Slashdot Mirror
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.
Just as your fist's freedom of movement ends at my face, your speech's freedom ends at my ears, if I so choose.
If FCC can limit swearing on public airwaves, police can do it too — even if the waves are in different medium and frequency...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
In a separate case a man was arrested, cited for disorderly conduct and briefly jailed after shouting a double expletive at a policeman who was writing him a parking ticket.
I guess it's my non confrontational manner, but if a cop was writing me a ticket for being illegally parked, I'd offer a quick apology, say it won't happen again, and just pay the fine. The minute you start questioning the cop's authority is when you land in hot water. IMO if you act like a fool over something you did wrong in the first place, maybe you deserved to be hauled off to jail.
Also, if you ever saw "Parking Wars" on A&E, these are the type of people I'm talking about. Unfortunately, the Philly Traffic Authority can't haul you off to jail.
Once upon a time in a mythical land called Soviet Russia, a hot bowl of grits had Natalie Portman.
Really? Is the state of your communication such that you're limited to swearing where clearly it doesn't convey any sense whatsoever other than your own limited vocabulary?
Seriously, I've often wondered how people who swear constantly, and use the F-bomb as noun, verb, adverb and pronoun ever communicate anything useful other than their own ignorance and lack of literacy.
I'm not a prude or anything, I just find that most people who swear all the time have almost nothing useful or interesting to say, or otherwise full of self importance.
They use swearing as some sort of over compensation, trying to sound important, but only coming across as the dimwit they are.
The funny thing is, while I stand with the ACLU on this one, at least on principle, I find that their legal support of such people as some sort of "enlightened" viewpoint is almost just as shallow.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Now if only the ACLU would defend the second amendment.
Yeah I know, it's a pipe dream given their political agenda. Sadly, many here can't understand this simple reality.
The latter is exactly what you DONT have a right to say. Not to a police officer anyways. nor should you.
You want to live in a country without police? okay fine, move to one of the fine anarchistic countries in south america or something.