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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: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Thursday July 22 2021, @06:03PM (2 children)
Censorship just plain does not work. Let's say you go the simple route, and just say, no four letter words. So someone changes the vowel to an asterisk, thus getting around the letter of the law. So the lawmakers expand the scope. Then people change the language a bit more, say "pr0n" to mean "porn". Pretty soon, the lawmakers have to abandon the literal approach, and go with "you know what we mean", outlawing all hinting. Then you get a song such as "Forget You", which is clearly acceptable language, but just as clearly means the naughty F word.
I've seen one of those F Biden signs. The first rapid glimpse I got, thought it was an expression of support for Biden, looking all patriotic with red, white, and blue coloring, and stars and stripes and all that. But the location, the rural south, seemed an awfully unlikely place for such a sign, and with a closer look, I could make out the F word. The property was a large lot with a nice house, too.
Any more, rural America doesn't feel like a welcoming place, not when they fly banners like that. I am really starting to feel a tad nervous about driving through some country town sporting a Democratic sticker on my bumper. Has it got to the point that just having a college license plate frame is asking for trouble? Is Top Gear being run out of Alabama real, and not staged, hammed, and hyped to the max?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 22 2021, @07:48PM (1 child)
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.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 22 2021, @07:54PM
It is cute how the neo-nazis try and project all their own faults on to their ideolgoical opposites. Wonder why the majority of political violence comes from the right? They also seem to be the only group to try and overthrow the government twice for their own stupidity like wanting to keep slaves and wanting to keep a criminal wannabe dictator that was voted out. You gotta be a Fox viewer to think that the problem is not the GOP.
You sure love freedoms until someone says "we're free to tell you to fuck off." Then suddenly it is all persecution and me me me. Whiny fucking babies, the lot of you.