Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Leading the Way

A town in Massachusetts has opted to hand out a $20.00 fine for “cussing” in public. If two people are merely talking to one another and profanity is part of their quiet conversation that wouldn’t warrant a ticket.

This isn’t Middleborough’s first stand on public cursing—they’ve had a bylaw against public cussing since 1968. That bylaw made it a crime to use profanity in a public place; however, it really wasn’t enforced because of the time and expense involved in a court case.

Now the folks have decriminalized profanity. It is only worthy of a fine.

Can you imagine the quandary for law enforcement? What constitutes cussing when four letter words are liberally sprinkled about in movies, television and in books?

I gather the good folks were upset when in their downtown area teens were using the infamous four-letter word as a noun, verb, adverb and adjective—and all in one sentence. Now the police will need to decide if their limited vocabulary constitutes a threatening diatribe.

Now why are the teens spending so much time congregating downtown and peppering the streets with profanity? Perhaps the citizens should fine the parents of the cussing youth—.

Now other towns are questioning whether they should jump on the bandwagon.

I don’t like replacing words with a small selection of words— and the ubiquitous four-letter word is so shop worn.

Massachusetts, from its earliest beginnings, has always been a leader in keeping the morals. At least it’s a twenty dollar fine and not the stocks.

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