WTF?

Just last week I railed against New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposed plan to make it illegal for bars, restaurants and movie theaters to sell you a soda larger than 16 oz. In the week since the measure was introduced it has been met with universal ridicule, but I should point out despite all the criticism it still hasn't been killed. At the time I wrote I was worried that if this was allowed to become law it would just open the doors for a litany of silly provisions to be brought up for votes across the country, all designed to allow the government to treat us like small children. However, even I didn't think it was going to happen this quickly. After a town hall vote on Monday night, a new law was passed which would make it illegal to swear in public in the Massachusetts town of Middleboro. If you want to be technical what this measure actually does is decriminalize swearing, because the town has had a measure against public profanity for years. Since that is rarely enforced what the new measure does it drop it down to a minor offense which allows the police to simply write $20 tickets like they would any normal speeding ticket. No word on whether the police would then have the power to call your mother and demand she wash your mouth out with soap or send you to bed with no dinner.

[Sidebar: You know, every now and again I have to sit back and wonder if these lawmakers are proposing these insanely stupid laws to distract us from the fact that they can't seem to get any of the important laws passed. We have to go into overtime to come to agreements on the year's budget or extending unemployment benefits, but the "no large soda" and "watch your language" acts of 2012 are pushed right to the front of the line. In their messed-up logic, we may not agree with the laws they are attempting to make but at least they can point to them and say they were trying to get some legislation passed. Either that or they are trying to convince us that things are going so well they have time to worry about this kind of stuff. I mean, what kind of idiot would be worried about trying to curtail swearing when there are so many other problems we still face on a day-to-day basis? Clearly, if we're down to worrying about swearing than all the other pressing business must have been concluded. With that in mind I'm not really sure if the fact that this measure was proposed by the town's people and passed by a wide margin should make me encouraged or discouraged about the entire democratic process.]

Now, even though the town says this measure was only put in place to curtail swearing in public areas and will only be used to stop people from doing things such as playing profanity-laced music at high volumes where people have gathered, as you may have guessed I am against this idea in all its forms. I happen to believe in a little thing called free speech and know that the purpose of the First Amendment is to defend the speech which people hate, not the stuff people love. If I want to run down the street screaming profanities at the top of my lungs that should be my right. Also, you have to question the logic of a town like Middleboro, which is one of the places trying to lure a casino to Southern Massachusetts, passing a law like this. Sure, it might be enforced twice a year at most, but we all know most people won't read passed the headline, as evidenced by the fact that all day today people were ripping them for passing a measure which on the surface sounds like it wants to limit the things you are allowed to say. Even though the actual law is not nearly that freedom-crushing, to a lot of people it will send a confusing message that gambling is fine while swearing is bad. Also, not exactly great PR. Considering most casinos advertise under the idea that "this is the place to go wild", a town which wants to ban swearing might not be where they want to build.

Now, I'd get more fired up about this but I just can't because this is what I like to call a "Heavy Sigh" moment. Often when someone makes a foolish suggestion snarky people like myself want to fire back something which points out just how silly they are for even opening their mouths and allowing those words to come out. But the "Heavy Sigh" move is what happens when someone says something which is so far beyond stupid that you can't even make fun of it because the knowledge that there are people out there whose brains work in this way makes you sad. So, all you can do is sigh heavily and respond seriously. You saw a lot of this during the ObamaCare debate when crazy old Fox News watchers would stand up in town hall meeting and yell about how ObamaCare was going to include death panels which were coming to kill them. Whichever poor local rep was there would have to stand up, let themselves be screamed at by an obviously uninformed person, suppress every urge to call them a moron behind a heavy sigh and then try to calmly explain to that person why they were unbelievably wrong without actually saying that phrase. In all seriousness, watching these people do something I could never do in a hundred years (I'd snap after about four idiots) was the moment I realized politics would never be my thing. I'm far too brutally honest. All you need to know is that my first reaction to hearing a town wanted to ban swearing was to say: are you fucking kidding me? Clearly, my political career would be short-lived.