On Mon, 05 May 2003 16:24:11 -0400, Copper Pin wrote:

> We'll just have to agree to disagree.  You can make a scene depicting
> anything you want, but that doesn't mean it's always right to do so. 

	You did not raise right or wrong. You raised illegal. The law has no
necessary connection to right and wrong and rarely has a connection. Once
you get passed murder and theft and such, the law is more or less on its own. 

> In some situations the artist should exercise some discretion. 

	It is often in the perview of art to shock sensibilities in order to
provoke thought. 

	If art were to be governed by prevailed law and majority enforced
morality it could achieve nothing beyond Nazi sponsored art. Or communist
sponsored or any government for that matter. 

> It's one
> thing if the artist wants to show this work on his own web gallery, but
> some good judgment should be taken into account before entering it into
> a public forum like the IRTC where it's presence could negatively impact
> others.

	Good judgement? Who is to decide what is good? Who is the arbiter?
Certainly not politicians and their laws passed to garner contributions
to their political campaigns and private fortunes.

> My last words on the subject are a) Morally, promoting tobacco products
> is wrong and b) Legally, it could cause trouble for the IRTC.

	In order of response

	a) is nonsense. There is no morality reltated to offering tobacco
products for sale, period. Offering for sale is not the same as promoting
consumption regardless of current nonsense feelings. Feelings are not
reason nor are feelings morality.

	The reasoning behind my opinion on a) is that promoting anything which
causes earlier than average death is in the same category as tobacco.
Merely advertising fattening foods is only stating their availability.
Promoting obesity via fattening foods is not criminal nor immoral. 

	If you say advertising equals promoting and that everything which causes
an earlier death is immoral then automobile advertising is immoral. So is
advertising the very existance of bathrooms as the greatest number of
household deaths and injuries are in the bathroom. 

	Even mentioning the existance of racing events of any type would be
immoral. Encouraging involvement is sports of any sort due to the deaths
and injuries would be immoral. 

	Tobacco is nothing special in the pantheon of things which cause early
death and not even in the running in most cases. 

	b) the IRTC is not advertising tobacco products but does sell works of
art regardless of the quality of those works.

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