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Perhaps it is ironic that, as we prepare to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution next month, there are so many people who are willing to dispense with that venerable document.
The threats come from both ends of the political spectrum. I needn't belabor the latest excesses of the Reagan regime; various liberals are just as disgusting in their disregard for a fundamental civil liberty -- that of free speech.
Not that they phrased it that way when they were testifying in Washington a few weeks ago. Instead, they were claiming that the public health requires a ban on all forms of tobacco advertising.
Part of my outrage, I confess, is economic. A considerable portion of my meager income results from selling articles to magazines. Many of those magazines carry page after page of cigarette ads. Without that ad revenue, they aren't going to have as much money to pay writers. However, I didn't hear of any plans to replace that lost income -- when bleeding-hearts bleed, the flow goes in different directions.
But there's more to it than that. The freedom to be right is also the freedom to be wrong, or it isn't a freedom at all.
Consider freedom of religion. It leads to problems: Jim and Tammy Bakker, the Jonestown Massacre, the Moonies infesting the airport, crackpots on the street corners, children disappearing into cults, etc. But what's the alternative? A state-imposed religion. Those have their problems, too -- inquisitions, jihads, crusades, witch-burnings.
The founders of our country, considering those two alternatives, decided that religious freedom was preferable. It wasn't supposed to be perfect, and it wouldn't protect gullible members of society. We pay a price for religious freedom, but we'd pay a bigger one for an official religion.
Likewise, freedom of expression ought to mean the right to publish advertising for all products, not merely those products sanctioned by those who presume to protect us. Certainly there are valid health arguments against tobacco, and certainly those cigarette ads -- all those tanned vibrant folks cavorting with abandon -- are as misleading as a White House spokesman at a briefing.
The historic presumption, though, has been that we spend a considerable sum educating our population, so that American citizens are able to make intelligent decisions. If you fall prey to something misleading, that's your problem, not society's.
But under the emerging doctrine espoused by the Health Lobby, we are all children to be protected by our betters.
Where might this lead? I've seen articles claiming that
red meat is somehow dangerous to overall health. Better ban
Ronald McDonald and the thick and juicy
ads before
our children develop yet another dangerous addiction. Let's
go further, and outlaw those old movies that glamorize
cowboys -- after all, the horsemen only existed in order to
make sure that those toxic rangeland critters grew and got
to market.
There are thousands of zealots who expound the horrors of sugar, which gets blamed for everything from hypertension to blindness. So prohibit all candy and soda advertising.
And what of a heavily-advertised product that definitely causes health problems? A product whose advertising is always misleading? A product whose sales agents have become bywords for dishonesty and chicanery?
I refer, of course, to the automobile, which directly kills about 900 Americans every week, and maims 97,000 more. Its ads always feature exuberant people enjoying open roads, instead of the sad truth -- a sweltering afternoon bumper-to-bumper crawl on the Valley Highway. And used-car salesmen are reputed to prevaricate more than the advertisements.
It isn't tobacco smoke that has put Denver and Colorado under threat of interdiction by the Enviromental Protection Agency. It is exhaust fumes from cars, which are reaching serious levels with resultant respiratory illnesses -- afflicting lots of people who don't even drive.
If there are good arguments to outlaw cigarette advertising, there are even better arguments to outlaw all forms of automotive advertising. But I'd like to think that we're smart enough to decide for ourselves -- which is what our Constitution is all about.
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