Judge Orders Trump Supporter to Remove Biden Attack Banners

A New Jersey Municipal Court Judge has ordered someone to remove 3/10 of her anti-Biden attack banners put up in her home on the grounds that they run afoul of local anti-obscenity laws:

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A Trump supporter is refusing a New Jersey judge’s order to take down her anti-President Biden banners, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

Andrea Dick, a supporter of former President Trump, said she started hanging banners that displayed crude remarks toward Biden at her mother’s residence in Roselle Park, with one of the signs reading “Don’t Blame Me / I Voted for Trump.”

She added that her neighbors started to make complaints about the crude manner of her banners, specifically expressing concern about the fact that Dick lives close to a school, according to The Times.

Dick, 54, refused to take her banners down after local officials, citing an anti-obscenity ordinance, asked her to do so. She was subsequently fined and summoned to a court appearance.

Roselle Park Municipal Court Judge Gary A. Bundy last week ordered Dick’s mother, Patricia Dilascio, to remove three of her daughter’s 10 banners or be fined $250 daily, the Times reported.

“It’s my First Amendment right, and I’m going to stick with that," Dick said in an interview with the Times.

Roselle Park mayor Joseph Signorello III told The Times that he received complaints about Dick’s banners, saying that the town’s decision to remove them wasn’t “about politics in any way,” noting that they would do the same thing if a resident hung crude banners about Trump.

“It’s about decency,” Signorello told the newspaper.

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Legally the Judge's decision is the correct one as obviously obscenity generally doesn't fall within the 1st Amendment's scope. But I still find the entire notion that preventing people from being exposed to obscenity is more important than allowing free political expression to be absolutely ridiculous. There's no compelling state interest in preventing obscenity, and the "if most people think it has no redeeming qualities, then it doesn't" standard is ridiculous. It doesn't cause any harm to anyone, and speech shouldn't need to demonstrate value to be covered by the 1st amendment. /rant

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Originally Posted by time4fun

A New Jersey Municipal Court Judge has ordered someone to remove 3/10 of her anti-Biden attack banners put up in her home on the grounds that they run afoul of local anti-obscenity laws:




Legally the Judge's decision is the correct one as obviously obscenity generally doesn't fall within the 1st Amendment's scope. But I still find the entire notion that preventing people from being exposed to obscenity is more important than allowing free political expression to be absolutely ridiculous. There's no compelling state interest in preventing obscenity, and the "if most people think it has no redeeming qualities, then it doesn't" standard is ridiculous. It doesn't cause any harm to anyone, and speech shouldn't need to demonstrate value to be covered by the 1st amendment. /rant

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How do you reconcile all of this with your nonsensical argument that made up "hate speech" harms people? How come the word "Fuck" in the context of "Fuck you" doesn't harm anyone yet someone using homophobic slurs does and thus needs to be censored?

When I first heard this case I thought it was an HOA doing this and I just rolled my eyes and said who cares, when I found out it was actual local city officials doing this and a judge went along with the madness that's when I just about lost my shit. The government shouldn't be in the business of suppressing political speech, but that's where we are now after 4+ years of the left losing their minds because of Trump.

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Originally Posted by Tgo01

How do you reconcile all of this with your nonsensical argument that made up "hate speech" harms people? How come the word "Fuck" in the context of "Fuck you" doesn't harm anyone yet someone using homophobic slurs does and thus needs to be censored?

When I first heard this case I thought it was a HOA doing this and I just rolled my eyes and said who cares, when I found out it was actual local city officials doing this and a judge went along with the madness that's when I just about lost my shit. The government shouldn't be in the business of suppressing political speech, but that's what we have now after 4+ years of the left losing their minds because of Trump.

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Even though it's clear they weren't targeting the banners for their political content, I absolutely agree that the interest in protecting political speech is far more important than any imaginary benefits of an anti-obscenity law. There are some good reasons to suppress political speech in some cases (libel, for example), but they are VERY few. And this is not one of them.


As far as obscenity vs hate speech goes: that comparison, in my mind, is exactly what makes it so obvious that anti-obscenity laws are ridiculous. To be clear though- hate speech isn't illegal. It has to be tied to acts of violence for that. And while I think there should be more legal controls on some versions of hate speech, it's really not totally clear to me where those lines would be drawn.

