Must the Government Decide if KFC is Good for You?
Free speech is perhaps the single greatest threat to central governments, because speech is the ultimate form of decentralized social cooperation. Why does the US government treat so-called "commercial" speech differently? There is no First Amendment exception for commercial speech or for speech deemed "misleading" by government regulators or individuals with scores to settle. Constitutionalism aside, the commercial speech doctrine undercuts a pillar of the free market — the decentralized interactions of buyers and sellers. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (18)
As an ancap, I really could care less about opinions rendered by bozos in black garments in regards to a 200+ year old piece of paper that presumingly rules over me and mine.
I used to care about legal constitutionality, but now I realize that it's even dumber than arguing over sports rules.
So FWIW, the first amendment's protection of free speech is a law that says the federal government can't impose limitations on your right to free speech.
However, it does not say:
a) What regulations a state government can or can't pass in regards to speech (yeah, I'm aware of the 14th Amendment).
b) It does not confer a specific right of free speech to the individual, rather it says that the right of free speech may not be imposed upon.
c) That free speech is a component of property rights; that you can say what you want on your property, but you have no "freedom" to use other peoples property for your speech
So in the case of "public" property, we Misesians/Rothbardians/Hoppeans/Blockians are left in a dilemma or how to respect property rights.
I suspect that Hoppeans/Kinsellaians would support legistlative measures that limit access of the usage of public property, while Blockians would support the right of the library bum to homestead the public property in question.
Published: July 6, 2006 9:08 AM
Those are good points about the first ammendment, iceberg. The constitution controls what the federal government can do, but the wonderful but largely gutted intention was to allow the states lattitude in self-government. In theory, the Founding Fathers created a collection of states competing in a free market for citizens. States with favorable environments would attract citizens and prosper. States with repressive or dysfunctional environments would lose citizens and decline.
When the federal government imposes one-size-fits-all regulations on the whole nation, it destroys the free market for citizenship. Everyone suffers equally and there is nowhere to escape. It also ruins the experimental progress that can be accomplished by changing society at the state level.
Nevertheless, over the past few decades we have observed large shifts in population and commerce from less favorable states to more favorable states. Some people would say it is merely that people are moving from cold weather states to warm weather states, but I think it is moving away from regulation and oppression to freedom and opportunity. Despite all attempts to tyranize, er, regularize the nation, there is still enough opportunity for states to differentiate themselves to the benefit of the citizenry.
I apologize for getting so far off-topic, but iceberg inspired me. Clarence Thomas is right--there is no difference between commercial speech and any other kind of speech, and the federal government should recognize this. In other words, there is no difference between lying for fun or for profit, and let the hearer and buyer beware.
When we speak, we intend to persuade people to change their minds of their own free will. When government officials seek to censor, they seek to control our minds against our will. I would much rather take my chances with the persuaders than the controllers.
Published: July 6, 2006 10:20 AM
What do you expect the court to do as it aids in the centralization of state power over the individual. Without the ability to communicate, buyers and sellers have less information upon which to make judgements and are therefore easily defrauded. Of course our protector against fraud, the state, is more than happy to devote more and more resources for OUR protection.
I hate to believe in slippery slopes but speech regulation has gone beyond "comercial" speech into other "Protected" forms of speech. Campaign finance "reform" is an example.
So when you say something is bad, it is normally worse.
Published: July 6, 2006 10:42 AM
Bill,
Forget not our beloved "Free Speech Zones"-- bringing Liberty to back alleys and places off the beaten path(or else, be beaten) since the Clinton administration.
Published: July 6, 2006 11:08 AM
Interestingly enough, I ate at KFC last night. The food was absolutely dreadful, slimy and undercooked. Outside of me, my stepfather, and a friend of his, everyone in the place was fat. A fat woman came in with three morbidly obese children, and my heart broke.
I won't eat that shit again.
- Josh
Published: July 6, 2006 1:19 PM
Josh,
You must have gotten a really crappy meal. I ate at a KFC a couple of nights ago and it was great; not good for you to eat every day, but very tasty.
Published: July 6, 2006 1:41 PM
I agree with the government in this specific case. Think about when you go to a store and buy a product that comes in a box. Let's say, a computer. THe box clearly states that it contains a computer. You get home and you find rocks and a piece of paper saying "hahahahah!".
In this case, there is an implicit contract between you and the manufacturer of this product. It claims that the computer has features A,B and C, and you're basing your purchase decision on such characteristics. If the box doesn't contain a computer, or the box doesn't contain a computer with features A,B and C, the manufacturer would be breaking this implicit agreement. Without such protection from the law, buying things by email wouldn't be feasible. Even though such practices would be short lived because other people would hear about it, we must protect the contract of every single transaction.
