Tue, 24 May 2005

Court upholds 'Beef: It's What's for Dinner'

A tax by any other name ... and worse, one laid upon a specific group, supporting speech that many in the group find extremely distasteful. I am very disappointed with the Court on this - I wonder if they'd uphold a law forcing software developers to pay $1 from each retail sale to support an ad campaign along the lines of "Software - It's What Computers Eat for Dinner"?

If you happen to be one of the lucky few who's bought a quarter of one of my Highlands for your freezer, you paid approximately an extra $0.025 per pound to support this ad campaign - it ain't much, but you can bet that ultimately this cost is passed on to the consumer. They always are.

The justices rule that First Amendment protections don't apply to the beef campaign, alienating some ranchers.

(link) [Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories]

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