Posts Tagged ‘wacky warnings’

November 12 roundup

“Any idea that’s 100 years old will probably offend someone or other”

I have a bit more to say about the “warning label on the U.S. Constitution” story in Diane Macedo’s FoxNews.com report today, which is getting a lot of readership. Original posts here and here (& welcome KTRH, Lars Larson listeners). Update: statement from Wilder Publications courtesy Distaff View of the World.

Speaking of warnings, Bob Dorigo Jones has picked the finalists for his 13th annual Wacky Warning Labels Contest (on a go-cart: “This product moves when used”) and I’ve got a post on that at Cato at Liberty.

Keep out of kids’ reach. It’s a founding document!

I blogged at Cato at Liberty yesterday about a copy of the U.S. Constitution sold with a parental advisory warning (hat tip: reader Clark S.). According to the warning, it might be a good idea not to let kids read the nation’s founding document until having a discussion with them about how views on race, sex, etc. have changed since it was written. It’s just boilerplate, of course, as found on other books from the same publisher. More: Eugene Volokh and Damon Root, Reason “Hit and Run”. And reader L.S. points out that in their prefatory matter the publishers also purport to prohibit readers from using or reproducing the text of the Constitution without permission.

P.S. First Things commenter Jared: “I presume, in the interests of not being chauvinistic about the present, that which they publish written today also carries a similar warning label: ‘This book is a product of the cultural mores and prejudices of the early twenty-first century…'”