Gosh darn! Cussing banned in California town

SOUTH PASADENA, California (AP) — What the $%*&*? This community on the edge of Los Angeles has become a cuss-free zone. So if you’re headed to South Pasadena this week, be sure to turn down the volume on that Snoop Dogg CD, and, if the little old lady from Pasadena cuts you off in traffic, don’t even think about flipping her the bird.

Not that police will slap cuffs on you and haul your sorry, er, butt off to jail in light of the proclamation passed Wednesday by the City Council. But you could be shamed into better behavior by the unsettling glares of residents who take their reputation for civility seriously.

“It’s part of exercising self-discipline,” Mayor Michael Cacciotti explained. “It’s about treating each other with love and respect. Profane language causes pain, anger and could lead to violence.”

This law is completely absurd.

1. Kids’ making fun of each other causes pain. We’re not going to outlaw that. Not enforceable. 2. You can’t regulate for self-discipline. 3. What is the ground of the “could” in “could lead to violence”? Is it logically possible that cussing could lead to violence? Sure. But who cares? Eating applesauce could lead to violence–in that sense. So could using the sentence, “You are a danged punk.” Kids could fight over that. NOOOOOOOO!

The mayor wants to say that it is probable that cussing leads to violence. But where is the hard data on that?

I think people should cuss so that they don’t use violence. Cussing is a pressure valve for many people.

4. How can they claim that cussing is not free speech? Apparently the matter has not yet been settled at a very high judicial level; see Michael Troy’s answer to a question about Michigan’s cussing law–which was found unconstitutional.

Go back to the time before the Revolutionary War. If the king had banned cussing, you know damn well that, during the Boston Tea Party, Sam Adams would have been on the decks of those tea ships with double-whammies high in the air–and we’d be praising him for what an awesome cusser he was. “Oh, the king oppressed us and restricted our speech, but we told him to fuck off.”

That mayor doesn’t deserve death. He deserves a class in basic reasoning and logic.

-MC Spanky McGee

P.S. Yes, that’s more of my janky photoshop work.

Sphere: Related Content