Thursday, September 17, 2009

Big Tobacco goes court shopping

Populist luminary Jim Hightower reports that Big Tobacco is coughing and hacking its way through our courts in an effort to gut a new law regarding cigarette advertising.

The lawsuit led by R.J. Reynolds and Lorillard Tobacco complains that the new law violates tobacco companies' True Corporate Free Speach Now (tm).

And they've filed their case in Kentucky - under the assumption that a tobacco-growing state will listen to their cries.

But why should it? This is the state where I was arrested for "trespassing" for exercising my free speech. So why would a corporation's advertising of harmful products get more First Amendment protections than an individual's political speech on a public university campus?

Political speech has traditionally been accorded broader protections than commercial speech. If my political thoughts were so restricted, why does Big Tobacco expect its ads to be less restricted?

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