Maybe I was just really tired, or maybe I was in some altered state for no reason, but I've at least momentarily concluded that "The Student Body" is the best documentary ever on how government really works, and doesn't work, and the total hypocrisy of (most/all?) (statist) politicians. It's co-written and co-directed (with her dad) by a high school student who gets to see the "sausage being made" as lawmakers ignorantly impose their will on the people they are supposedly serving without be held to any standard of accountability or transparency. Bailey Webber is intelligent, has a sense of humor, and is doggedly determined, all traits necessary if one is to attempt to get politicians to be held accountable for their actions. She includes footage of an Ohio state legislator on the floor of the legislature explaining that if a person wants to avoid a mandated law, all they have to do is lie. Her phone conversations over a period of seven months, attempting to make an appointment to interview the politician who created the mandate law, are priceless. My only qualm was that in the end she backs down, due to being too "considerate", from delivering the "you are fat" letters to the politicians who passed the law mandating that all Ohio students, beginning in kindergarten, be measured and informed of their Body Mass Index, which has virtually no known direct causal linkage with health.

One could make the exact same documentary in Hawaii re any of the irrational, arbitrary and capricious "gun safety laws", such as determining that the magazine capacity limit for handguns must be 10. The difference being that in Ohio they targeted children.

 

Here's the IMDB summary:

In an effort to address the obesity epidemic, notification letters are being sent to students whose body mass do not fall within a narrow range deemed "acceptable" by the government; essentially telling children, even as young as kindergarteners, that they are fat. When a determined sixth-grader in Ohio voices her protest against the 'Fat Letters', student journalist Bailey Webber is inspired to take her fight to the highest levels of government. THE STUDENT BODY is a true underdog story of two brave girls who take a stand against bullying, government intrusion and hypocrisy while exploring the complex and controversial truths behind the childhood obesity debate.