All in the family was a staple in my house for many years when I was a kid. This week an episode called “The commercial” came to mind.
Edith is ambushed at the launderette by a man who tears Archie’s favorite shirt in half. It turns out he is from a detergent company filming with a hidden camera and they are shooting a commercial. They hire Edith to film the commercial but when the time comes to pick which half is brighter and cleaner she keeps picking the half washed in her brand. When told to pick “New Improved Sudi sudds” she just can’t bring herself to lie.
Archie, desperate to salvage payday and the residuals from the commercial tries to explain why she has to lie:
“They gotta give the lie, equal time with the truth.”
Apparently Archie was ahead of his time. Not only did he predict Reagan’s win in 1980 but he apparently saw this ruling coming down the pike from the 9th circuit:
A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with him in a 2-1 decision Tuesday, agreeing that the law was a violation of his free-speech rights. The majority said there’s no evidence that such lies harm anybody, and there’s no compelling reason for the government to ban such lies.
The dissenting justice insisted that the majority refused to follow clear Supreme Court precedent that false statements of fact are not entitled to First Amendment protection.
The act revised and toughened a law that forbids anyone to wear a military medal that wasn’t earned. The measure sailed through Congress in late 2006, receiving unanimous approval in the Senate.
What a boon for the cheating husband, he doesn’t have to rely on the “Oral Sex isn’t sex” defense he can BS his wife on first amendment grounds.
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