Commercial speech has been uniquely categorized in American law. In fact, this process of splitting speech into various categories has been a hallmark of American Constitutional jurisprudence. Pulling from both British common law and more modern doctrines, the Supreme Court has established a rather complex hierarchy of under-protected categories of speech. As a result, commercial speech has been subject to a much greater amount of regulation than its more-protected forms. This essay examines the doctrine’s foundation and also its future in light of more recent cases.
Our first inquiry is what is meant by the term “Commercial Speech”? The doctrine, as we are familiar with today, originated with Central Hudson v. Public service Commission of New York. The issue in this case was whether the state could constitutionally prohibit Central Hudson (an electric-company) from advertising the use of electricity in an attempt to curb energy usage. Much of the debate in revolved around the economic interests of the state of New York in maintaining the supply of electricity for its citizens. In order to protect supply (and by extension, the interests of the public at large), the city had created a restriction on Hudson’s ability to advertise energy use. The state’s economic interests were considered substantial enough to warrant the suppression of Central Hudson’s First Amendment protections.
This may be the most unique, thuroughly modern approach to the book of JOB (old testament) I have ever come across (it is the only ‘blogged’ version of any piece of scripture I have come across for that matter). I think this is great… feel free to read a bit. I don’t even think this guy believes the Bible, he is simply tackling it from a literary standpoint. It is quite insightful and funny at the same time.
God doesn’t merely humble Job. He savors the humiliation, demolishing poor Job with sarcastic jabs. Listen to this incredible dis: “Where is the place of darkness, that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home? Surely you know.” That “surely you know” is so mean, so petty. God takes too much pleasure in making Job feel like a tiny, ignorant speck.
Vicious, petty, cruel?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùdefinitely. But incredibly beautiful, too! God’s self-congratulatory speech is one of the most spectacular passages in the Bible, a masterpiece of imagery and forceful language, one killer phrase after another. Indulge me as I quote a favorite bit about the making of the ocean:
Who shut the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb??¢‚Ǩ‚Äù When I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band,And prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors,And said, “Thus far shall you come, and no farther, And here shall your proud waves be stopped?”
Chapter 42
But wait, even God apparently recognizes that He’s in the wrong! In the final chapter, God rebukes the three friends and acknowledges that Job is “right.” All the bragging of Chapters 38 through 41 was just posturing, God flexing His big muscles before quietly admitting He’s wrong. God restores Job’s fortunes. Job gets twice as many sheep and camels as before, and 10 new children?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùseven sons, and three daughters, who are the most beautiful girls in Uz. This is the rare, perhaps the only, time in the Bible where the book tells us the names of daughters but not sons. The three hot daughters are Keziah, Keren-happuch, and Jemimah (yup?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùthat’s where Jemima comes from), but the sons are anonymous. Job lives to the ripe old age of 140.
Christopher Hitchens may be my favorite writer. His latest piece is no exception. He points out something that I should have found apparent years ago… but that I have for some reason or other… overlooked. It becomes immediately clear that the pronoun “YOU” has become the defining concept of this decade… “we report, you decide”…. “call YOUR doctor and ask about some drug” … …”youtube”… ” I hope you are getting the basic idea.
A room-service menu, for example, now almost always offers “your choice” of oatmeal versus cornflakes or fruit juice as opposed to vegetable juice. Well, who else’s choice could it be? Except perhaps that of the people who decide that this is the range of what the menu will feature. Fox TV famously and fatuously claims, “We report. You decide.” Decide on what? On what Fox reports? Online polls promise to register what “you” think about the pressing issues of the moment, whereas what’s being presented is an operation whereby someone says, “Let’s give them the idea that they are a part of the decision-making process.”
So, whatever happened to the Me Decade? The answer is that nothing happened to it. It mutated quite easily and smoothly into a decade centered on another narcissistic pronoun. Which pronoun is that? You be the judge.
kids are smart… they now know where all the (cough) action is.¬† If you think the application numbers are increasing for any other reason… then you’re on crack.
Am I missing something here. It really is starting to feel like I’m living in an alternate universe. Harry Reid, the mouthpiece for the “get out of Iraq now… let’s defund the war effort” cause has just lost (maybe for the 100th time… I can’t say really) all touch with reality:
Reid said Tuesday that Democrats will give troops “the resources they need and a strategy in Iraq worthy of their sacrifices. “If the president vetoes this bill he will have delayed funding for troops and kept in place his strategy for failure,” Reid said in a statement.
So basically, Democrats will give them the resources they need (to stay in harms way even longer than they should). And, if I understand him correctly, their sacrafice is worthy of support, but not worthy enough to let them come home victoriously… in other words, their sacrifice is worthy of a congressionally mandated failure.
Secondly, if I read Reid (grin) right, it seems that he believes that Bush ACTUALLY WANTS the troops to fail. Somehow giving them a chance to secure Baghdad is a strategy for failure but pulling the troops out without victory is somehow a success. Maybe you can start to understand my deja-vu.
While I’m on the point, I find it necessary to point out that terrorists blowing themselves up in public areas is still acts of terrorism by terrorists. Calling it a “civil war” doesn’t magically turn terrorist activity into something different. Therefore, Senator Reid is, in fact, causing our troops to loose the war on terrorism… not simply protecting them from an Iraqi civil war.
And yet the left takes these people seriously. Unreal.
This may be the most unique, thuroughly modern approach to the book of JOB (old testament) I have ever come across (it is the only ‘blogged’ version of any piece of scripture I have come across for that matter). I think this is great… feel free to read a bit. I don’t even think this guy believes the Bible, he is simply tackling it from a literary standpoint. It is quite insightful and funny at the same time.