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Compelling speech isn’t necessarily compelling speech
Law, National Politics Comments (0)
When was the last time you were at the grocery store and “Got Milk” convinced you that you just had to have another gallon of the white liquid so full of calcium?
Or when was the last time you put that chicken back because you remembered “Beef: It’s what’s for dinner”?
Yeah, me neither. So it causes me to wonder if such compelled speech is really compelling.
We may soon have an answer. The marketing campaign by the Beef Board is under scrutiny by the United States Supreme Court as being inpermissible compelled speech. Two cases, Veneman v. Livestock Marketing Association, No. 03-1164, and Nebraska Cattlemen Inc. v. Livestock Marketing Association, No. 03-1165, have been consolidated and arguments will be heard tomorrow.
The New York Times actually gets this right in today’s editorial on the subject. I know, I rarely agree with the Times’ editorial board. But, as my old German professor used to say “Even a blind chicken occasionally finds some corn.”
I do not understand why anyone should be told that their taxes are not enough and that they must provide a percentage of their sales so that a government panel can decide how to spend that money. One dollar per head of cattle isn’t much money, to be sure, but there is a principle involved here. I wonder how much milk producers, cheese makers, hog farmers, and avocado growers are forced to contribute?
The Times recognizes that getting rid of this program would result in a government that is every so slightly smaller: “Given that the Bush administration routinely claims that it wants smaller government, you would think the Agriculture Department would happily wash its hands of the whole checkoff program.” Why, yes. Yes, you would, wouldn’t you?
But then we get this gem (from the WaPo story):
The administration argues that the basic pro-beef message was determined by Congress and is therefore government speech, akin to Army recruitment ads. If the court lets the cattle producers say that paying taxes to support the ads violates their rights, then soon every pacifist will demand the right to withhold the percentage of his income taxes that funds “An Army of One,” the government argues.
As a conservative, I’m all about smaller government. I can understand (contrary to what the Bush administration suggests will happen) the need for the government to adverstise our armed forces using my tax dollars. They are charged with providing us with the “common defense” mandated by the Constitution and so I expect to see the government active in seeking people to provide us with that defense. I do not expect my government to take my taxes and then tack on yet more “for my own good.”
MickC @ December 7, 2004