About KFC, if the company states X, Y or Z and their products don't meet the specifications they are advertising, I'd consider this a violation of contract. I go to KFC to buy the product whose characteristics are exposed by the advertisement, so the product must comply with the description.
Published: July 6, 2006 2:40 PM
Daniel,
The only way to believe in the state "in this case" is to be a believer in the God of The State. You'd consider this a "violation of contract"? WHAT CONTRACT?!
Published: July 6, 2006 3:02 PM
Well, I believe a minimal state should be able to enforce private contracts between 2 parties. Not focusing on that, specifically, I think there is an implied contract when you buy a product. You exchanging goods. You exchange your good for something else, and if I send my good and don't receive the other that I was promised, well, something is strange here.
Escrow companies exist for this purpose. And private companies like ebay also guarantee transactions through private means. But well, if you go to a restaurant to eat X and you receive Y instead, I believe that the other company broke the promise to deliver the product.
Published: July 6, 2006 3:27 PM
"Well, I believe a minimal state should be able to enforce private contracts between 2 parties. "
Why do you need a state for that?
You've already violated the aggression principle, that is to say that the state must violate it's own 'voluntary' contract to dispense justice.
"You exchanging goods. You exchange your good for something else, and if I send my good and don't receive the other that I was promised, well, something is strange here."
Yes, it's called fraud, and it is a crime by libertarian legal standards. Note the article explicitly mentions that fraud was not the case here.
"But well, if you go to a restaurant to eat X and you receive Y instead, I believe that the other company broke the promise to deliver the product."
In most restaurants you have the advantage of just walking out without paying. In this case you eat first, pay later. In other restaurants, they even guarantee satisfaction. I have gotten my food remade at Taco Bell twice in the last 13 years, because they gave me poorly cooked food.
Published: July 6, 2006 5:44 PM
If the patrons of of KFC, Wendy's etc., would sign a waiver forfitting the right to public assitance for health care when they submit their degenerate 300 pound carcasses to the trough of public aid, then I can see ignoring the lies and mistatements of the producers/marketers go unremarked. Otherwise, true cost analysis should be applied and a Whopper should cost $50...$5 to the seller and the balance to Medicare.
The Nike case is spurious.
Published: July 6, 2006 7:17 PM
Speedo
Those fat Americans you refer to do not have a right to free healthcare at the expense of ANY other person. Actually they do not have a right to healthcare at all; only that which they can either purchase for themselves or directly provide for themselves.
If these slobs can't even provide healthcare for their own bodies (by staying fit, by eating properly, by caring about how they appear and feel, caring for their own health etc.) then why should anyone else? No-one should be coercively forced to provide wealth for the healthcare of such fools. No one should force me to. No-one should force you to either.
As an aside. The Matai once likened fat people to savings accounts. He explained that if one one were to put a little more in the "tin" each day than one withdrew from the "tin" each day, then an accumulation would be the outcome. In the case of a savings scheme this is a desired result. And the miracle of interest would magnify the result over the years.
In the case of the fat, the introduction of extra food over energy expended eventually leads to a different form of savings- obesity. A fat gut. And instead of interest there are major health issues that accumulate over the years.
Now here is the interesting part. What sort of savings do you, as an individual, want? The Matai asked us all this very question. Then he went on to explain that as food costs money, an individual could either invest money in extra food to build a truely impressive girth or could spend less (a lot less) on food and put extra money in the savings account.
It is up to you how you direct your wealth. The results you will own, one way or another. In conclusion, just as you should get to keep the contents of your savings account, so the fat should get to keep that which they have so successfully invested in, health issues and all.
Regards
Sione
PS May the demise of the fat slobs be as painful and undignified as they have invested and as they rightfully deserve.
Published: July 6, 2006 9:57 PM
Daniel
Are you saying those paragons of honesty, politicians and state bureaucrats, should be empowered to judge & determine the honesty of others? And are you suggesting they should have coercive powers that they be allowed to apply? Surely the record of the last century provides an appropriate rebuttal to that notion.
Talofa!
Sione
Published: July 6, 2006 10:04 PM
The demise of the unhealthy will be painful and sorrowful, it will be and is ugly. It will also occur for the vast majority, at a publicly supported facility (one must include the cost that the average consumer bears for health cost, based on actuarial tables of the health insurance carriers, it doesn't matter if you eat nuts and berries, you will pay for all the philly cheese steaks the fatsos eat in Pittsburgh or super burritos in LA, this is a public cost) regardless of rights of anyone. We shall all share the cost; whether it is because the companies that promised pensions failed and passed off the responsibilty to the common weal, or the public sector is serving itself or because the population as a whole, in its wisdom has been unable to recognize what equilibrium means in terms of sustainability. Passing through any city in the US, it is hard to agrue that we haven't passed the tipping point in the supply of the human organism. I can't say that I would be happy with a governmental agency allocating tax proceeds to cover the expense of dealing with the above mentioned. No church or religious body has ever dealt sucessfully with the issue nor have private foundations or individuals. I would surmise that end result will be that the politicians will grant tax breaks to the fast food industry to provide "healthy alternatives" to the product they now sell and that "faith based" charities will be funded and enfranchised to "support the choice impaired" among us at the expense of the general population
Published: July 6, 2006 10:41 PM
Even though such practices would be short lived because other people would hear about it, we must protect the contract of every single transaction.
