Physioprof may be declared illegal in South Carolina and subject to fines up to $5000 and up to five years imprisonment. Details here. And you can thank this guy.
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!! Looks like Senator Fuckwit Ford needs to read the motherfucking Constitution! HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!! What a pathetic dipshit! I'm so glad I don't live in a fucking backwater shithole like South Carolina filled with gibbering dumbfucks like this clown.
OMFG. Does Ford know that the first W in WWW stands for worldwide? What possible positive difference could this make for people in SC? It's like trying to stop the wind by outlawing fans.
Wow, how did this guy get a career in US politics without having heard of the first amendment?
To get a clearer picture of Senator Ford, it's interesting to look at some other bills he has up for consideration right now.
Here is another of his bills, and here , here and finally, most interesting of all, here.
This could actually be kind of fun to screw with. Get 10,000 or so people together in a park and have them all yell "FUCK!" or "DONKEY ASSHOLE!" at the same time to someone's 13 year old kid. Too bad it'll never pass :(
How about a large van with a really big set of speakers on the roof when they debate this?
I recommend a little Rage Against the Machine specifically "Fuck you! I won't do what you tell me!" at about 11 on the volume.
That bill is useless without a hilarious enumeration of forbidden words.
HP: Actually it seems to refer back to another law that pretty much describes offensive content as...more or less anything you want to be offended by.
A lot of southern states/counties/cities have profanity ordinances. I'm not sure how they aren't considered unconstitutional. Especially since they don't involve minors in any way. Just offensive words are illegal. Maybe no one has bothered to challenge them yet. They are still enforced, though.
JThompson: Laws stay on the books until someone challenges them in the courts and wins, until the legislature removes them, or until their built-in "sunset clause" takes effect.
(presuming they have such a clause -- not many do)
Many states have such "blue laws", which for the most part go unenforced.
Citation(s) please.
Dear Senator Ford,
STFU!.
Translated, this means that you should please Shut The Fuck Up you multi-stupid, moronic, pin-headed, bung-holed, demented fuckwit.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
A Voter
Makes me want to hire a crowd to march around yelling "Bush! Bush! Bush!" and see how many get nicked for profanity.
One man's profanity is another man's sanctity.
J-Dog,
As Ford is one of the few people of influence in the state who speaks out for gay rights, it would be rather a shame if he shut up completely. Did you take a look at the gay rights bills he has before the Senate, linked to in my post above? This doesn't make the profanity bill reasonable, but it does suggest that Ford ought not to be so forcefully dismissed.
He is a complex person, and some of his views I completely disagree with. However, I hate to see Ford himself (not just the bill) so negatively described and criticized at just the moment when we here in South Carolina very much need him and his gay rights bills to be taken seriously.
@13: JuliaL, just because this guy's a good guy in one thing doesn't make him a good one in everything.
I tend to agree with JuliaL on this one. The gay rights stuff is very forward thinking, so my response is more, WTF? than STFU. Maybe he paying off a pol debt and really doesn't expect this to pass? Who knows, very intereseting though.
The funniest/scariest thing about this isn't so much the attempt to ban basically anything that could be construed as rude, but the fact that it would make the crime a felony.
I promise you that all us South Carolinians aren't total fuckwads like my representative Henry Brown.
He's just a total idiot.
He also wanted to put into law a fine for low riding baggy pants.
"To get a clearer picture of Senator Ford, it's interesting to look at some other bills he has up for consideration right now."
Unless I'm reading those completely backwards, it looks like he's advocating for equality (or at least an approximation of it in the form of "civil unions") for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans. That's fantastic.
Just goes to show that someone can be right in one area and wrong in another.
Blue Fielder,
And because he's a bad guy in one thing doesn't make him a bad guy in everything, unless of course one demands ideological purity in all one's allies. The point here is that Ford is probably crucial to any hope of an expansion of gay rights in South Carolina. It's amusing to criticize the profanity bill. It's not so amusing (to me, at least)to criticize the person in such all-encompassing terms as to undermine his ability to work for gay rights.
What has this whole thread contributed to the present situation in South Carolina? Increasing the likelihood that a vague and unenforceable bill won't pass? Maybe, but probably not. Nobody who would have voted for it would be convinced by this discussion to change. An opportunity for anti-gay activists to claim that Ford's thinking is so bad that "even all those liberals on the internet think he's stupid and incompetent, though the names they call him are so bad I wouldn't repeat them"? Yes, and that can do some damage.
I'm not suggesting that anybody refrain from saying any criticism they honestly want to make. But I am suggesting that some of us at least might take a moment to look a little more closely at whether we really want to completely condemn, in extreme terms, not just the profanity bill and the thinking behind that one bill, but Ford himself as a man not worth listening to.
Marcus,
When the anti-gay rights people claim that Ford's gay-rights bill shows him to be uncaring about protecting innocent children from dreadful influences (and they will claim it), it may be possible to point to the profanity bill and argue that Ford is attempting on the contrary to protect children from any and all such influences.
It will fall to others, in fact possibly to some of those who are anti-gay rights (because they know the profanity bill could result in they themselves being charged), to prevent the profanity bill from passing, or possibly to the courts to declare it unconstitutional. In the meantime, discussion of it might usefully deflect some outraged attention away from the gay rights bills, and/or give Ford a little cover from the anti-innocent-child charges.
I'm fairly certain the first amendment would trump this bill in most cases.
Does this mean if someone swears at the car that just cut them off when their kid is in the backseat that they just committed a felony? Damn.
"publishes orally or in writing, exhibits, or otherwise makes available anything obscene to any a group or individual; or"
I like this part the most. I intend to press charges because I can assure you, I now find the word "Ford" to be extremely obscene.
JuliaL, Thanks, not so much pol debt as pol credit. Oh the the twisted skein of politics!
They had a law in the books kind of like this in Michigan for over 100 years (based on verbal profanity around woman and children), but was deemed unconstitutional.
http://www.avalanchejournal.com/stories/040102/upd_075-8555.shtml
"exhibits, or otherwise makes available anything obscene to any a group or individual;"
I like it. I live in Scarolina, and I find Baptist churches offensive. I'm willing to stop saying fuck when they get rid of all those churches.
Whoops. Obscene, offensive, whatever.
all us South Carolinians aren't total fuckwads like my representative Henry Brown.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp
Hey Rev,
Another of Brown's constituents here. (MTP reprazent)
Damn he's an embarrasment.
K
Interesting to follow the link to Title 16 Chapter 15, http://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t16c015.htm#16-15-370 . I suspect lots of states have laws like these on the books that are ancient and easier to leave live and unenforced than to remove them. Nonetheless, it is kinda creepy.
I agree with one of the above posters. An enumeration of banned words is in short order: cue George Carlin.
And thanks to JuliaL for providing links to his other bills! He supports civil unions and banning discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
In any event, the First amendment has never been interpeted as extending protection to obscenity. Trouble is, this bill includes words that can be interpreted in very broad terms, like "vulgar" and "indecent."