On Apr 11, 2011, at 2:34 PM, turquoiseb wrote:

>> If people asked him, he wasn't breaking any laws in 
>> stating his opinion.  Do you need a license now to
>> have opinions?
> 
> There may, in fact, be a place in future law for
> the "potential societal impact" of things expressed 
> as opinion. For example, if you or I or pretty much
> anyone on this forum (which, as I suggested, prob-
> ably reaches a total of 20 people weekly) said,
> "Smoke cigarettes all you want, because they don't
> cause cancer," there is pretty much no harm, no foul.
> Nobody cares what we say, or the fact that we said it.
> 
> But what if Oprah said it? 

What if she did?  I've never watched her show,
but I gather she gives her opinion every day on
a variety of topics.  Has there ever been a 
lawsuit against her?  Successful?  There was
that brouhaha with the beef industry after 
she said she wouldn't eat hamburgers anymore,
but as far as I can remember it went nowhere.
Nor did people stop eating hamburgers.

> What if a person whose words thousands (and in MMY's 
> case tens of thousands) of people considered synonymous 
> with the "word of God" said it?

Oprah, like MMY, is a private individual not licensed
to give professional advice in any field, right?  If
someone wants to give her, his or anyone else's
words magic powers, that's their decision. 

> When *he* says, "Don't 
> have anything to do with Western medecine," (which he 
> did, in public and on tape, numerous times), it has 
> more of a potential societal impact than if we nobodys 
> said it. Just sayin'.

If you say so, Barry.  But I don't see it.

Sal

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