Middleborough, MA: "Fuck The Constitution"?
Via iFeminists, a Massachusetts town passed a bylaw allowing police to hand out $20 tickets for public swearing. From NBC Connecticut, there were protesters:
Some people shouted curse words while others carried profane posters supporting free speech at Monday's rally in the rain on the Middleborough Town Hall lawn. People who support the bylaw also showed up.The protest rally was organized by Adam Kokesh, a libertarian who publishes podcasts online from a Virginia studio. He says police can "steal from you if they don't like what's coming out of your mouth."
But police won't be issuing any tickets until the state attorney general determines if the bylaw making public cursing a civil offense is constitutional. The bylaw was passed overwhelmingly two weeks ago at a town meeting.
I might be The Advice Goddess and not Some Lawyer Who's Passed The Bar, but allow me -- Cohen v. California, 1971, the "Fuck the Draft" case, in which the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a man wearing a jacket bearing the phrase, "Fuck the Draft.":
Specifically, Harlan, citing Justice Brandeis' opinion in Whitney v. California, emphasized that the First Amendment operates to protect the inviolability of the marketplace of ideas imagined by the Founding Fathers. Allowing California to suppress the speech at issue in this case would be destructive to that market place of ideas."To many, the immediate consequence of this freedom may often appear to be only verbal tumult, discord, and even offensive utterance," Justice Harlan wrote. "These are, however, within established limits, in truth necessary side effects of the broader enduring values which the process of open debate permits us to achieve. That the air may at times seem filled with verbal cacophony is, in this sense not a sign of weakness but of strength."[2]
"[A]bsent a more particularized and compelling reason for its actions," Harlan continued, "the State may not, consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, make the simple public display of this single four-letter expletive a criminal offense."[3] In his opinion Justice Harlan famously wrote "one man's vulgarity is another's lyric."[4]
Thus, Harlan's arguments can be constructed in three major points: First, states (California) cannot censor their citizens in order to make a "civil" society. Second, knowing where to draw the line between harmless heightened emotion and vulgarity can be difficult. Third, people bring passion to politics and vulgarity is simply a side effect of a free exchange of ideas--no matter how radical they may be.
That would have to be the shortest determination in history.
"The law would make speaking into a crime? Ok, unconstitutional."
Robert at June 27, 2012 12:07 AM
And to think some people still ask "why do we need etiquette"......
As Miss Manners has pointed out, over and over, it's not just because the law can't and shouldn't cover everything, it's because people who claim they don't need manners suddenly mind when they find themselves on the target end of rudeness. As she said about ten years ago...
"only yesterday the population was ridiculing etiquette and declaring itself satisfied with unrestrained natural behavior, thank you very much. No sooner did people grudgingly admit the legitimacy of etiquette than everyone began bashing everyone else in its name."
lenona at June 27, 2012 8:08 AM
Lonona, that's an insightful comment, and it goes back to what I've said previously about social conservatives: Most of the things that social conservatives worry about are legitimate concerns. The problem is that most of them are cultural issues. Trying to solve cultural issues with laws seldom works, and it nearly always has bad side effects.
Over the past half century, politics has succeeded in stripping other American cultural institutions of their moral leadership. Hoewver, having done so, politicians now refuse to exert that leadership, except when it benefits them personally and immediately to do so. However, they won't let anyone else do it either. They have passed many laws that make it difficult and risky for individuals to engage in moral leadership outside of their own homes. Even doing so in institutions that exist explicitly for the purpose, like churches, exposes one to legal liability.
One of the characteristics of all dictatorial regimes is that they seek to destroy the moral standards of the population. By doing so, they encourage divisions which make the population easier to control. Our current leaders may not explicitly be pushing towards a totalitarian form of government, but if they were, it's hard to see what they would do different.
Cousin Dave at June 27, 2012 10:15 AM
I was brought up to not use foul language in general conversation. I rarely use it unless it is the best way to describe the situation and will try to use the less offensive term. E.g.:
I'd rather use:
instead of:
But when the government takes a stand on which I can use, they are so fucked. Between the First Amendment and the Fourteenth, they have nothing to stand on as a city, county, or state.
But I do my best not to repeat the seven words, but they will slip in on occasion; usually when a hand or power tool is involved.
The thing I have found is that my rare use of them catches my listener's attention.
The First Amendment quote that I love (even though he never really said it) is this:
Jim P. at June 27, 2012 8:46 PM
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