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ACLU Sues To Protect Your Right To Swear
The ACLU is suing the police in Pennsylvania for issuing tickets to people who swear. They argue that it is every American's constitutional right to drop an F-bomb. From the article: "'Unfortunately, many police departments in the commonwealth do not seem to be getting the message that swearing is not a crime,' said Marieke Tuthill of the ACLU of Pennsylvania. 'The courts have repeatedly found that profanity, unlike obscenity, is protected speech.'" This is a big f*cking deal.
This should be fun.
"This is a big f*cking deal."
No. It's a big fucking deal. Just print the U please, it won't hurt anyone.
Replacing the vowel in profanity with some other character doesn't fool anyone. Everyone knows still you're swearing.
Help I'm a rock.
In English, fuck falls into many grammatical categories:
As a transitive verb for instance.. John fucked Shirley.
As an intransitive verb... Shirley fucks.
Its meaning is not always sexual, it can be used as...
An adjective such as... John's doing all the fucking work.
As part of an adverb... Shirley talks too fucking much.
As an adverb enhancing an adjective... Shirley is fucking beautiful.
As a noun... I don't give a fuck.
As part of a word... absofuckinglutely -or- infuckingcredible.
And as almost every word in a sentence... Fuck the fucking fuckers.
As you must realize, there aren't too many words with the versatility of fuck...such as these examples describing situations such as:
Fraud: I got fucked at the used car lot.
Dismay: ahhh fuck it.
Trouble: I guess I'm really fucked now.
Aggression: Don't fuck with me buddy.
Difficulty: I don't understand this fucking question.
Inquiry: Who the fuck was that?
Dissatisfaction: I don't like what the fuck is going on here.
Incompetence: He's a fuck-off.
Dismissal: Why don't you go outside and play hide and go fuck yourself...
I'm sure you can think of many more examples.
With all these multi-purpose applications, how can anyone be offended when you use the word. We say use this unique, flexible word more often in your daily speech.
It will identify the quality of your character immediately.
Say it loudly and proudly: FUCK YOU!
I had a friend flip off a cop once for cutting him off on a road in Erie. The cop turned around, put his lights on, and gave him a ticket for obscenity.
He challenged the ticket mentioning freedom of speech as well as the fact that the officer didn't even show up. In the end he won, but that doesn't excuse the fact that police officers in Pennsylvania can waste people's time like this on power trips.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sorry, I couldn't f-ing resist!
Oh, that's fucking sad. You lose TWICE!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
No.
You can get a pair of earphones and protect your right to not listen for yourself, without calling the cops down on me for exercising my first amendment rights.
Fuck you.
Changa hates change.
Certain words have crept into vocabulary and are now used to the exclusion of other words. It seems young folks are unable, now, to express themselves without swear words. It seems that they are completely unaware that there are actual words that actually MEAN what they are trying to say; but since they don't know them, they attach the same word that everyone else attaches for emphasis. So we end up with sentences that include the same word, for emphasis, three times... when all they really mean to say is "I was astounded."
To me, people who use swear words for pretty much everything sound uneducated and ... well, the follow-the-crowd type... someone who is clearly influenced, in the way they talk, by whoever is around them at the time.
It's also interesting to me that people argue that words have no meaning out of context, etc., and typically argue that with someone who is offended by that kind of speech... and yet, then they use those same words specifically to offend or be abrasive. That's not out-of-context, that is a very specific context. If you are using a word specifically to offend me while claiming I shouldn't be offended because it's out of context, you're being rather rude.
I personally dislike swearing. I find it ... well, vulgar and uneducated :) Here's my actual "political" response though: as long as I am not allowed to use certain terms for people because it's "politically incorrect" or "offensive" to them, etc - for example, "black" or "gay" or perhaps saying that some act or sexual orientation is a "sin" - then I don't see why you should be allowed to swear and cuss under to offend someone under the guise of free speech.
It is the most versatile word in the English language. Fuck can mean just about anything! Simply use your imagination...
One right you do NOT have is to not be offended.
So fuck off.
Best. English teacher. Ever.
"Fuck" is the most versatile word in the English language. It can be used in every part of speech (except as a preposition, though it can be part of a prepositional phrase). The sentence, "Fuck those fucking fuckers," for example, packs a lot of meaning in what is really only two words. There are so many uses for that one word that someone wrote an entire book on it. In it, it calls "fuck" the "most important and powerful word in the English language."
So don't be so fucking quick to judge.
When did we claim that we were limited to using profanity? I don't see swearing as an indication of one's vocabulary, merely a style of speech. Now calm the fuck down!
As of today, it is indeed illegal to use obscene language in PA, if there is INTENT to cause public ... alarm.
While the citizen was praised for helping alert everyone to the disaster, his cries of "Get the fuck out of here, it's going to blow!" caused him to be cited under Section 5503.
His trial is scheduled for Thursday.
Let me help, when you use a swear word as an adjective, you miss the opportunity to use an adjective that would help the listener. Think of someone leaving a class room where the just got a bad grade on their test they could say, "I hate that f*cking teacher. He is such an *ss" removing the swear word, "I hate that teacher. He is an ..." makes it clear that the thought is really quite banal, makes you sound stupid (worthy of the C). The speaker would feel compelled to add something so that they might say, "I hate that droning teacher. He is never nice to me." Much more communicative.
...their head examined. Traffic court is already filled with bogus cases in defense of laws whose primary purpose is to generate income for the locality.
Fair taxation, please, not harassment in lieu of it.
