"... ads are not honest, they make things look too glamorous... you don't always get what you see... when you buy something, it doesn't work like on TV...ads are phony and filled with lies... ads distort reality... very false and deceiving... automobile ads never display the true price of the car... ads promise the impossible, but the negatives are in very small print at the bottom of the page... ads make things look better than they are... misleading... unrealistic... ads usually tell us only what they want us to know... takes advantage of people... ads use subliminal messages to lead us into buying things.. misleading and often right-out not truthful... advertising is a con artist's game... no real truth, all exaggeration... Ads are fake, always geared to the perfect life... doesn't tell you enough about the products... advertisers will do anything for a buck... Are there laws against deceptive advertising? Do ads have to tell the truth? "

In the USA, we have some legal protection, but not enough. We have some laws on the books, but seldom enough money to enforce them. Hard-core frauds, for example, still exist. The Post Office tries to stop the same old frauds (Ponzi schemes, Pyramid schemes) every year. But, as P.T.Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute." So, here are 3 quick rhetorical guides, because these predators exist:

#1: In coercion, predators growl.
Political rhetoric (especially international) may use coercive threats and warnings (saber-rattling, muscle-flexing, a "show of force") But advertising is persuasion, not coercion. Nobody makes us buy anything.

#2: In persuasion, predators purr.
Purring is more subtle, sophisticated, and harder to recognize because the two main tactics of such seduction are "Flattery" and "False Friends."

Flattery by persuaders is most common. Advertisers and politicians flatter their target audience as having "good sense" and "intelligence" and "good taste." (Often, persuaders will attack their critics by saying that the "regulators" are treating people like children: "You're old enough! Don't listen to them.")

False Friends. Persuaders know they need to project the "image" of being expert, sincere and benevolent -- of being "on your side." Every con game starts with getting the trust and confidence of the victim. Every ad basically says "Trust Me!"

#3: Predators prey upon the weak and the vulnerable:
Predators prey, alas, on children and the elderly, on the ignorant and the stupid, on the uneducated and the slow-witted, on the sick and the dying and the desperate ("cures" for cancer, or AIDS), on the poor and the jobless (Make Money at Home), and on those frailties and weakness of people, which used to be called the "Seven Deadly Sins" -- greed and gluttony, envy and lust, sloth, anger, and vanity.