A
federal judge in White Plains, New York ruled that people have the right to
scrawl vulgar terms on government forms as a form of protest. Yes, this is a victory for free speech and
the First Amendment that all of us should embrace, even if it means civility
and command decency take a hit.
William
M. Barboza got a speeding ticket in a town called Liberty, ironically. He made
payment, begrudgingly, altering the payment form to call the town “Tyranny” and
basically told them to “fuck off”.
A
town clerk took offence, showed it to a judge, and before you know it, Barboza
was arrested, lectured, and jailed.
Barboza is suing the town for failing to train its officers on the First
Amendment. Good for him.
People
write notes to the IRS, cable-TV vendors, Verizon, and companies all the time, telling
them they suck. No one’s prosecuted for
it – and with good reason. It’s one
thing to threaten to do harm to an entity or individual, it’s another to blow
off steam.
Venting
is not a crime. Sure, words can hurt.
That’s the idea. But they are not the
same as a gun, knife, bomb, or a fist.
Barboza may be immature, but we can all relate to him. I applaud him for standing up to court
elitists and government bullies.
A victory for free
speech usually means a few things:
·
Someone
was vindicated for acting on their First Amendment right.
·
Someone
else lost even though they may have been well-intentioned.
·
Society
will observe and learn from the court case and either recognize what’s
permissible and move on – or further try to chip away at or overturn the
decision by bringing a new case to the court.
So what will we
learn here?
·
First,
civility took a punch to the gut. One
may not like being fined or punished by the state for wrong-doing, but that
doesn’t mean they should be rude, disrespectful, or vulgar when addressing a
government agency.
·
Second,
the government agency needs to have a thicker skin. Just because someone calls you a name or says
something you disagree with, you can’t hit back by arresting and jailing
someone.
·
Third,
even centuries after the Constitution and Bill of Rights granted free speech to
Americans, we still have people who don’t know the law and abuse the power of
the law to seek to muzzle opposing viewpoints.
There will be many more court cases on this topic in the years to come.
The
town of Liberty should publicly apologize for wasting tax-payer resources,
time, and finances on prosecuting and now defending a case related to nothing
more than a name-calling. But if you
happen to be passing through the thin-skinned town, don’t speed – otherwise, be
prepared to curse up a storm!
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