Read this representative paragraph from an Elevate GF ad:
SPECIAL REPORT: How To Grow 3+ Inches Taller in Just a Matter of Weeks Using This 1 Simple Trick That Celebrities Use.
You may have heard of the enormously popular Elevate GF in the news. It’s a completely organic supplement that celebrities & body builders use around the world that they don’t want you knowing about. But today we are leaking the secret. Elevate GF offers many benefits primarily due to its high anti-oxidant content. It’a all natural HGH hormones make is a “Stud “Building” machine. If you’re skeptical, you’re not alone. When we first learned about this ‘grow taller’ miracle, our fad radar went off right away.
My Inner Editor is disturbed. All the typos — for instance “It’a” and “make is” and the extra quotes in “Stud Building” — are original. This guy is in such a hurry to screw money out of his victims he can’t be bothered to get somebody to proofread his ad copy.
My Inner Realist is even more annoyed, because the content of the thing is so phony and unbelievable. No, you’re not going to take this supplement and grow taller. Not. Even aside from the bit where you reach whatever full adult height you reach and then stop growing and don’t grow anymore, this advertisement is such a con that small items will probably vanish off your desk as you read it.
My Inner Short Guy (5’3″) is not even interested. Yes, when we were teens and preteens we short-ish people all wanted to be taller. For some of us, no doubt it lasts into our 20s. But most of us eventually understand that being a complete person is not something that comes with height … or whatever other physical/mental manifestation Life confronts you with.
Yes, there will be annoyances in every day of your life. I sometimes have to CLIMB to reach stuff at the grocery store. But Life blows crap like that at everybody. There are an infinite number of things worse than me having to monkey up a supermarket shelf. But that really doesn’t even matter; what matters is that you learn to soldier on, no matter what, and take what joys you can in your own personal experience of living.
Most offended, though, is my Inner Compassionate Person. Offended that you can get away with crap like this for even one day. That you can consciously, deliberately, blithely scheme to fuck over yet another victim group and not be immediately confronted by a angry mob and beaten within an inch of your life. (And yes, I do mean that.)
I’ve been having some … oh, call it “nuanced views” of our hallowed Freedom of Speech in the past year or so.
I feel strongly that all we INDIVIDUALS must have it. But I’m feeling less and less that any entity other than an individual human should be granted that same freedom. That Constitutional rights were never intended to be granted to corporations and companies, to THINGS.
In my off-the-cuff philosophical formulation …
Lies are camouflage for predators, protective coloration for the weak.
The more I look at the lies of someone like this “grow taller” scammer, or Fox News — all of which are purely predatory, and inevitably accompanied by the pose that the person telling you the tale is your great-good-friend-and-ally — the less I feel that Freedom of Speech is, or should be, any part of it.
Because it’s really the freedom to victimize people, isn’t it? Oh, this guy will probably not get away with this scam forever. We do still have laws about truth in advertising. But Fox News, richer and cleverer and more well-connected … they will get away with it forever. Churches … ? Oh, hell. You can’t even call them liars.