So when I see an advertisment for deodorant where the geeky guy puts on the deodorant and is immediately mobbed by a pack of drop dead gorgeous women, the government has to step in to make sure that happens for me too? Yeah, I suppose I could get behind that :)
Published: July 7, 2006 12:33 AM
Skip Oliva's piece was the best one I've read here in months. He used the KFC situation (and great Colonel graphic, BTW) to the illustrate the first freedom of economic freedom. And the individual consumer is the best one to separate the hype from the truth.
Tangentially, the food debate in America is fascinating, with many otherwise intelligent people apparently believing obesity is big business' fault and the govt must pay to make healthier food tastier and more affordable. There was a funny March '06 piece in (the otherwise tedious) Slate on the marketing mischief of Whole Foods. "Every media profile of the company invariably contains a paragraph of fawning produce porn, near-sonnets about 'gleaming melons' and 'glistening kumquats' ...If Whole Foods marketing didn't revolve so much around explicit (as well as subtly suggestive) appeals to food ethics, it'd be easier to forgive some exaggerations and distortions." Maybe the FTC should launch an investigation after they're done lunching at KFC. Mr. Oliva, we'll meet you at the olive bar at the Whole Foods in Tysons.
Published: July 7, 2006 8:09 AM
What Josh says may be true (in that the food may taste nasty and be bad for ones health), but this is simply not relevant.
If the K.F.C. people want to say their product tastes wonderful they should have as much right to say so as Josh has to say it tastes vile (different people have different tastes anyway).
Radio and television are as much private property as a house and T.V. and radio companies should be able to have whatever adverts they like. If people do not like the adverts then tune in to another station - or just turn the set off (go out walking, that will help people lose weight and please Josh).
Of course there should be no such thing as the F.T.C. (of the F.C.C. or all the rest of the agencies).
Back in 1935 the Supreme Court ruled (all nine Justices I believe - whether "liberals" or "conservatives") that the Constitution of the United States did not give exectutive agencies (in the specific case the National Recovery Agency set up under the National Industrial Recovery Act) the power to issue lots of regulations with the force of law.
Congress (where it did have the power to do this - which in cases of free speech it does not) must pass laws itself - not pass vague "Enabling Acts" to give executive agencies the power to act as if they were the legislature.
However, there was an election seventy years ago and the American people decided (by 60% to 40%) that they wanted a large interventionist government.
Most people by November 1936 understood what President Roosevelt stood for and they voted for him. And (as far as I know) there is no evidence that most Americans want to return to the principle of strictly limited government today.
This is the real problem - not that Supreme Court does not tend to enforce the Constitution (although it is quite true that it does not tend to enforce it), but that most people (whether Americans or in other countries - I am writing this from Britian) no longer believe in strictly limited government.
What is the Supreme Court supposed to do - uphold princples that most people do not believe in?
In 1936 only 40% of the voters voted for strictly limited government, it was the same in 1964.
When Conservatives do win elections they win the way Ronald Reagan did - by talking vaguely about cutting "waste". Thus of course they do not repeal big government programs - they have no mandate to do so (and would not have got elected if they had tried to get a mandate to do so).
If Ronald Reagan had done what libertarians like us would have liked him to do (namely campaign against Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and so on) I doubt he would have even got 40% of the vote.
Of course the present system is not sustainable, and yes, of course, the programs could be gradually reformed out of existance (i.e. collapse is not technically inevitable), but the great majority of people believe in big government (so, in practice, the system is not reformable).
The situation will have to get a lot worse before it gets better (in the sense that there will have to be great economic difficulty before most people are open to arguments against big government) and it may still not get better - people may simply react to economic decline by demanding yet bigger government ("we must all pull together in these dark times, just like in the Depression or during World War Two"), if that is the reaction of most people civilization is in for a hard time.
Published: July 11, 2006 10:52 AM
To me, this whole KFC is just like any other tobacco or fastfood chain class action law suit. People are looking at how much money they can get out of a global chain. the lead claimant was a physician from Maryland who said he wouldn't have eaten KFC if he had known it was so life-threatening.
Here are a few articles on this debate:
Business Week’s How KFC Went Trans-Fat Free
A class action information directory that has good links on the KFC suit
Fox News article Trans Fat Lawsuit Against KFC Based on Thin Science
Published: March 20, 2007 1:36 AM