The government in infringing upon citizens' rights
If you’re reading the print edition of CM Life, look toward the top of the page. What do you see?
Even if you’re not, don’t worry. You would see the text of the First Amendment — establishing that the government can not infringe upon free speech. This certainly was on the minds of our founding fathers, given that criticism of the king was not tolerated.
The last couple of months have shown that the federal government views itself as that king. And like some cheap pirate novel, it wants revenge.
Let’s look back to June. The initial version of the house bill designed to give the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco products contained a clause that would have made it illegal to mention on the packaging or through the media that the product was regulated by the FDA (http://tinyurl.com/yz4ljqv).
The version of the bill signed into law by President Barack Obama doesn’t contain that exact language anymore, but they still made it illegal to say anything that might even remotely make people think the product is safer (http://tinyurl.com/yfd6a65).
That blurb about misleading consumers is just as bad as the first version — it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that someone will think consumption of tobacco products is safer now that the FDA is involved.
Let’s look at things even more recent. Humana was punished for putting out truthful information, that ObamaCare would adversely impact enrollees in their Medicare Advantage program — by Medicare. The administration finally realized that the gag order it imposed was wrong, yet it apparently still requires “permission” for insurance companies to communicate with its client base (http://tinyurl.com/ygxs3w8).
Censorship, anyone?
What about you bloggers out there? Like a product and want to tell the world about it? Better make known any disclosures! The FTC is concerned that you might be improperly advertising (http://tinyurl.com/yhluz2v).
“But Jason, the corporations could hire and promote bloggers to make the products out to be something it’s not!” Assuming that argument would actually legitimize the infringement (it doesn’t), let’s look at a counterpoint.
On Sept. 20, George Stephanopoulos questioned Obama about the health care bill mandate for coverage being a tax on ABC’s “This Week”. Obama denied the claim on the fact that, well, he said it’s not a tax increase – even though the bill indicates a tax penalty for those who don’t have coverage (http://tinyurl.com/kj25wh).
Now wait a minute. The government is concerned about some shill blogger being able to push a product with false legitimacy or Humana truthfully informing their customers, all while letting Obama get away with what amounts to calling the sky green?
“This Week” had roughly 3.08 million viewers during that episode (http://tinyurl.com/yf25nqg) — far more than the 900,000 enrolees Humana informed. Nope, no double standard there. None at all.
Of course, there are many other examples of infringements — I only discussed large ones within the past year.
