Beef: It's what's [censored]

I almost let this one slip past:

In a decision that seemed to twist logic unmercifully to arrive at a prescribed conclusion, the U.S. Supreme Court Monday declared that those ads promoting "Beef: It's what's for dinner" are not the work of an industry council promoting their product, but are in fact "government speech." Therefore it's acceptable to use the coercive power of government to force beef producers who don't agree with or like the ad campaign to pay for it.

Most Americans who see those agricultural industry promotion ads -- think also "Got Milk?" or "the other white meat" -- probably believe they're supported by dues or voluntary assessments on members of industry associations. In fact, almost all those campaigns are backed up by the federal government, which makes it illegal for beef producers (to take the current example) not to pay $1 per head of cattle raised each year to support the campaigns.

A sensible Supreme Court would wonder what clause in the Constitution gives the government power to promote a special interest through taxation and would conclude that the government had no constitutional authority to do such a thing.

This is something tax-chawing Red Staters and college town vegans should be able to agree upon. If it's in the people's interest, the government should use tax revenue from food producers and consumers to promote healthy diet (see my post from earlier).

But the problem here is that government has pinched the pockets of food producers to make them pay to promote their product. Which would be fine if the product in question actually helped people. Then all of America would be healthy and our society would live longer and better lives, and I could write posts about the wonderful things our government is doing. Instead, I've got to ask: Is beef (or oranges, or chicory, or any number of products) especially good? Should the government be in the business of mandating beef producers to submit to a private organization's marketing schemes? No. It's bogus. It's anti-American.

Souter, in his dissent (with Stevens and Kennedy):

I take the view that if government relies on the government-speech doctrine to compel specific groups to fund speech with targeted taxes, it must make itself politically accountable by indicating that the content actually is a government message, not just the statement of one self-interested group the government is currently willing to invest with power.

In other words, the government has to be accountable in any speech it sponsors, and not just create of a private group that can't be touched by voters.

Posted by harry at May 27, 2005 05:17 PM | TrackBack