1. PLATO'S APOLOGY OF SOCRATES 21 (Thomas G. West trans., 1979).

  2. FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL 93 (Walter Kaufmann trans., Random House 1966) (1886).

  3. CRAZY PEOPLE (Paramount Pictures 1990).

  4. Id.

  5. Id.

  6. Id.

  7. Id.

  8. Id.

  9. See Ronald K.L. Collins & David M. Skover, Commerce & Communication, 71 TEX. L. REV. 697, 738­39 (1993).

  10. Laura Landro, Film Satirizing Ad Industry Plays to a Touchy Audience, WALL ST. J., Apr. 3, 1990, at B1.

  11. Rodney A. Smolla, Information, Imagery, and the First Amendment: A Case for Expansive Protection of Commercial Speech, 71 TEX. L. REV. 777, 801 (1993).

  12. Id.

  13. Id. at 797.

  14. Alex Kozinski & Stuart Banner, The Anti­History and Pre­History of Commercial Speech, 71 TEX. L. REV. 747, 748 (1993).

  15. Id.

  16. Id. at 747.

  17. Id. at 751.

  18. Id. at 749 n.6.

  19. See NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, THE PRINCE 85 (Quentin Skinner & Russell Price eds., 1988).

  20. What follows is a bold and unqualified restatement of some of the key points in Commerce & Communication. For a similar series of declarations prompted by earlier commentaries on our First Amendment views, see Ronald K.L. Collins & David M. Skover, The First Amendment in Bold Relief: A Reply, 68 TEX. L. REV. 1185 (1990).

  21. Collins & Skover, supra note 7.

  22. Ronald K.L. Collins & David M. Skover, The First Amendment in an Age of Paratroopers, 68 TEX. L. REV. 1087 (1990).

  23. RONALD K.L. COLLINS & DAVID M. SKOVER, Discourse & Intercourse, in THE DEATH OF DISCOURSE (forthcoming).

  24. Smolla, supra note 11, at 786.

  25. Id. at 781 n.21.

  26. Id. at 791.

  27. Id. at 780 (emphasis omitted).

  28. Id. at 802.

  29. Id. at 784 n.31.

  30. Collins & Skover, supra note 9, at 741­44.

  31. Id. at 744.

  32. Id.

  33. Id. at 739.

  34. Id. at 743.

  35. Id. at 740.

  36. Id. at 727.

  37. See JOHN CIARDI, A BROWSER'S DICTIONARY AND NATIVE GUIDE TO THE UNKNOWN AMERICAN LANGUAGE 342 (1980).

  38. See generally Kozinski & Banner, supra note 14, at 753 (discussing the highbrowed preferences of those in the academy who "read more books than average").

  39. See Benjamin Barber, The Philosopher Despot: Allan Bloom's Elitist Agenda; H.D. Forbes, Opening the Open Mind, and Richard Rorty, Straussianism, Democracy, and Allan Bloom I: That Old Time Philosophy, in ESSAYS ON THE CLOSING OF THE AMERICAN MIND 79­124 (Robert L. Stone ed., 1989) (commenting on the question: "Bloom on Democracy: Is He an Elitist?").

  40. Smolla, supra note 11, at 784.

  41. Id. at 786.

  42. Collins & Skover, supra note 9, at 742.

  43. Collins & Skover, supra note 22, at 1118.

  44. Collins & Skover, supra note 9, at 743.

  45. Id. at 742.

  46. Smolla, supra note 11, at 777.

  47. Id. at 778.

  48. Id. at 796 (emphasis added).

  49. Id. at 797.

  50. Id.

  51. Id.

  52. Id.

  53. Id. at 802 n.95.

  54. Id. (emphasis added).

  55. Id. at 802 (discussing the advertising lines used "in commercials featuring the Chicago Bulls' basketball superstar, Michael Jordan").

  56. Id. at 803 (emphasis added).

  57. Collins & Skover, supra note 9, at 700­07.

  58. Alan Durning, ... And Too Many Shoppers: What Malls and Materialism Are Doing to the Planet, WASH. POST, Aug. 23, 1992, at C3.

  59. LEO BOGART, STRATEGY IN ADVERTISING 107 (2d ed. 1984), quoted in Collins & Skover, supra note 9, at 728 n.169.

  60. In his response, Leo Bogart both asserts this point and warns us not to "minimize its complexity." Leo Bogart, Freedom to Know or Freedom to Say?, 71 TEX. L. REV. 815, 816 (1993). This warning is well­taken. But how we are to investigate the ways in which various life "relationships influence our consumption habits, and ... consumption influences them in turn" is another question for another forum. Id. What is telling, however, is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate out these interactive forces. Clearly, commerce is in our veins, befriending red corpuscles and warring with the white ones.

  61. Sut Jhally, Commercial Culture, Collective Values, and the Future, 71 TEX. L. REV. 805, 808 (1993).

  62. Id. at 814.

  63. 316 U.S. 52 (1942).

  64. See Kozinski & Banner, supra note 12, at 754­74.

  65. Id. at 752. Later, they reiterate that we hold that commercial speech "isn't protected by the First Amendment." Id. at 753.

  66. Bogart, supra note 60, at 816.

  67. Kozinski & Banner, supra note 14, at 748 (emphasis in original).

  68. Id.

  69. Id.

  70. Id. at 749 (emphasis in original).

  71. Id.

  72. Id. at 750.

  73. Id.; see also infra note 76.

  74. See Letter from James Madison to Thomas Ritchie (Sept. 15, 1821), in 3 LETTERS AND OTHER WRITINGS OF JAMES MADISON 228 (William C. Rives & Phillip R. Fendall eds., R. Worthington 1884) ("As a guide in expounding and applying the provisions of the Constitution, the debates and incidental decisions of the Convention can have no authoritative character.").

  75. Kozinski & Banner, supra note 14, at 750.

  76. Ronald K.L. Collins & David M. Skover, Pissing in the Snow: A Cultural Approach to the First Amendment, 45 STAN. L. REV. 783 (1993). Apropos of their comment, Kozinski and Banner might be interested to know that this other essay reproduces the full text of the First Amendment, but we suspect that they will not appreciate our effort.

  77. See Kozinski & Banner, supra note 14, at 775.

  78. THE ESSENTIAL HOLMES: SELECTIONS FROM THE LETTERS, SPEECHES, JUDICIAL OPINIONS, AND OTHER WRITINGS OF OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. 184 (Richard A. Posner ed., 1992) [hereinafter THE ESSENTIAL HOLMES].

  79. O.W. Holmes, The Path of the Law, 10 HARV. L. REV. 457 (1897), reprinted in THE ESSENTIAL HOLMES, supra note 78, at 160­77.

  80. Id. at 474, reprinted in THE ESSENTIAL HOLMES, supra note 78, at 174.

  81. Id.

  82. Kozinski & Banner, supra note 14, at 749 n.6.

  83. Properly understood, we don't mind being labeled as curmudgeons. See THE PORTABLE CURMUDGEON 1­6 (Jon Winoker ed., 1987) ("A curmudgeon's reputation for malevolence is undeserved. They're neither warped nor evil at heart.... They hurl polemical thunderbolts at middle­class values and pop culture in order to preserve their sanity.").

  84. The American Dream, from MISS SAIGON (Original London Cast Recording, Geffen Co. 1990). See generally EDWARD BEHR & MARK STEYN, THE STORY OF MISS SAIGON 148­55 (1991) (describing the Vietnam of Miss Saigon as a dark mirror­ image of the American dream).

  85. See generally Collins & Skover, supra note 20, at 1186­87, 1189­92 (responding to criticisms of Martin H. Redish, Killing the First Amendment with Kindness: A Troubled Reaction to Collins and Skover, 68 TEX. L. REV. 1147 (1990) and Mark V. Tushnet, Decoding Television (and Law Reviews), 68 TEX. L. REV. 1179 (1990)).

  86. Frederick Schauer, The First Amendment as Ideology, 33 WM. & MARY L. REV. 853, 854 (1992).

  87. Id. at 856.

  88. THE PILL BOOK 240­43 (5th rev. ed., 1992) (an anti­anxiety drug of the Diazepam family).

  89. Id. at 35­38 (an anti­anxiety drug of the Alprazolam family). But cf. High Anxiety, CONSUMER REPORTS, Jan. 1993, at 19­24 (warning that Xanax is highly addictive and possibly ineffective in treating anxiety).

  90. See Collins & Skover, supra note 4, at 728­31.