Re: Cato forum on liquor advertising and electronic media

[Tim May <tcmay@got.net>]

At 9:20 PM -0800 4/24/97, Bill Frantz wrote:

>What is highly amusing is the mounting evidence that alcoholic beverages in
>moderation are good for your health.  Of course, if you are one of the
>small percent of the population who can't be moderate, then you should not
>use alcoholic beverages.  But many people have bad reactions to various
>foods.  That's no reason to forbid them or their advertising.

Obviously we libertarians fully agree with this. No advertising should ever
be banned....to ban or restict any advertising, no matter how worthless or
despicable the product, is clearly a violation of basic constitutional
protections of free speech.

(Note that the orginal grounds for restricting cigarette advertising on
television and radio were on shaky grounds that the airwaves were a kind of
monopoly have now been augmented by laws restricing advertising "too close"
to schools and other places and other such restrictions. Including crap
about requiring warnings about cigarettes and alcohol, even in
non-broadcast advertisements! By this precedent, can it be long before
political writings are required to carry extensive warnings? The First
Amendment has become a joke.)

By the way, the conventional (if flaky) wisdom in the 1950s was that
cigarette smoking was good for one's health (a "digestive"). Had the FCC
and FDA had the powers then that they have now, cigarette ads would have
been _required_.

This is the danger of the monoculture I have written about. "Anything not
banned is required, anything not required is banned."

As to Cypherpunks relevance, what will happen if cigarettes, alcohol, and
condoms are advertised on the Web? (Whoops, strike condom ads...they were
once banned, but are now required.)

Kill them all...they are unworthy of life.

--Tim May


There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
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