speech and respect - College of Social Sciences and International ...

The Imperative of State Regulation
emotional distress. Courts and administrative agencies extensively
regulate commercial speech under such rubrics as misrepresentation
and professional advertising and solicitation. 16 They limit the promotion
of dangerous products like alcohol and tobacco and require
extensive disclosure about others. 17 California taxes tobacco sales to
fund anti-smoking messages and education. After Secretary of
Health Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, an African American, attacked R.J.
Reynolds's "slick and sinister advertising campaign" for its new
"Uptown" cigarette targeted at black smokers, the company withdrew
the brand. He also denounced the Virginia Slims women's
tennis tournament and other sports events for accepting "blood
money" from tobacco manufacturers. Surgeon General Antonia
Novello, a Latina, condemned industry efforts to increase tobacco
sales in Latin America and declared: "In years past, R.J. Reynolds
would have us walk a mile for a Camel. Today, it's time that we
invite Old Joe Camel himself to take a hike." 18 Contract law endows
speech with fateful consequences, while restrictive practices law
prohibits the formation of certain contracts. The criminal law of
conspiracy and attempt punishes language. And obscenity and
pornography are proscribed, if their boundaries have shrunk. The
Police Chief of Guilderland, New York, threatened local record
stores with prosecution for selling 20 "obscene" tapes; although he
retracted the warning, the casettes remained unavailable. Despite
the unconstitutionality of hate speech ordinances, the New York City
Metropolitan Transportation Authority abridged artistic freedom by
removing a photographic exhibit from an underground station when
the largely black ridership complained that it depicted Greek rather
than African Americans.
All governments invoke raison d'etat to suppress speech. During
the Persian Gulf War, 79 per cent of Americans approved of military
censorship and 57 per cent thought it should be intensified. In
response to the patriotic frenzy of those who waved the flag or
wrapped themselves in it, newspapers reprinted a federal statute
prohibiting use of the flag in wearing apparel, bedding or drapery or
for advertising purposes, even though the Supreme Court had protected
flag burning. 20 The California Department of Motor Vehicles
recalled the vanity license plate "4 Jihad" until Kareem Jaffer, who
owned the car, produced a birth certificate showing that his son's
name was Jihad. 21 Desperate about the unfavourable opinion polls
two weeks before the November 1992 election, President Bush
condemned Governor Clinton for having demonstrated against the
Vietnam War while a Rhodes scholar. "Maybe I'm old fashioned, but
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