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U.S. rights group sues to protect right to swear

Cold Highway

Cold Highway

Dispenser of Negativity
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One lawsuit involves an unidentified woman in Luzerne County in northeast Pennsylvania who was given a citation which carries a maximum penalty of $300 and 90 days in jail after she yelled an offensive word at a motorcyclist who swerved close to her in October 2008.

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.

The two are among at least 750 people in Pennsylvania a year who face illegal disorderly conduct charges because of the use of profanity in Pennsylvania, the ACLU said.
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****ing douchebage ****ing cops, got ****ing nothing better to do with their ****ing time.

U.S. rights group sues to protect right to swear - Yahoo! News
 
Free speech should protect even the most hienus and vile of speech, and speech one disagrees with.

Profanity, IMO, is NO exception.

[And to those who try to pull the ignorance card on those who use profanity, aren't you yourself being hypocritical by ignorantly assuming one is ignorant based on one instance where you encounter "profane" speech out of him or her?]
 
Profanity when used correctly is a proper tool, it shows frustration, can punctuate a comedic remark, allows people to know you are at that line where you just might kick the **** out of them......etc. etc. While I do believe in many of the tests against obscenity I do not consider profanity to be part of that test, one of my few breakings from that court decision. Besides all that though, profane words are pretty arbitrary anyway, what exactly makes **** different from caca, crap, etc. they all describe fecal matter. As well **** is the exact same thing as screw, plow, etc. so it really is a game of pure semantics anyway.
 
Travelsonic said:
Free speech should protect even the most hienus and vile of speech, and speech one disagrees with.

Profanity, IMO, is NO exception.

[And to those who try to pull the ignorance card on those who use profanity, aren't you yourself being hypocritical by ignorantly assuming one is ignorant based on one instance where you encounter "profane" speech out of him or her?]
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given that police use swear words ALL THE TIME, what's wrong with a little "**** you, officer!" ?
 
Shouting obscenities in public should be illegal. Whatever happened to decency?
 
Korimyr the Rat said:
Shouting obscenities in public should be illegal. Whatever happened to decency?
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Time/Place/Manner. In church of course it isn't right to shout profanities, or the library, maybe even a park where there will be children and elderly citizens who shouldn't be exposed to that. But a bar, golf course, bowling alley, I think the threshold is a little longer and profanities are to be expected actually.
 
I posted this in an older thread when we were discussing public decency laws but it fits here too:

In general, the more balanced stance is that public decency laws are present to maintain a minimum amount of civility and decorum within public so that things that generally offend and shock the general majority of people are not forcefully presented anywhere they go. That while yes, nothing says you HAVE to take your child out into public EVER, it is rather unreasonable to expect such. And as such, it is reasonable of the government to mandate a certain level of decency, for example public displays of nudity, to allow for such reasonable levels of public activity to occur without chancing the violation of other peoples rights.

For example, it could be thought of that taking a child to the doctor is a reasonable normal activity that I should feel "safe" doing. As such, your right to put up a billboard depicting graphic sex or run up to my car shaking your junk around at the windows is trumped by the rights of the child or even the person going about normal routine business.

I agree, things do get very tricky when it comes down to deceny laws and censorship, but at its heart it generally comes down to a protection of rights issue more so than the government "forcing" morality through new laws. Its why a PRIVATE strip club is free to have naked women shaking their ass all they want, but don't put it out on the sidewalk where people have a reasonable expectation to not have their rights infringed upon by things the general population veiws as obscene and thus offensive.
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Essentially, by being citizens and living here we are entering into a social contract with each other where by we understand that there are acceptable standards and social norms for society and for the community in which we live, and thereby give power to law enforcement to help uphold said things. We do this in the understanding that ones rights ends where it infringes upon anothers and we recognize in part where the majority of people living within this societies expectations for public behavior are at.

You have no more of a right to run down the street going "**** YOU" to every person you see than you have running down the street with no clothes on and your jewels bouncing around for the world to see. Our society, through its general communal understanding, views such things to be obscene and infringe upon our general expectations and right to safety while in a public place.
 
Mainstream society has the right to exclude, demean, and give you strange looks for cursing. However, if they want to use legal force they can go **** themselves. Those words are still covered by the Constitution.
 
Korimyr the Rat said:
Shouting obscenities in public should be illegal. Whatever happened to decency?
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Something that the feds should stay out of on this issue. Look at the FCC and the mess we deal with now, guess they didn't learn anything from George Carlin.
 
Korimyr the Rat said:
Shouting obscenities in public should be illegal. Whatever happened to decency?
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You know what? **** you. Your standards of decency aren't the same as mine. Why the **** should I have to conform to your ****ty standards? Your idea of decency supersedes my rights now? Let's ban Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck then. I find them to be indecent. And teletubbies. ****!

(any profanity in this post is purely for ****s and giggles)
 
They're not my standards. They're our standards, or at least they were before we decided to throw our culture in the garbage can of liberalism.
 
Korimyr the Rat said:
They're not my standards. They're our standards.
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I doubt the collective standard would be so prudish to actually believe that profanity is so bad that we need to make it outright illegal to use in public, as case law [AND human nature] has shown time and again it is not an all or nothing, one size fits all thing.
 
