Wiki truncates the info, but it gets the current info right.About half a century ago, it was originally:
“CAUTION: CIGARETTE SMOKING MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH.”
But four years later it changed to:
“WARNING: THE SURGEON GENERAL HAS DETERMINED THAT CIGARETTE SMOKING IS DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH.”
But that still seems to be a dodge. Smoking does cause cancer, even if it does not cause cancer in 100% of cases. It’s still a factually accurate statement. And a picture makes no difference.
“The men had sex in the public restroom.”
Perhaps a perfectly factual statement, but it does not have the same impact as the perfectly factual picture of the men having sex in the public restroom.
[nitpick]
Nor would it mean the same thing, since the statement is about what happened in the past, while the picture would only convey something happening with no referent to when.
[/nitpick]
Is it really the only difference that anyone can come up with is: “but it’s a picture”?
What if the label were to incorporate a thousand word description of what emphysema is and what it does to a person?
Snowboarder: Haven’t seen any argument that boils down to anything other than the fact that it’s a picture. And still no actual reasoning as to why a picture is bad but words saying the same thing are okay.
Your argument was not that a matter of impact. You have now shifted your the goalposts. Your argument was, and I quote, that they would be acceptable if they were “accurate and factual”.
Whether or not a statement has a greater or lesser impact is irrelevant to whether or not it is accurate or factual.
We’ve already dealt with your spurious objection that it’s not accurate because it’s conjecture. We already have a quarter century of warnings saying “smoking causes lung cancer, etc…” and yet, of course, some people smoke all their lives and never get sick. Does that mean warning labels also violate 1st Amendment protections? If so, can you post to any of your arguments, predating this discussion, where you argued that?
Do you now retract your claim that there is a potential First Amendment challenge to pictures because they are somehow less than “factual and accurate”? Or are you prepared to support it?
I disagree. The impact of a picture is part of the information it conveys.
Consider the recent Newsweek picture of Michelle Bachman. It’s factually a picture of Bachman. But it was chosen to highlight a deranged look on her face – the same kind of look can be achieved by snipping a still shot from video of almost any person. Contrast the picture here with this one.
Which one is factual and accurate? Both? Do they both convey the same information?
Uh… no, I don’t retract it. Obviously.
<bolding mine>
(Disclaimers: I’ve only skimmed the thread. And I have no opinion as to the constitutionality of the warning images. I am neither qualified nor interested enough to debate it, or else I would have read the whole thread. ;))
As to why the tobacco companies would accept the written warnings, I imagine that it was because they found it to be in their best interests. By including those unambiguous warnings/disclaimers, wouldn’t that make it easier for them to defend against consumer lawsuits from people claiming that they didn’t know the risks of smoking?
It seems to me that this could explain why tobacco companies didn’t oppose the original text warnings as violating the 1st Amendment - it was in their best interests. IOW, the original warnings were speech they wanted to make, so they agreed to it. These new warnings are speech they don’t want to make, so they are challenging it.
Too simplistic? I don’t know. But you wanted reasoning, and there it is.
Quite possibly accurate. But the question is not of the tobacco companies themselves, but the people here who are objecting to the pictures but have not gone on record objecting to the warnings, and in fact in some cases have said or implied that they have no objection to the written warnings. What is the material difference, in their eyes, besides the fact that one is a photo and one is not? Bricker has tried to claim that it is an issue of accuracy and factuality, but has not begun to show how a real picture of actual cancer caused by smoking is, in the least particular, inaccurate or non-factual.
You are shifting the goalposts and attempting to change the subject.
Do not change the subject to Michelle Backman, or photos of people having sex in men’s bathrooms, or anything else. We are talking about cigarettes. How are the words “smoking causes lung cancer” accurate and factual but a picture of lung cancer that was caused by smoking cigarettes not accurate and factual? No, do not try to change the subject to the “impact” either, or whether one contains more information than the other, unless you intend to argue that the additional information is either “inaccurate” or “counterfactual”. “This cigarette contains nicotine” is accurate and factual as is “this cigarette contains nicotine and tar” even though the second has more information. Neither the words “accurate” or “factual” have a connotation or denotation that has anything, at all, to do with the quantity of information they convey, only its veracity.
