-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Sun, 8 Jun 1997 15:48:58 -0700, you wrote:
At 5:51 AM -0700 6/8/97, William H. Geiger III wrote:
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In <Pine.GSO.3.95.970608053415.20770A-100000@well.com>, on 06/08/97 at 07:36 AM, Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> said:
I don't think commercial speech should be treated as second-class speech. But my position is hardly surprising.
Well I think that there are some that would confuse the issue between 1st Amendment free speech and the issues surrounding fraud. Especially those in government who write the laws that regulate commercial speech.
The mistake has been to extend "fraud" laws to non-contract situations, e.g., ordinary speech (as distinguished from contracts).
This is very true. We now live in a society that expects to be 'protected' from everything, including their own ignorance, by Big Brother. Free Speech is just that -- free -- and should be accepted as such. We have various private organizations that have made it their business to oversee the truthfulness of product advertising and quality and this is how it should be. I believe that we have actually given up some of our free speech rights in order to be protected against the 'big bad companies looking to rip you off'. This has resulted in the government making a grab for more and more of our rights, the building of a buearucratic infrastructure to support this grab, and a seperate society back there in Wasington DC. Brian -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 5.0 beta Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBM5wRWKQxGtxXsXypAQG9DAP/dKydBwBI9JZ40nuJv0hDsWlytQRwSUPq 9tgxjTr7QC+qRJ4mYzikIvcdWKISk203sD4BsXbC83fW9p8zQuaN9RagMTUBKfOw yM0Pc6lyfv/G6IYqxt71vWnzHBHCrcGamFQQXASd1QzKSvUUHH/ealuBCuPVZYm3 GWH1YrtzMiI= =Ht6r -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian C. Lane http://www.eskimo.com/~nexus KC7TYU ------------------ 96B9 C123 5C90 BECC 6A1F 7DC6 4F2B A26E --------------------