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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.

27 of 698 comments (clear)

  1. Hmmmm by haderytn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This should be fun.

    1. Re:Hmmmm by clone53421 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That wasn’t Slashdot censoring, it was samzenpus self-censoring. He could’ve said fucking if he’d wanted.

      --
      Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
    2. Re:Hmmmm by Roadfrisbee · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government. Lenny Bruce

    3. Re:Hmmmm by Toonol · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Seriously, self-censorship is a good thing, often under-practiced.

    4. Re:Hmmmm by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Grow up.

    5. Re:Hmmmm by ffreeloader · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You conveniently forget that the government shall also make no law prohibiting the free expression of religion. The Constitution has balance, it's extremely well-thought-out. Your post is all one-sided, and so is the way the Constitution has been interpreted in the last few decades. The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

      During the early years of Federal government, under our current Constitution and while the creators of it were still alive, States actually sponsored different denominations. That's right. There was State sponsored religion, but not Federal sponsored religion. Thomas Jefferson even started a church that met in the Capitol building that had 2,000 people attending it on a weekly basis. The founding fathers saw nothing wrong with expressing their religious beliefs wherever, and whenever, they so desired. They just recognized that it was wrong to oppress someone who disagreed with them on religious issues. At the same time they weren't going to allow anyone else to oppress them because of their beliefs.

      The "wall of separation" letter was written to a church who feared they would be oppressed by the government because they were small. His letter was in response to that. The context makes all the difference. He wasn't saying there couldn't be any religious display on public premises. He was reaffirming the idea that the government could not restrict that group's right to worship as they pleased.

      --
      "while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
  2. What's with the asterisk, Slashdot? by prichardson · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "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.
  3. Some one has to do it. by Anon-Admin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!

    1. Re:Some one has to do it. by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 3, Insightful

      George Carlin was a fucking genius. Fuck! I fucking miss him.

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
  4. Same goes for flipping off cops by areusche · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Same goes for flipping off cops by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Police can waste people's time with power trips pretty much everywhere. Hence the phrase "you can beat the rap; but you can't beat the ride"...

      What is worse is that there are so seldom any repercussions for them doing so.

    2. Re:Same goes for flipping off cops by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      When your power is conditionally granted to you by the people, for their security and greater good, abusing it is a very serious matter.

      If cops want to be assholes in their capacity as private citizens, that is not my problem. If they cross the line into employing state resources or power to do so, then they are lower than dirt in my eyes. Best case, they should find another line of work. Worst case, we can always run a little "How long will the crooked cop last in prison?" experiment...

  5. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  6. You lose TWICE! by Saeed+al-Sahaf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
  7. Re:What about MY right to not listen?.. by Changa_MC · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
  8. Re:What about MY right to not listen?.. by Volante3192 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One right you do NOT have is to not be offended.

    So fuck off.

  9. Re:Fucking nothing by Volante3192 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Best. English teacher. Ever.

  10. Re:Let it rip... by mmarlett · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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.

  11. Re:Let it rip... by AltairDusk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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!

  12. Re:Let it rip... by gumbi+west · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  13. Whoever tagged this "idle" needs... by Delusion_ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...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.

  14. Re:Jail?! For swearing?! by clone53421 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  15. Re:It's odd... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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."

    You act as if this were a recent phenomenon, when in fact your parents made this same observation about your generation, as did your grandparents about your parents' generation, and so on.

    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"

    You are allowed to. But even if we actually lived in this strawman alternate-reality version of America that you refer to...

    then I don't see why you should be allowed to swear and cuss under to offend someone under the guise of free speech.

    ...two wrongs don't make a right.

  16. Re:Already settled? by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
  17. Re:Jail?! For swearing?! by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  18. Re:Jail?! For swearing?! by carp3_noct3m · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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"
  19. Re:Jail?! For swearing?! by clone53421 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.