From: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@amaranth.com>
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 1997 23:54:11 +0800
To: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
Subject: Re: Responses to "Spam costs and questions" (long)
In-Reply-To: <19970608071045.57576@bywater.songbird.com>
Message-ID: <199706081538.KAA04719@mailhub.amaranth.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



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In <19970608071045.57576@bywater.songbird.com>, on 06/08/97 
   at 07:10 AM, Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com> said:

>On Sun, Jun 08, 1997 at 08:42:49AM -0500, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: >
>"William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@amaranth.com> writes:
>> 
>> > In <199706071754.MAA01524@manifold.algebra.com>, on 06/07/97
>> >    at 12:54 PM, ichudov@Algebra.COM (Igor Chudov @ home) said:
>> >
>> > >There is a lot of commercial compelled speech. For example,
>> > >mutual funds must say that past performance is not a guarantee of future
>> > >results.
>> >
>> > >Do you find this kind of compelled speech unconstitutional?
>> >
>> > Well I don't know how Duncan feels about it but I think it's highly
>> > unconstutional.
>> 
>> I can still publish a book and claim that borshch (Russian beet soup)
>> cures cancer.  However if I also offer to sell beets my mail order,
>> the FDA can bite me. It's "constitutional" because it protects the
>> olygopoly of the large drug companies with political connections.

>Drug regulation muddies the waters quite a bit -- the issue is commercial
>speech in general.  And that issue is a more basic one --
>some entity (the government, in this case) is designated as the "enforcer
>of contracts".  Contracts are special documents that by their very nature
>involve "enforcement".  What you say in a contract binds you.  What you
>say outside of a contract does not.  What you say in a contract is,
>therefore, and by definition, not "free". 

<sigh> Ofcource what I say in a contract is "free". I can say anything I
want in a contract solong as the parties involved agree.

What is controled is my actions not my speech. If I enter into a
"contract" to provide borshch on the promise that it will cure your cancer
*knowing* that it will not then I am guilty of fraud. This fraud is caused
by my not honoring the contract. The government does not have a right to
restrict my speech in a contract only as an arbitrator of contracts do
they have a right to restrict my actions (ie: that I live up to the
conditions of the contract).

- -- 
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William H. Geiger III  http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

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