Posted on 06/23/2011 6:30:24 AM PDT by shortstop
On six packs of beer they will put pictures of gosh-awful ugly women who you will be tempted to sleep with if you drink the contents.
Ice cream containers and packages of steaks will have photographs of cottage-cheese thighs and clogged arteries.
Table saws will have pictures of severed fingers and New Year's champaigne will have images of crippled livers.
The possibilities are endless. The government has decided that it has the power to put images on the packaging of consumer products in order to protect the public health and the public good. So, it seems natural to speculate a bit on where this new-found power will take us.
Yes, cigarettes sicken and kill people. But, then, a great many things sicken and kill people.
Like alcohol. It has a far more damaging impact on American society than does tobacco. So does saturated fat. So do automobiles.
You wonder when the government will decide to warn us away from those products.
The background is that this week the federal government released various images it will require cigarette manufacturers to carry on their packaging. On both the front and back, at least half of the surface area must contain one of these government-mandated images. And they must be at the top of the product, for maximum visibility. This is done in the name of protecting the public from the wiles of the tobacco companies.
Never mind that government is the prime profiteer from cigarette sales -- in New York, for example, $4.35 of the $9 price of a pack of cigarettes is state tax. Never mind that there's not a person left on the planet who doesn't know that smoking is bad for you.
Just put the pictures on the packs, because we're the government and we said so.
That was announced this week, and there wasn't a whimper of protest or discomfort.
In spite of the fact that we have the government telling a private company what it must put on the packaging of the legal product it sells. Not just a warning, not some nutrition information, but what specific pictures how big and where.
Which just goes to prove the point: The government can't protect you without enslaving you.
And in the name of protecting you, the government would very gladly enslave you.
Don't get me wrong. I hate cigarettes. My mother and grandfather were killed by cigarettes. Emphysema is our family disease.
But I love freedom more than I hate cigarettes. And in a free society, the government doesn't design the packaging. In a free society, freedom of the press extends to the press that prints the package.
Oddly, we seem oblivious to those truths. In the name of being protected, we hand over liberty left and right.
I will gladly state the obvious: It is none of the government's business what is printed on a package of anything.
But now that this genie is out of the bottle, now that this battle of freedom has been lost, it might pay to look at the ridiculous ends to which this new power could just as easily be applied.
Any product that poses a health threat falls under government dictate as to packaging. In the future, as political correctness gets deeper into our diet, how long before the vegetarians require meat packaging to show pictures of human stomach cancers or suffering little calves? Would bags of candy carry close-up photographs of rotten teeth and Insulin needles? Should hot dog packages show choking children?
All of those possibilities are ridiculous.
Just as ridiculous as the warning pictures on cigarettes.
If cigarettes are a legal product -- and they are -- and if people can lawfully buy them -- and they can -- then it's none of the government's business what the labeling is. The pack belongs to the cigarette maker or the store until it is bought by the customer, then it belongs to the customer. Neither set of owners should be forced to decorate its property any other way than they way they choose. It is just not anywhere near being the government's business.
And it's a sad thing that nobody realizes that.
I anticipate a huge increase in the sale of cigarette cases.
“Be the first kid to collect ‘em all!”
Makes me wonder why they (the gov’t) won’t put graphic pictures of aborted fetuses on the outside of abortion clinics.
How in the world can the Democrats and liberals even feign that their point of view is NOT one of nanny-state extremism?!?
You cannot seriously have a debate with someone who does not have ANY semblance of reality! RIGHT?!?
Now, let’s mandate murals of aborted fetuses on the outside of abortion clinics.
“It doesn’t matter how big the warnings on the cigarettes are; you could have a black pack, with a skull and crossbones on the front, called TUMORS, and smokers would be around the block going, “I can’t wait to get my hands on these #$%^ing things! I bet ya get a tumor as soon as you light up!” - Denis Leary (1992)
Agreed. They can put pictures on my cigarettes right after they put pictures on the front door of abortion clinics!
Now THAT’S funny
Beat me to it!
Barney Frank should have to walk around with a picture of an emaciated AIDS patient pinned to the back of his jacket.
Nanny staters with OUR MONEY in action! Beats having to work for a living.
There should be a picture of a Zimbabwe trillion dollar note next to Obama’s name on the next ballot.
And make that pillow-biter put one on his a$$ . . . the rear one . . . and maybe on his front one . . . his mouth (like, what's the diff?)
I am not and have never been a smoker, but this deeply offends me. Time for Congress to put it’s foot down if they are ever going to be serious about reigning in the Fed bureaucracy.
So will these photos go on packaging of medical marijuana? What about second hand marijuana smoke?
Or specially made stickers to plaster over them
This will only cheapen and desensitize the effects.
If warnings about bad effects are to be placed on products, then the very graphic gruesome details of the genocide of the Unborn ought to be plastered all over PP.
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