| Free Speech - is this too far?
Here is a controversy occurring in an area not too far from my own. It has already made state-wide news and I wouldn't be surprised if the national wires pick it up.
At a small tanning bed supply store near my area the owner has put out a signboard. This signboard reads as follows:
"Is Micheal Jackson not guilty because he is a nigger, or has money?"
I personally find the content of this sign repulsive. However, I also believe it falls under freedom of speech. The sign is on private property, but is visible from a major roadway.
The only legal recourse I could see against this sign would be to rule that the word "nigger" violates obscenity standards. However, that is opening a whole new can of worms. It cannot be illegal for one group of people to say a word, yet legal for another. If this sign is ruled obscene, suddenly virtually every hip-hop song ever made becomes obscene.
As I said before, I do not agree with the sign, although I support this person's right to display it. However, if I drove by one day and saw five or six huge black dudes beating the ever-living crap out of the guy - I am afraid I would be too overcome with laughter to phone the police for at least half and hour.
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"If a man isn't a liberal by the time he is twenty he has no heart. If a man isn't a conservative by the time he is thirty he has no brain." - Sir Winston Churchill
"Illegitimi Non Carborundum" - Unknown |