The reality of the situation is that hate speech does cause direct harm. There's a good 60-80 years of research on this at least, and this is a fact that isn't in dispute. It causes psychological harm to direct recipients and also to members of the larger community even if there's no corresponding hate crime involved. But this is why Hate crimes (an extreme form of hate speech) warrant additional punishment, for example, because they actually cause more long-term psychological damage to victims than the same crimes without the hate speech component, and they cause harm to members of the community as well.

Think about domestic terrorism. Someone blowing up a local building for fun causes some community distress, but someone blowing it up as part of a planned terrorist attack against your country causes significantly more distress and to far more people. Same with blowing up a church vs blowing up a Walgreens. We treat the situations differently because the harm caused by one is far more significant than that caused by the other. Hate speech (including hate crimes) IS domestic terrorism. It explicitly attacks communities, not just individuals.

Now, in fairness, not all (or even most) hate speech involves a hate crime. But there's also a LOT of research that directly links hate speech to violence. As in people who are exposed to hate speech about others and who engage in it themselves become more likely to commit hate crimes against the communities the hate speech is directed at. When hate speech incidents increase, hate crimes increase. This is a well documented, observable, and sadly predictable phenomenon.

Meanwhile, as far as I know there's no real consensus (or even much evidence period) that exposure to obscenity (barring extreme forms like child pornography) has any negative impact on people. Nor that it somehow leads to people hurting others. The Courts have actually acknowledged that more than a few times. It's exempt from the 1st Amendment because it has "no value" as speech.

To which I say- fuck you SCOTUS. That's not your decision to make.

Imagine that, time4fun hates free speech.

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Originally Posted by time4fun

Even though it's clear they weren't targeting the banners for their political content

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Why is that "clear"? Because they said so?

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Originally Posted by time4fun

it's really not totally clear to me where those lines would be drawn.

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Which is why the idea of hate speech is bogus.

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Originally Posted by time4fun

The reality of the situation is that hate speech does cause direct harm. There's a good 60-80 years of research on this at least, and this is a fact that isn't in dispute. It causes psychological harm to direct recipients and also to members of the larger community even if there's no corresponding hate crime involved. But this is why Hate crimes (an extreme form of hate speech) warrant additional punishment, for example, because they actually cause more long-term psychological damage to victims than the same crimes without the hate speech component, and they cause harm to members of the community as well.

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That's not what I asked. How come "Fuck you" isn't "hate speech which causes harm" yet someone saying "Fuck you, <insert whichever slur here you think should be outlawed>" is suddenly hate speech which requires civil and criminal penalties? There's a reason "slippery slope" is no longer a logical fallacy, it's a full blown legit counterargument, as you're displaying quite clearly here.

"Hate speech needs to be outlawed!"
"The word 'fuck' needs to be outlawed!"

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Originally Posted by Tgo01

How do you reconcile all of this with your nonsensical argument that made up "hate speech" harms people? How come the word "Fuck" in the context of "Fuck you" doesn't harm anyone yet someone using homophobic slurs does and thus needs to be censored?

When I first heard this case I thought it was an HOA doing this and I just rolled my eyes and said who cares, when I found out it was actual local city officials doing this and a judge went along with the madness that's when I just about lost my shit. The government shouldn't be in the business of suppressing political speech, but that's where we are now after 4+ years of the left losing their minds because of Trump.

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Don't lie, you wake up losing your shit erryday.

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Originally Posted by Bhaalizmo

Don't lie, you wake up losing your shit erryday.

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k

I thought it was important to supply an image of said "attack banner" so we had some more context.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021...isable=upscale

I also thought it was important to show the abundance of attendees at the CNN town hall that Joe stumbled and bumbled through last night.

https://algulf.net/wp-content/upload...-Town-Hall.jpg

The judge in this case doesn't understand obscenity. Without even seeing the signs, I know that they are not obscene.

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Originally Posted by ClydeR

The judge in this case doesn't understand obscenity. Without even seeing the signs, I know that they are not obscene.

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Easy enough to quote, she's got f*ck Biden signs, I guess that's the 3/10 they asked her to take down. If that sort of word is offensive, I guess...