The latter is exactly what you DONT have a right to say
Incorrect.
Not to a police officer anyways
Incorrect.
nor should you.
Incorrect.
You want to live in a country without police?
Incorrect.
I want to live in a country where the fucking police do their fucking job and quit fucking with people who they shouldn’t be fucking with.
Is that fucking clear?
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Shakespeare asserted that "Brevity is the soul of wit."
Your rejoinder was quite brief.
Therefore, your rejoinder is quite witty. QED.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
I was with you up until: "at least on principle, I find that their legal support of such people as some sort of "enlightened" viewpoint is almost just as shallow."
What?
"at least on principle" - Well of course...that's the whole reason behind the suit, the principle of the matter.
"I find that their legal support of such people as some sort of "enlightened" viewpoint is almost just as shallow."- What? If you believe in a principle, you defend the right of ALL people. Just like John Adams defending the British soldiers accused in the "Boston Massacre." You can't say "I wont defend Larry Flynt because he peddles "smut." We all have the right to equal protection under the law, even those you DON"T LIKE. And you say THEY'RE shallow?
The bottom line is that no one has the right to not be offended. Period.
One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces. - PF
That tends to happen when you have no punishment for violating crimes or rights.
Support laws that allow you to sue the officer directly. Once we can sue the bastards and take their stuff, they will start acting like civilized people instead of the gestapo.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
They have their priorities. If you don't like their priorities, give money to someone else, or form your own lobbyist group to deal with the second amendment. Personally, I think the NRA has the second amendment in hand and I don't think the ACLU needs to spend time and money on those issues.
I want to live in a country that when the police violate laws they can be sued and put in jail for it.
In the USA, being a cop means you have a license to do what you want. You can even kill someone, firing several shots in his back and get away with it. It happens every month in the USA.
You can be detained for no reason and you have no recourse. you can be severly assaulted by the police for no reason other than a peaceful protest and have no recourse. People have been tazed enough times to caus them to get more tazers because they emptied them, because they would not unchain themselves from a fence. That officer needs to not only lose everything he owns, but be blackballed from ever being a cop again. I prefer he be thrown in prison with a COP banner on him.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I don't really mind swearing, and occasionally let loose. However, I do find it... perhaps childish? ...when people find something funny simply because a fuck was added into the mix. Look at this thread: Dozens of comments that are basically contentless, modded +5 funny because they have 'fucking' in them. I don't find it offensive, just juvenile and lame, like kids giggling after they say 'poop'.
Operation Personal Rant = engaged / Ah the classic, if you don't agree with policy, move away statement. Listen here fucktard, I am a Iraq Combat vet, and consider myself a patriot. While this gives me no more right to speech than any other American citizen, it gives me clout with fuckheads like you. What I do not consider myself a BLIND patriot. As Howard Zinn stated, "DISSENT IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF PATRIOTISM" Very few people (only pure anarchists) would want to live "in a country without police", What I don't want is for police that are militaristic, don't know the law, often have no better education than highschool, and are increasingly corrupt in my country. The entire "Love it or leave it" is predicated on the premise that either you COMPLETELY love (read: agree) with all policy of the USA (Which any semi-intelligent person does not) or you do not deserve and should not live here. Thats not how it works. I can love my country, and hate it's government, (or the power elite who have gotten us into this mess we are in today). What it boils down to, is that this type of statement is one of the most destructive to discourse tactics used by people who have little knowledge or facts to defend their beliefs, where the then label someone with a negative, anti-american label so as to discredit them. This is known as a argumentative logical fallacy as a "ad hominem" attack. Where you attack the person presenting an argument instead of the argument. YOU DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO NOT BE OFFENDED!
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
The police are doing their job when they write you a ticket for speeding. You were speeding you got a ticket.
The police were not doing their job when they wrote me a ticket for turning left at a no-left-turn intersection. I did not turn left. True story.
You said a foul word their is a law on the books that says you can be punished for it.
Unconstitutional.
You were jay walking their is a law on the books that prevents that. You were smoking weed in your house their is a law against it.
The police’s job is to protect me from others, and if necessary, to protect them from me. It is not their job to protect me from myself.
These laws that were made by the people for the people is being enforced by a group of people who were given the power to enforce the laws made by the people with a law that was made for the people by the people.
I know you’re trying to be clever but when you can’t keep the tenses straight between your nouns and verbs anymore you might be trying too hard. Not to mention I had to read it three times to figure out what it said (which was of course just what you had intended).
The person you want to speak with in regards to the fucking issue here is your towns council / State legislators and not the fucking police. You don't like the laws then have them changed.
Now that I don’t disagree with... but will it get me back the $300 for the no-left-turn ticket and the legal expense of getting it converted to a non-moving violation?
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
... it was about detecting sarcasm and irony. Might want to check that one out.
I disagree with what you have to say, but I will fight to the death to protect your right to say it.
I'm fairly certain this is the main principle behind the ACLU's action here.
Of course they won't get it until the courts order them to. Modern city police have NOTHING to do with law enforcement, they are simply revenuers.
It's "your". "you're" is "you are". Learn your grammar, you illiterate motherfucker!
My point was that if a government entity uses its monopoly powers to require all users of a service to sign a contract, then that contract is a de facto law. I'll put it another way. The law says that the only way you can broadcast on that spectrum is by signing the contract with the FCC. If you break the contract, you are fined an arbitrary amount determined by the FCC. That pretty much makes the contract de facto law. Saying that the FCC's rules aren't the law is just playing a semantics game.
Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin