Article:
Leo Bogart, Freedom to Know or Freedom to Say?, 71 TEXAS L. REV. 815 (1993).
 

Abstract:
Professor Bogart defends First Amendment protection of commercial speech by pointing out that its abrogation would be practically difficult and philosophically problematic. While the article concedes that commercial speech encompasses the absurd, the fantastic, the irrational, and sometimes the untrue, it criticizes the notion that a method exists to differentiate such speech’s useful and informative incarnations from its harmful, preposterous ones. As Bogart points out, while one person may find price in an advertisement useful and tangential brand puffing offensive, another may be unconcerned with price and entirely set on the mood or vision that a brand is meant to inspire; sorting which advertisements should be protected requires developing a hierarchy of views based on substantive judgments. It is precisely to avoid this kind of outcome that the First Amendment is interpreted so broadly, avoiding value judgments about speech in order to protect the right to deliver it, regardless of content. Commercial speech must fall within the perimeter of the Constitution’s protection.