The claim that one has more “impact” is irrational in the context of discussing factual accuracy, and it is a non sequitor to boot. Things can be both accurate and factual and still have varying degrees of impact. Your original argument was not that something with more or less impact somehow violates 1st Amendment protections, but that something that was not factual and accurate violates 1st Amendment protections.
Uh… well, then you should please begin to attempt to support the argument that there is anything erroneous or inaccurate about the pictures instead of switching to a totally new claim that because one has a greater impact than the other, it’s out of bounds. But that was not the claim that you seem to have abandoned without retracting. That claim was that somehow words like “smoking causes lung cancer” are both factual and accurate, but a picture of lung cancer that was caused by smoking is not factual and accurate. It is a hard argument to make, as it’s a false claim, but if you’re not going to retract it you should at least give it a good devil’s advocate run instead of trying to change the discussion to one of the “impact” instead of your original claim that it was actually an issue that one was somehow less “factual” and/or “accurate.”
Please attempt to argue, let alone prove, how a word denoting cancer is accurate and factual, but a picture of the kind of cancer that the word is describing is no longer factual and accurate.
The material difference, in my eyes, is that warning labels are designed to be informative while the photos are designed to be vindictive against the tobacco companies. Maybe if we required similar photos for every other product it wouldn’t seem vindictive.
Thank you very much for providing an argument.
However, while that may be true (I’m not at all convinced that the motivation is vengeance against the tobacco companies instead of a desire to keep people from smoking), do you believe that means the warning labels do not violate the 1st Amendment protections while the photos do?
What if, instead, we hired a new person who wasn’t vindictive against tobacco companies and they came up with a similar set of pictures when asked to design pictures that show the negative effects of smoking? Would that, then, be acceptable?
Again I ask:
Or of lung cancer? Or what it can do to a fetus? Would that be okay?
I provided the same argument much earlier. But it’s easy for posts to get lost in the hustle and bustle.
I’m not a lawyer so I can’t really render a good opinion on whether it violates the 1st Amendment or not. As part of my thesis, on Prohibition, I have happened across some information about the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 (a lot of women were involved in campaigning for its passage). The act prevented patent medicines from being sold that contained secret ingredients or misleading information as to their contents. Consumers were finally able to make an informed decision about the medicine they purchased and sales of patent medicines with opiates dropped sharply. I don’t view a photo of a cancerous lung as being informative. Labels with ingredients or warnings provide consumers with the ability to make an informed decision regarding the purchase of tobacco. A photo of a cancerous lung does not do this. It’s designed to gross people out.
I don’t really know how to answer this. Unless it was someone in the FDA who proposed similar photos for alcohol, food and prescription drugs I couldn’t help but think the proposal was vindictive against tobacco companies.
A thousand word description seems rather impractical for a label, don’t you agree?
How evasive. It makes me think that your argument boils down to “but it’s a picture”.
I disagree. If anything, a picture provides added information as the word ‘cancer’ evokes the concept but a picture of cancer gives a concrete image to which the concept is tied.
My answer wasn’t evasive. In other news, I don’t really care what you think.
Fair enough, we’ll just agree to disagree then.
:rolleyes:
You didn’t answer the question at all, but sought to comment on the question. That’s evading.
Why won’t you answer the question?
It’s really very simple: would a thousand word description of one or more of the diseases caused by smoking be okay? It’s just a “yes” or “no” question.
No. Why? Because a 1,000 word label is impractical for any product. Though I suppose you could require them to include a printout like they do for prescription medicines you get at the pharmacy.
So then your answer is “yes, it would be okay”.
Which means that what you really find objectionable about the new labels is that it’s a picture.
I’m still waiting to hear a non-risible bit of reasoning for why a picture that represents something that really happens, and that is correctly described by the words that correspond to the picture, is somehow not accurate or factual. They’re fairly simple words with little to no wiggle room built in, so I’m quite curious to see how anybody can claim that a picture of a real thing somehow violates either the requirements that it be actual or factual.
I’m curious to see if any such support will ever be offered up.