A municipal court judge in New Jersey who apparently doesn't understand either the First Amendment or local ordinances has just ordered a resident to take down some f-bomb-laden signs from her yard. (h/t Peter Bonilla)
A municipal judge on Thursday ruled that a Roselle Park homeowner’s owner’s anti- President Biden flags including the F-bomb on her fence were obscene and must be removed because they violated a borough ordinance.
Roselle Park Municipal Court Judge Gary Bundy ordered the Willow Avenue homeowner to remove the signs with profanity within a week or face a $250-a-day fine. Patricia Dilascio is the property owner but her daughter, Andrea Dick, had the signs, three of which include the F-word, on display.
The signs, which can be seen in this photo, are certainly colorful in terms of language, and very definitely convey their owner's displeasure with the current regime.
(More information in link to original article.)
Opinion:
The first amendment absolutely prevents the government from censoring your speech, ESPECIALLY political speech. That is its entire purpose. ESPECIALLY political speech. Because we no longer have a king, nor do we want one. (unless it is Trump)
The 1st amendment does not limit private property owners, nor corporations from controlling their own platforms and moderating as they see fit. But it absolutely does (A) limit government, and (B) ESPECIALLY when you are displaying speech from YOUR OWN property (not someone else's property, where they could choose to not allow your speech on their property).
If people do not like Biden, they should have the right to say so as loudly and even offensively as they wish. (clue: a clear non offensive message can be more persuasive) A mildly offensive message can be effective in expressing one's outrage, without suggesting any intention of harm.
The problem here seems to be that there is a town law which forbids the use of offensive language. I like to avoid such words, for example, not using them on SN (other than quoting someone) because IMO it lowers the intelligence level. But that's just my preference. I happen to understand that other people are fine with using such language.
Perhaps this law should be focused on offensive messages rather than specific language or words. An obscene message is one thing. An F-bomb may be something different entirely, even if it could have been better worded.
In the 1977 Star Wars movie, after R2D2 emits a series of tweedle-beeps, C3P0 tells R2D2 "you watch your language", without needing say something like "watch your F'ing language".
N.J. woman must remove anti-Biden F-bomb signs or face $250-a-day fines, judge rules
F-bomb, bird flipping anti-Biden flags outside house near N.J. school infuriate neighbors
N.J. homeowner with F-bomb, anti-Biden flags ticketed, given court date
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 22 2021, @07:48PM
Talk to these people sometime. I am not conservative, but I did grow up in the South, and I am increasingly at odds with what passes for "liberalism" in America. The reason is because of what will happen during that chat. You're like to find they'd be happy to have you in, give you some tea, and have a nice fun back and forth. Try to do the same thing in San Francisco and you will likely be met with condescendence at best, and very likely outright hostility. They will likely try to hurt you, perhaps not physically (immediately), but in things like trying to get you fired if they can, or doing anything they can to otherwise try to destroy your life.
People don't seem to understand that this is precisely what fascism is. The complete abuse of Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance is so incredibly dystopic:
When he said this, he obviously was not endorsing the idea of attacking anybody who doesn't abide the same ideology, ignoring/censoring their arguments, and ultimately trying to destroy them. Popper was a Jew and saw the gradual rise of the Nazis in a population where their tendency towards violence and suppression of the opposition was never really dealt with. This was in part apathy, but also in part because people often didn't really like the people that the Nazis were trying to destroy. Hence, this is where get things like "First They Came For" poem:
But alas, it seems humanity is ever incapable of learning from the mistakes of others, doomed to forever repeat the exact same patterns, hoping for the future to learn from "our" mistakes - so little different than the countless episodes we could and should have already learned from ourselves.