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Korimyr the Rat said:
Shouting obscenities in public should be illegal. Whatever happened to decency?
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nah.. creating a law against profanity as it pertains to people speaking in the open air would just be too ambiguous.. some people just casually swear and no malice is intended..

now if a municipality were to enact an ordinance to assure that the profane speaker can not walk into an establishment such as a grocery store, or perhaps onto a school ground(public or private) and start a cussing rant i would be willing to live with that..

alternatively, the potty mouthed person that is simply in an angry rant could possibly be viewed as being a public nuisance.. to which laws/ordinances should already be in place..

anyway, i believe people can tell a flaming verbal rant thatll set the cat on fire, from someone explaining how god dammed the river so it wouldnt overflow..

its all about the context i suppose..
 
Using an obscenity in conversation with an adult in public shouldn't be illegal.

Shouting obscenities for all to hear in public should stay illegal at the police officer's discretion, meaning it usually won't be enforced.

Shouting an obscenity directed at a cop is just plain dumb.
 
LaMidRighter said:
Profanity when used correctly is a proper tool, it shows frustration, can punctuate a comedic remark, allows people to know you are at that line where you just might kick the **** out of them......etc. etc. While I do believe in many of the tests against obscenity I do not consider profanity to be part of that test, one of my few breakings from that court decision. Besides all that though, profane words are pretty arbitrary anyway, what exactly makes **** different from caca, crap, etc. they all describe fecal matter. As well **** is the exact same thing as screw, plow, etc. so it really is a game of pure semantics anyway.
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AND swearing eases pain better than replacement words.

The Good Side of Bad Words | BU Today
 
They're just words. I cannot believe that there are places where certain words are illegal. How ****ing authoritarian.
 
rivrrat said:
They're just words. I cannot believe that there are places where certain words are illegal. How ****ing authoritarian.
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careful.. there are the few that IMO are valid rules such as "hijack" on a plane or "fire" in a theater, though otherwise those words arent considered offensive by any standard.

and since ive brought airplanes and theaters into the commentary..

additionally i feel that these are of the types of places where the proprietors/owners have the right to excercise their own level of moral tolerance.. such as refusing any speech that would affect other customers/patrons.
i dont think its at all morally appropriate for someone to be cussing up a storm at a playpark full of children, nor in contrast dont feel its appropriate for someone to be reading religious scripture for all to hear while im paying for a good meal at a four star restaurant.

i remember a time when you would not hear the word "damn" on TV(showing my age a bit), but now its a regular adjective/verb/etc. i wonder where we'll be in another 30 years.
its the level of tolerance as time goes on i suppose. often an inch given, but a mile is taken..
 
Zyphlin said:
You have no more of a right to run down the street going "**** YOU" to every person you see than you have running down the street with no clothes on and your jewels bouncing around for the world to see. Our society, through its general communal understanding, views such things to be obscene and infringe upon our general expectations and right to safety while in a public place.
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Yes you do. Comparing the two is retarded
 
WhyteRash said:
careful.. there are the few that IMO are valid rules such as "hijack" on a plane or "fire" in a theater, though otherwise those words arent considered offensive by any standard.

and since ive brought airplanes and theaters into the commentary..

additionally i feel that these are of the types of places where the proprietors/owners have the right to excercise their own level of moral tolerance.. such as refusing any speech that would affect other customers/patrons.
i dont think its at all morally appropriate for someone to be cussing up a storm at a playpark full of children, nor in contrast dont feel its appropriate for someone to be reading religious scripture for all to hear while im paying for a good meal at a four star restaurant.

i remember a time when you would not hear the word "damn" on TV(showing my age a bit), but now its a regular adjective/verb/etc. i wonder where we'll be in another 30 years.
its the level of tolerance as time goes on i suppose. often an inch given, but a mile is taken..
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Common sense and free will is a heck of a thing. If somebody is swearing around my kids at the park, I walk over and tell them to shut the **** up. If you are bothered by words on TV, change the channel.
 
FilmFestGuy said:
AND swearing eases pain better than replacement words.

The Good Side of Bad Words | BU Today
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Yeah, it works that way. I used several god damns (CAPS, of course) today when something went wrong, and it did take some of the edge off. It's a stress reliever, to curse over a problem or frustration. It works, for me anyway.
 
WhyteRash said:
careful.. there are the few that IMO are valid rules such as "hijack" on a plane...
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Reactionary, irrational response to 9-11, IMO

WhyteRash said:
or "fire" in a theater
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Or rather, IF THERE IS NO FIRE - since it can cause panic, stampedes, injuries, etc. If there was a fire, you'd WANT somebody to yell "fire!," lest you wanted to end up hickory smoked. :2razz:
 
Korimyr the Rat said:
They're not my standards. They're our standards,
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Then let society deal with it in a less coercive manner. May I get kicked out of an establishment, but I fail to see how semantics manage to harm others

Korimyr the Rat said:
or at least they were before we decided to throw our culture in the garbage can of liberalism.
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How does cursing throw our culture into the garbage can?
 
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