Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Why is advertising more privileged than political speech?
So I've been having an ongoing debate with my fiance (as well as my housekeeper) about the role of the public in a democracy. My fiance argues that after hard day at work, it's unreasonable to expect the population to care about news, the impact of government, policy, etc.
I have no patience for this arguement. In part, my feeling for this is as a result of the following:
Political speech has no regulation for truthfulness. If an advertiser spewed the lies and misleading statements that the bush administration, that company would be sued by the better business, not to mentioned be cited by a variety of different state and local agencies. No such protections exists for the public on political speech. Additionally, protections against slander, inuendo, and libel are not available to political speech.
What does this have to do with our poor working folk? Simply this: The protections in advertising are designed to keep an unsuspecting public from making a poor decision. These restrictions are in place to blunt the effect of marketing lies. Given that people are far more likely to understand the intracacies the next product they want to buy far more than he political process or facts, aren't the same kind of protections necessary here?
How can we have a functioning democracy when we have a population that doesn't pay attention to politics, and isn't protected from the lies that politicians of all sides throw out?
I have no patience for this arguement. In part, my feeling for this is as a result of the following:
Political speech has no regulation for truthfulness. If an advertiser spewed the lies and misleading statements that the bush administration, that company would be sued by the better business, not to mentioned be cited by a variety of different state and local agencies. No such protections exists for the public on political speech. Additionally, protections against slander, inuendo, and libel are not available to political speech.
What does this have to do with our poor working folk? Simply this: The protections in advertising are designed to keep an unsuspecting public from making a poor decision. These restrictions are in place to blunt the effect of marketing lies. Given that people are far more likely to understand the intracacies the next product they want to buy far more than he political process or facts, aren't the same kind of protections necessary here?
How can we have a functioning democracy when we have a population that doesn't pay attention to politics, and isn't protected from the lies that politicians of all sides throw out?
# posted by Will (Militant Liberal) @ 10:37 AM 
