Taxpayers Pay to Propagandize....Themselves?

A comment I made tonight at Unqualified Offerings, in response to a Bushie proposal to increase funding for anti-drug advertising by $130 million:

At a minimum, shouldn't taxpayer-funded, government-sponsored domestic advertising just be outright banned? Seriously, isn't this an issue of the government forcing people to speak in a particular way? In an allegedly free and open society, what possible rationale is there for taxpayer-funded (rather than permitted) speech?

I was recently at a trade show with very expensive exhibit space. The show had absolutely nothing to do with national security, yet there were booths for not only military recruiters but more bizarrely for the Department of Homeland Security. So, taxpayers got to spend several thousand bucks in order for DHS to promote how great it is.

You'd think that the priority would be on actually doing a good job rather than telling people why they should think DHS does a good job. You'd think wrongly.

Is there anything worse than government propagandizing its own people?