>One of Sarah's points is factual and clear to any parent who loves and cares for their children's health and wellbeing: it is time again for further monitoring of the advertising industry.

That is not in issue. The question is who should do it: the parents or the state.

>Most adults are able to discipline themselves and tune out to advertising; children who frequently view television programs also view the advertising and many primary school aged children are brainwashed and/or influenced by advertising [a great deal of it negative]to children.

That is a reason for the parents to exercise their parental responsibility, not for the state to control what information everyone else, including adults, are permitted to see.

You have completely confused the parents with the state, and the interests of the parents with the conflicting interests of their sexually mature and consenting offspring. The result is that you are trying to treat yourself, via the state, as the parent, and everyone else as naughty children who are to do as they are told. But you are not the parent of everyone else, you do not have a surplus of goodness and wisdom, and you have not justified the coercion you defend other than by circular argument.

Peter Hume
You argument of state versus parent in this context, is at best, a doctrinally absolutist one, rather than one base in the real world.

I would suggest, it is rooted in your self possessed political myopia.
You ignore the purpose of society and the basis of democracy .

Your view, can be depicted as, I'm OK therefore, everyone else who isn't it's their fault/responsibility not mine or society's.

Such views either smacks social Darwinism in their lack of concern for others or over estimate any parent's ability to change their environment this side of societal disengagement i.e. isolationist.

Either way I find it unrealistic, philosophically and morally moribund.

Satisfied yourself with that spiteful ventilation of spleen have you?

The social Darwinist gibe is on the other foot: it is you who favour the stronger using force against the weaker to take and do whatever they want. The basis of democracy is not to threaten and bullyrag others into obeying your opinion for no other reason than that they are peaceably involved in doing something you don’t like. So much for your idea of the purpose of society. It is you who has the lack of concern for others: “just imprison anyone who makes a peep I disagree with”.

It’s you who has the doctrinally absolutist argument: the state is always right, force is always justified as the basis of social co-operation, and whatever the circumstances, the state has superior knowledge and morality, even where you can’t give a reason. You don’t like what you see on television, so instead of turning it off like a responsible human being, you cry like a child for the state to supply all your security and comfort – by imprisoning people who don’t conform with your religion of self-deification.

Honestly, it’s like talking to a pack of sniveling children.

The basic premise underlying Sarah’s article is that the decision whether a product is bought takes place in the mind of the producer, not the consumer. According to this view, no business would ever lose money.

The reality is that most businesses go broke every year. People’s incomes are limited, so they *must* choose among the various products that are for sale. (And if their incomes were not limited, Sarah, mikk, examinator and Rapscallion would say that’s bad for the environment. Thus the Marxists argue both that capitalism grinds the faces of the poor *and* that it makes the masses too rich.)

Sarah’s theory also involves the assumption that people make no autonomous purchasing decisions, but merely react to stimuli presented by the producers and their agents. But if that is so, then how do Sarah et al avoid the fate of the automatons that comprise the population? How do the producers, who are also consumers at the supermarket, avoid this Pavlovian manipulation? And how do the consumers, who are also producers in their day jobs, gain the ability to dictate consumption as concerns their own product, but lose it as concerns everyone else’s?

The basic idea is that “consumption” is somehow instrinscially bad. But without consumption how are we supposed to live? And how is Sarah, mikk, Rapscalion or examinator any different, or any better, on that score, than the people they presume to correct?

It might be said that a certain amount of consumption is okay, but our levels of consumption are excessive. But in that case, the argument is against consumption itself, not advertising. We should imprison people for consuming nappies, and quantities of dog food that they merely want, not need. The state should make all decisions on consumption

And *how* would we decide what is the appropriate – moral - level of consumption that is to be permitted? The Aborigines lived with a very simple list of tools and commodities, so strictly speaking we may *want*, but don’t *need* anything more than that. It’s just that one in five children died in their first year, and half didn’t reach age 15.

Mikk complains that capitalist production involves the “commodification” of human beings. But what human relation or interaction, in any place in any time, would that *not* describe, given that human beings associate because they materially benefit from living in society?

Examinator in another thread considers himself to be open-minded. But what truly open-minded people do, when meeting with an unrefutable disproof of their views, is to *re-think their claims*, not immediately descend into spiteful personal name-calling at the level of the schoolyard.

Peter Hume, addressing me (and the author of the article):
<<you *don’t agree* either
a) that the people are capable of deciding for themselves whether they should have a particular product or service, and
b) that they should be consuming goods or services if they would not have consumed them but for the advertising.>>

I speak only for myself here...
Absolute rubbish on both counts. You are so blinkered that almost the whole of your 'argument' is a straw man.
I even stated baldly in my contribution, 'I have succumbed utterly to it myself'. No doubt the word 'succumbed' will be seen as pejorative.

There are more straw men, pathologically divined, below...

Hume again:
<<Hypocritical, because you don’t practise what you preach. You criticize others for consuming goods and services to satisfy their wants, while yourself consuming goods and services to satisfy your wants

Violent, because you propose to use violence or threats of violence to force people acting peaceably against their will to obey you.

Nasty, because the fact you try to violently suppress other people’s communications because you think you are superior both to the sender (immorally motivated) and the receiver (too stupid to know what’s good for them), is offensive and objectionable.>>

There is nothing to say about this drivel but ... #$!cough... splutter!*#... choke$#&!...
There isn't one word in the above that isn't a complete fabrication. Fabulous and fantastical!

And...
<<the issue, which is, whether people should be imprisoned for making non-fraudulent, non-misleading, non-deceptive communications, for no other reason than that Rapscallion esquire doesn’t agree with them.>>

I can hardly breathe.
Imprisoned?
There is simply no way to debate, argue, converse or have any other kind of communicative intercourse with you Mr Hume. I challenge you to find *ONE* statement I have made which supports any of the accusations above.