sigh
OK.
How’s that for relevance?
My problem here is that you are asking such a simple, basic question that it boggles the mind to assume you genuinely want an answer. But you point to my lack of answer as though it proves some deep deficiency in the result here.
I’m tempted to simply let this go, because I can’t believe that any other reader is puzzled by it.
But what they hell. It’s not like I’m paying by the keystroke.
A warning about pregnancy is valid because it’s accurate for roughly 50% of the population and irrelevant to the other 50% of the population – but no individual is confused about its applicability to him or her. That is, it’s not the case that the warning is only 50% accurate, because a man reading the warning understands that it’s not applicable to him, and a woman reading it understands it may apply to her. You see, FinnAgain, for the vast majority of people outside your head, they are aware if they are of the biological gender that needs to concern itself with getting pregnant. If this still puzzles you, perhaps you should consider buying this book.
And if that puzzles you, maybe this one would be a better choice.
Your attempt to relate the medical condition of “getting a hole in the throat” which is highly speculative, and of far less than 50% likelihood in any event, to warnings about effects on pregnancy, which are relevant to 50% of the people reading the warning and who know who they are, is misplaced.
What claims, specifically?
And yet a warning about the necessity of trach tubes is 100% accurate for 100% of the populace, but you can’t seem to find any actual explicit policy why it’s not “factual”. Further, even low birth weight is not 100% guaranteed based on smoking, depending on the amount smoked and other factors. You have not given any actual threshold why one should be permitted but the other should not.
Snark and handwaving are not a cogent argument.
As for “what claims specifically”, your repeated arguments that the pictures aren’t factual.
But it’s not 100% likely as an outcome, is it?
True. But low birth weight is a much more likely outcome of smoking while pregant than a trach tube is for a smoker of either sex.
Are you looking for some bright line rule? Not necessary.
We see the same thing in the law all the time. A traffic stop’s detention time must be reasonably related to the time necessary to complete the stop. A stop that’s too long is unreasonable. The cops can’t keep you on the roadside for an hour waiting for the drug dog to get here, but if the dog gets there in the ten minutes it takes the officer to write your ticket, he’s entitled to a free sniff.
So where’s the line drawn? Nowhere. Courts look at the totality of the circumstances.
Same deal here. How factual the pictures might have to be before they passed muster is not defined, but these particular pictures, selected for their emotional appeal and subject to enhancement and manipulation, and using actors, are not on the right side of the line no matter what.
Some people are immune to certain poisons. Is putting a poison label on an item not factual because it’s only 99.9999999% accurate? Some people are carriers for HIV. Is the CDC lying when it says that HIV causes AIDS?
Yet again, what is the actual threshold that you’re staking your claims to, and what basis are you using to draw that line of ‘reasonableness’?
What medical professionals can you cite saying that the conditions enumerated in the photos are not reasonably plausible results of smoking?
There is no bright-line test.
That is another way of saying there is no defined, clear threshold with some number that represents a percentage of accuracy.
That is not the standard.
None. I agree that the conditions are all reasonably plausible results of smoking.
Now what legal authority can YOU cite for the proposition that the government can compel speech if the compelled speech represents a “reasonably plausible” outcome?
Let’s put this another way.
Would you, FinnAgain, or anyone else in the thread call these images purely factual and uncontroversial? Is that a fair description of them? Purely factual and uncontroversial?
So, to repeat: Can you clarify, explicitly and clearly, what is not factual and/or accurate about the photos which were to be included as warning labels? How do you determine that “smoking causes lung cancer” is okay but “here’s a picture of lung cancer” aint? Or do you admit that the photos are, in fact, factual and accurate?
As for government compelling speech, as we already discussed, there is a decades-long precedent whereby the government has compelled speech on cigarette packs as it is. And as you pointed out, everything from cancer warnings to poison warnings are not absolutely true for all viewers and only represent “reasonably plausible” outcomes.
Yes. One of them is a cartoon drawing.
One of them is a picture of a man on an autopsy table. Smoking causes death, but seldom autopsies, since the cause of death is usually evident.
Who cares? I guess the companies should have challenged those warnings too, but they didn’t. That doesn’t mean the warnings are automatically valid, merely because nobody challenged them, does it?
So are the warnings purely factual and uncontroversial?
Unless I miss my guess it’s not a cartoon, it’s rotoscoped. And autopsies can be carried out when someone dies, even when smoking is suspected as the reason. But okay, so if those two were taken out of the pack, you would agree that the rest are completely factual? Or do you have further objections?
I mention those two because they were the most egregious of the bunch, and I couldn’t believe even you could find them to be purely factual and uncontroversial.
I don’t see how a man wearing a T-shirt with “I QUIT” on it is anything other than advocacy. It’s clearly not a risk.
I have the least problem with the pair of diseased lungs next to a pair of healthy lungs, and a diseased mouth with cancerous lesions is also pretty defensible.
The “controversial” metric is absurd as anything can be disputed.
Now you say you have “the least” problem with the diseased lung picture. Do you contend that it is not factual, or do you agree that it is?
So the word “ccontroversial” has no meaning? Anything can be controversial?
It’s not purely factual, but I agree it’s fair to call it factual.
Controversial does not have “no meaning”, controversial is however useless as a metric because all it means is “enough idiots disagree”. So yes, anything at all can be controversial.
Took a while, and not quite there, but I’m not going to argue the difference between a “factual” photo and a “purely factual” photo. Let the record show that you agree to call at least one of the pictures “factual”.
Well, but the trial court’s derision of this particular picture was not that the hole in the throat is or isn’t a factual or accurate prediction of the results of smoking. Rather, the trial court concluded the message to be conveyed, the factual and accurate information to be conveyed to the consumer is smoking is addictive, and the hole in the smoker’s throat was alleged by the government to express the factual and accurate information of smoking is addictive.
The decision even concedes this picture is not being used to show a usual consequence of smoking but to convey information smoking is addictive.
“Similarly, the image of a man exhaling cigarette smoke through a tracheotomy hole in his throat is not being used to show a usual consequence of smoking. Instead, it is used to symbolize “the addictive nature of smoking”-a fact that is not accurately conveyed by the image.”
Now, I particularly do not like this picture because of the inherent “emotive” component associated with it. However, after considerable thought, the picture does convey the message smoking is addictive, in which we have a smoker continuing to smoke after having a tracheotomy. A picture showing someone persisting in their habit after a tracheotomy sends a very good message and certainly does propigate the notion in the mind of the viewer smoking is addictive.
So, what do you think?
I think that it assumes facts not in evidence. I’d agree that it’s quite likely that the smoker started smoking before his tracheotomy but it’s not a given.
How exactly is this relevant? Does this diminish the message conveyed of smoking is addictive? The fact the viewer has to assume some facts to reach this message is not harmful to the government’s argument. The view has to assume some facts regarding all of the warning labels on a cigarette package, including those which are factual and accurate.
I guess I wouldn’t get “smoking is addictive” message from seeing a picture of someone smoking through a trach tube. If I were a smoker (I’m not), I’d probably think “Cool. I can still smoke after they take out my trachea.”
You keep falling back on this part that I bolded, but for some reason have voiced no problem with written warnings that say “may cause”.
What, in your opinion, is the difference between something that may happen, and something that is “a possible outcome, but not a certain or even likely outcome”?