South Carolina Seeking To Outlaw Profanity

MBGMorden writes "It looks like in an act that defies common sense, a bill has been introduced in the South Carolina State Senate that seeks to outlaw the use of profanity. According to the bill it would become a felony (punishable by a fine up to $5000 or up to 5 years in prison) to 'publish orally or in writing, exhibit, or otherwise make available material containing words, language, or actions of a profane, vulgar, lewd, lascivious, or indecent nature.' I'm not sure if 'in writing' could be applied to the internet, but in any event this is scary stuff."

Comments

Ouch

[fyngyrz]

Don't think it can't happen. The hysteria-over-liberty mode of thinking that pervades every level of our legal and court system has resulted in significant erosion of all manner of what would, to a sensible person, seem to be rock-solid and unmovable declarations of constitutional rights.

We have seen the right to remain silent turn into the right to be tortured until you say what they want to hear; we have seen the 4th amendment turned into an irrelevancy by nattering idiocy about your papers being in digital form; we have seen the commerce clause turned on its very head; we have seen the establishment of "free speech zones" and other 1984-ish/esque crushing of liberties; censorship is the accepted norm for "solving" disagreements about what we see, say and hear insofar as it might offend some poor, weak-willed moron; screams of "save the children", "terrorists" and "global warming" drive legislators to write, and pass, the most odious, anti-liberty and outright anti-American legislation on a daily basis.

There's no limit to this, either; we have seen the specific directive not to pass ex post facto laws ignored at the congressional level and then whistle right through the supreme court; we have seen the explicit directive of the 2nd amendment's operative clause turned into the most moronic and sophist idiocy about "what is a militia?", a non-issue mined blindly and moronically out of the prefatory clause.

Don't think it can't get worse. Ask yourself instead, why should you expect it to get any better?

Re:Ouch

[Enderandrew]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act

They already tried it.

And while people defended voting for something clearly non-Constitutional by saying Congress doesn't determine what is Constitutional, I think the spirit of the 14th Amendment suggests the government should not pass bills that remove our basic rights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

I will write him a letter and tell him to fuck off. Watch him attempt to prosecute me. I'll fight that all day long and expose him for the idiot that he is.

When you are an elected official in this country, perhaps you should be familiar with the Constitution. There is a growing trend of elected officials who apparently have never heard of the thing.

Bertrand Russell & Robert A. Heinlein weigh in

[terrahertz]

"Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate." - Bertrand Russell

"Of all the strange "crimes" that human beings have legislated of nothing, "blasphemy" is the most amazing - with "obscenity" and "indecent exposure" fighting it out for the second and third place." - Robert A. Heinlein

This was tried in Michigan and failed

[techess]

Michigan had an anti-profanity passed in 1897. It outlawed cursing in front of woment or children. In 1989 a canoeist was charged with violating the law after hitting a rock with his canoe and releasing a stream of profanities in front of a family.

He was actually found guilty the first time around. The court of appeals though threw out his case and the law. Here though if he had been convicted it would only have been a $75 fine and community service.

http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=15992

Re:CALM DOWN

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

OK. So who keeps electing this genius?

Vagueness doesn't stop bills from passing

[billstewart]

No, there's no law that says you can't pass bad laws. Courts can strike down laws that violate the Constitution, or laws (or more usually, parts of laws) that are too vague to be enforceable, but that's after the law gets passed, and usually not until somebody tries to enforce it.

But this law isn't "void for vagueness" - courts, including the US Supreme Court, have allowed obscenity laws that have "community standards" rather than explicit definitions, and Justice Potter Stewart famously said about obscenity "I know it when I see it". This law's sufficiently clear and way over-the-top about what it's trying to prohibit, it's just blatantly unconstitutional.

The real question is why the politician is trying to propose such a law when he should know better. Is he really ignorant enough not to know better (unlikely, but quite possible)? Is he trying to excite his base so they'll give him more money next election? Is he following a promise he made when he was running? Is he trying to get some other politicians to oppose the bill so he can accuse them of being in favor of profanity and obscenity? Or is he just being rude to the public?