Blog #8 Sneaky Cheaty Businesses and their Ads.

Advertsing for the likes of Ashley Madison. Should they be allowed to do it?

Ugh.  I guess.

Ashley Madison eh?  A company that is immoral, reckless, cold-hearted, cruel, deceitful, sneaky, I don't like it, and it's legal.

It's a legal business. It pays taxes. People subscribe and pay. 

Legal businesses have the right to advertise whether or not I personally agree with their mandate.  And here is why:

If people are inclined to cheat on their partners, they don't really need pushing over the edge. It will happen, because they want it to happen and no advertising telling them to do it, or telling them not to do it will change that.

Guilt doesn't work.  Reasoning doesn't work.  Encouraging doesn't work.  All Ashley Madison et al does is provide another venue for jerks to legally behave like jerks. People will do what they do, and what they've always done.  I don't have to like it, but I'm not the boss of everyone, am I? I also don't like sports, but I'm not trying to ban sports advertising, and I can justifiably say that sports makes people behave like jerks sometimes.  The point is valid. 

It's dangerous to tell businesses they can't advertise based on moral grounds.  Cheating doesn't directly link to heart disease, obesity, cancer.. (that I'm aware of?  Being hurt is difficult, it's hard to see your family hurting, but it's better to get these kinds of things over with in my experience).  It's just an icky thing to do and anyone who claims to have been swayed to hurt the ones they love by a billboard were going to do it anyway.  That doesn't mean the business can't advertise their services. 

If a business can legally operate, they should legally be allowed to advertise, lest these rules based on perceived morality spill over into other areas of scrutinized principals—  because what's good for the goose is good for the gander, so to speak.  

I like my freedom, and if that means there will have to be be jerks sprinkled around, I'll still take it.