, glorifying with virtue any bodily impulse and urge, "If it feels good, do it", "Same love, same rights" and other such Rousseaian bile.) Such fabulist thought breeds nightmares. Ask such people when you encounter them two questions. "Do you believe human nature is perfectable?" "What is the source of evil in the world?" These questions will be "a stumbling block" to the nanny staters, and to the secular-progressives, "foolishness".

I'm all for bottled water, but then I could be prejudiced. I live in what may be the same small town that JorgXMcKie describes, that bottles a bajillion gallons of limestone-filtered artesian water every year and distributes it across the country. Yes, we use the same water as tap water, because it's great water and we have an abundance of it.

But here's the riddle: Even here, where some of the best water in the world comes out of our taps, people buy bottled water. That's just bizarre.

I hugely enjoy the spectacle of the aptly named Baby Boom sucking on their bottles, unweaned as son many of them are. Soon, adult diapers will be the norm among them.

But of course, I would never presume to actually scold the fans of designer water for their choice, or to seek to interfere with them.

Which brings us to the only moral code that should count in the United States, one that this benighted generation routinely violates, a violation our teachers have been inculcating in the succeeding generations.

Limited government presumes a limited morality to enforce: punish only those who are threatening the lives, property and liberty of their fellow citizens.

In other words: don't assault them, steal their wealth, or interfere with their non-lethal, non-larcenous activity. When it comes to changing their tacky ways, persuasion is the moralist's only legitimate option.

Hey, this evil person has yet to quit smoking. Anyway, on the bottled water matter I'm only occasionally evil.

I drink it as a matter of convenience. If I'm at an amusement park or other outdoor event and am becoming dehydrated I'll buy bottled water. Otherwise it's tap water for me. Partially because I'm cheap, mainly because water tastes like water and I'd rather have a diet coke than water.

I, too, will speak out against the evil of bottles and cans by installing a beermeister in my basement.

Personally I refuse to pay $8/gallon for something I can get from my tap for a penny. My wife on the other hand...

My kids are hysterical though - they used to refuse to drink water out of the tap in favor of water from the refrigerator (ice dispenser) even though it is the same water (no filters in our fridge). The human mind is a funny thing.

What most people buy with bottled water is simply convenience. If you take some with you on a walk or run, toss the bottle when you're finished. Keep a case in the trunk in case the kids want a drink when you're driving somewhere. When you've go the money and don't want to be bothered with filling your own bottles or finding a water fountain, why not just buy it?

I compromise. I refill the plastic water bottles from the tap.

We keep a couple of cases in storage for emergencies, rotate a new case in about once a month to keep the water fairly fresh. When done with the old case we use the bottle to fill with water from the tap and juice from over sized plastic jugs that are almost empty. Bottles with water(and juice)in it makes it so much easier when going anywhere with kids, or grandkids in our case.

If this is such an issue with the college kids and their age group, maybe the should quit drinking all that imported beer. When the pool is open during the summer, the only domestic beer that makes its way into the house is what the wife and I drink. All the kids(they are in their 20's)and their friends bring imported beer.

"Moral Superiority" is always the goal of the Left, tho it frequently finds a willing ally with most Believers (whether religious or secular, e.g. Deep Greens).

The point is to establish a pure, "moral" position, and then the costs don't matter.

This "cost-free" morality argument is also why the details of alternatives don't matter.

All of the morality junk also implies that passing laws by the gov't is a way to peacefully change behavior. But law is not about peaceful change, it is about using force (and the threat of violence) to make people change.

You guys must not get out much if you think tap water is available everywhere. I drink tap water at home and at work, but some places bottled water is the only real option.

Going on a long drive I take bottled water in a cooler. Better than soft drinks. Going to a sports area, outdoor arts festival, renaissance faire tap water usually isn't available. Sometimes you are allowed to bring your own, other times you have to buy their bottled water if you want to drink.

For some other long outdoor activities bottled water you bring along it all the clean water available. I like to freeze them in advance so I have cold water ready.

I can buy the store brand or whatever is on sale for $.25-.50 a bottle. This is a practical solution to real world problems, not so much a luxury. The discussion seems to be missing this angle.

If you like water, and you don't like tap water, then buy a water filter and refill your colorful Fiji bottles over and over

My wife berates me for doing this, telling me that it's a scientific bona fide fact that these plastic bottles off-gas, making you swallow toxic chemicals!

Tell that to the nanny scolds.

Depending on the bottled water you get, there are good reasons to drink bottled over tap. Tap water can contain a lot of sediments and dissolved chemicals that - with the right bottled water - you can avoid. This is especially important if you have any type of kidney problem. If you're being kidney-cautious, check the municipality to see what is coming out of the tap. And, if you know someone on dialysis, they, almost as a rule, will be on one of the more distilled/purified types of bottled water.

It ain't just the third world. Port Douglas Australia has water so bad that when we innocently ordered tap water at a restaurant the owner came out to treat us to bottled water and apologize that the municipal water was not potable by the natives, let alone Americans.

Lysander,

Municipalities are required to publish at minimum annual water quality reports availble at the office, via mail or online. They will be far more detailed than anything you will get out of a bottled water company as the contaminates in tap water are regulated by the EPA [http://www.epa.gov/safewater/contaminants/index.htm] (plus States like California impose stricter standards)not the FDA. But even bottled water unless it is distilled (and stored properly) will contain sediments, dissolved chemicals and possibly microoorganisims.

Pirate -

I agree with your first and last sentences; that is why for normal use at home I have water delivered. I'm by no means completely "tap free", but knowing what comes out of the tap in my municipality, and the report I got from the water distributor on their water, I made an informed decision. However, it's a decision that should be made individually, with getting the facts to make such a decision.