512
Opinion of Stevens, J.
As a matter of First Amendment doctrine, the Posadas syllogism is even less defensible. The text of the First Amendment makes clear that the Constitution presumes that attempts to regulate speech are more dangerous than attempts to regulate conduct. That presumption accords with the essential role that the free flow of information plays in a democratic society. As a result, the First Amendment directs that government may not suppress speech as easily as it may suppress conduct, and that speech restrictions cannot be treated as simply another means that the government may use to achieve its ends.
These basic First Amendment principles clearly apply to commercial speech; indeed, the Posadas majority impliedly conceded as much by applying the Central Hudson test. Thus, it is no answer that commercial speech concerns products and services that the government may freely regulate. Our decisions from Virginia Bd. of Pharmacy on have made plain that a State's regulation of the sale of goods differs in kind from a State's regulation of accurate information about those goods. The distinction that our cases have consistently drawn between these two types of governmental action is fundamentally incompatible with the absolutist view that the State may ban commercial speech simply because it may constitutionally prohibit the underlying conduct.20
20 It is also no answer to say that it would be "strange" if the First Amendment tolerated a seemingly "greater" regulatory measure while forbidding a "lesser" one. We recently held that although the government had the power to proscribe an entire category of speech, such as obscenity or so-called fighting words, it could not limit the scope of its ban to obscene or fighting words that expressed a point of view with which the government disagrees. R. A. V. v. St. Paul, 505 U. S. 377 (1992). Similarly, in Cincinnati v. Discovery Network, Inc., 507 U. S. 410 (1993), we assumed that States could prevent all newsracks from being placed on public sidewalks, but nevertheless concluded that they could not ban only those newsracks that contained certain commercial publications. Id., at 428.
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