An editorial

You are editor-in-chief of the Times Leader, and in this role it is your responsibility to write the paper’s editorials. A strange thing has recently come to pass in Wilkes-Barre. The owners of Liberty Tax Service apparently concluded that advertising the firm through dancing men, preferably bearded dancing men, cross-dressed as the Statue of Liberty, just does not suffice. So, the owners supplemented this campaign with another: they have been paying people, men and women alike, $1,000 to have the words “Ask Me About Liberty Tax” permanently, prominently tattooed on their foreheads. You find this campaign, well, both weird and wrong. Whether there should be a law against it is one question; whether public opinion should be strongly against it, even outraged by it, is another. Drawing from your undergraduate education—in particular a reading by Michael Sandel and discussions of Immanuel Kant (the humanity formulation of his categorical imperative comes to mind)—write an editorial opposing Liberty Tax Service’s new campaign. Focus on its morality; put the question of its legality aside. Why should public opinion be outraged by it? Why is it wrong? And what should be done?