What the $#*&?! Arlington, Virginia Fining People $250 a Pop for Cussing

The urge to randomly insert a bunch of cuss words into this story simply for the hell of it will have to be suppressed for the time being.

Apparently in Arlington, Virginia, not only will you potentially get fined hundreds of dollars for saying “curse words” or what they are calling “blue language,” but officials are trying to widen the net to include an even wider array of words they can fine people for!

Why? It’s big business.

Via Counter Current News:

If you are in the City of Arlington, you could be faced with a $250 if you say words that county officials have defined as “profanity”.

The Arlington County Board recently approved the bizarre measure which increases penalties for both public intoxication as well as what they are calling “blue language” from $100 to $250.

This code change was adopted during last Saturday’s board meeting, not in 1852. It came at the request of the Arlington Police Department itself, which reported making 664 arrests for public inebriation as well as “potty language” in 2014 alone!

Now, they say they want more latitude, to include a wider array of words that they can arrest people for. [emphasis added]

Pretty sure this totally violates free speech. Note that it is the cops who requested this. Why, so they can extort more money from the general populace? Because cops never cuss, right?

Speaking of cops, does the Arlington Police Department realize that the U.S. Court of Appeals just ruled back in January that it is totally LEGAL to flip off the police? No, you cannot get arrested for simply flipping off a cop in this country, even though everyone knows what that universal hand gesture stands for.

In fact, the FCC got stung by the U.S. Court of Appeals as well back in 2010 for cuss word censorship and fines:

A federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down a government policy that can lead to broadcasters being fined for allowing even a single curse word on live television, saying it is unconstitutionally vague and threatens speech “at the heart of the First Amendment.”

The arguments about what kind of nation that might make us these days in the eyes of your grandma are, frankly, irrelevant.

The Constitution wasn’t written because the founding fathers were concerned first and foremost that our freedoms might offend some little old lady. In fact, the Bill of Rights was written down on paper because they knew full well that the information therein was probably going to piss someone off, but they wanted to make sure people knew we have been endowed with certain unalienable rights and exactly what those rights are.

The First Amendment is, among other things, about not abridging free speech.

Tossing out fines at $250 a pop for saying cuss words (and widening the definition of what those even are, a huge slippery slope grab to even more power in chilling free speech) is definitely an abridgment.

In the meantime, Arlington is just raking in the dough extorting its citizens until someone gets wise enough to hire a constitutional lawyer and take this mess to a higher court.