The California Assembly just passed a resolution declaring the first week of March to be “Cuss Free Week”. They can stick their f*cking resolution up their f*cking asses. I’ll say what I damn well please.
* – Edited by Dean. By policy we don’t swear openly on the front page, for the simple reason that it causes the site to become inaccessible to people who have bluenose employers that block sites with “profanity.”
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At a certain point in time, teenagers even those forty plus ought to get the point.
Then again, it depends on who’s ox is getting gored at the moment, one might suppose.
A state who elects representatives who use taxpayer time and money to debate silliness like that is a state that is no longer a serious state. Or nation.
cc,
It was a resolution, not an assembly bill.
Nobody had to debate. Just like in a family home where a parent says:
We would appreciate it, if you knocked off the foul language.
McK, are those Assembly members not elected? Do you actually think there was no discussion or debate among the Assembly members themselves?
My point stands.
Oh, and by the way, your (hopefully) inadvertent comparison of the Assembly members to the “parents” of the citizenry is precisely why I find this so laughable. They are NOT parents. They should not take it upon themselves to act as if they are.
Yahoo! Free Cusses. All week? Can I have one with a blue streak?
I’m a logger. If there isn’t cussin goin on then it is serious, somebody probably got hurt.
Seriously. We are having problems with our Prime Minister acting like a dictator. We would like to be able to point to our neighbours to the south, people whom democracy is most synonomis, as examples. De’mockary? Is it a word? Is it one now?
Cuss free week…Now I’ve heard it all. Please. No more.
Resolutions like this pass in state legislatures–and the U.S. Congress–pretty much daily. Without debate or floor discussion. Almost always by consensus and unanimously. One or a handful of members want something, it makes the run around everyone’s office and if no one objects it hits the floor and is passed without objection. Likely most members barely noticed it. It’s the sort of thing that hits the legislator’s desk like this:
“Floor motion tomorrow, resolving that Girl Scout Cookies are good for America.”
“Yeah OK.”
Then someone somewhere gets a little certificate or something.
Something like 90% of the motions that go through the U.S. Congress are passed unanimously, and they’re all little piddly things like this. Resolution recognizing bananas as wholesome. Resolution saying schoolchildren should be encouraged to brush their teeth. And so on.
Governors and Presidents issue stuff like that all the time too, BTW.
This has no more significance than a photo-op.
Normally, I think swearing is best employed in moderation if at all. But I agree with CC here — even if we should be swearing less, it’s not the state legislature’s place to tell us so. For them to try to do so is patronizing, and it’s a distraction from the core functions of government. If they’ve got this much spare time, we should shorten the legislative session and reduce their salaries proportionately.
I realize all governments do things like this, but we’re talking about a state with serious fiscal issues here. While every one of the 50 US states is having financial issues, California is one of the worst. And they’re wasting their time doing this?
Dean, sure idiot politicians do similar things all the time with feel-good legislation. But this is different than the vast majority of “make the state fruit a cherry” bills. This is literally a group of hypocritical moral meddlers demonstrating their obvious belief that they ARE the “parents” and their citizens ARE the “children.”
It’s offensive on multiple levels. I’m dead sick of our elected leaders taking on airs like this. They are NOT parents, and I don’t need a bunch of feel-good hypocrites pronouncing “cuss free weeks” when I’m dead sure that most, if not all, of them are more profane than I am.
its a great idea 1. it has absolutely no legal authority or binding impact, 2. makes for a great awareness tool when trying to educate a 7yr old who is starting to notice this kind of language on television about how swearing isnt just bad because I say so, but is actually a common social ethic that we try to abide by as polite and civil people. And frankly she probably hears me swear more than anyone else – a “Cuss Free Week” is such a brilliant idea because the parents will be the ones consciously making an effort in front of their kids – that sends a message, that WE arent hypocrites and are recognizing the problem. That leaves an impression on a young persons mind.
A few weeks ago we went to see AVATAR. Apart from mild language in teh gilm, there was a foul-mouthe d couple ahead of us who were unable to comprehend that in a public area, there are children present. No, im not against silencig them. But a Cuss Free Week in their childhood might have taight them some frackin manners.
and yeah if you dont have kids, you dont give a shit, i get it… believe me, I do.
See it was about teenagers after all:
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/bizarre&id=6606733
How did I intuit that from the get- go ?
LOL, the idea that this resolution will make a dent in public profanity is almost as hilarious as the resolution itself. This is the pronounced libertarian streak in me I suppose, but besides the disdain I have for this sort of useless moral meddling, I have equal, if not more, disdain for people wasting time on this sort of thing with money grabbed from public taxes.
This is the very definition of useless feel-good legislating. It won’t make a damn bit of difference. The idea that teenagers will react to this with anything but a snicker when they routinely ignore actual LAWS about behavior (such as music volume, loitering, smoking, drinking, etc.) is so monumentally naive that it’s almost cute.
CC i was talking about kids, not teenagers. You seem to forget that there’s a decade in between being a baby and a teenager. But thats far more critical in teaching them values.
No, this piece of PR wont suffice, nor is it necessary, to teach kids to be civil. But it helps, even if marginally – and more importantly, it gives a kick to parents.
You just dont understand. Taking a victimized tone is silly because this affects you in no way whatsoever.
McK the “No Cussing Week” thing doesnt seem to be related to the story about the No Cussing Club which was founded by that enterprising young kid. WHo is pretty admirable for his determination, even in the face of obscene death threats. Thats a heroic, courageous, and principled kid right there.
Maybe he inspired the resolution, but the value of teh resolution isnt teenage behavior but younger.
Not to sound like a ninny, but I fully endorse Aziz and McKiernan here.
Yes, I served in the military and cursed a whole lot (and still do, sometimes).
But, as I get older, I tend to realize that civility and humility are precious commodities that don’t have infinite supplies. This recognition/realization becomes quite acute when raising kids and seeing so many of their potty-mouth peers running around clueless, poorly-dressed, ill-mannered causing trouble. Yes, I love them, coach their basketball and soccer teams, have them over for endless dinners and sleepovers, but it would be nice if they shaped up a bit.
Big picture — life is big and beautiful. Why contribute to the cultural smog when you don’t have to?
–HB
Those cocksuckers in the CA legislature waste more time taking a dump than they do on these fucking resolutions so the whole “wasting time” thing really isn’t meaningful unless you bastards want to rant that legislators need to shit on their own time and get back to work.
A resolution is not a law, it’s merely the .gov having and expressing an opinion. And they can express any damn opinion they want as long as they don’t make it some fucking law. Their opinions are no more paternalistic than your’s or Wal-Mart’s. Opinions are like assholes, they all stink but mine.
Edited to include more profanity, just because, bitch! :-)
As a parent myself, I have never given a lot of credibility to the notion of shielding children from “cussing.” Mind you, I do support parents being able to teach their values to their children, so if you’re one of those people with a hangup about “cussing,” (which, in English, mostly consists of using Anglo Saxon rather than French or Latin) that’s your business. Every parent has to make their call. But personally, I think it’s a bizarre hangup and I’d rather not instill it in my kids. Although things may have changed with my ex- (I never know these days), we’ve never tried to shield the kids from harmless words. We have tried to teach them that some things are not polite, including swearing, and that people get weirded out when children swear so they should learn not to do it. But otherwise, I’d rather people not make the effort to shield my child from something as utterly harmless as words.
I mention this only because I *do* have children and I *don’t* care if they hear swearing. I talk to them about it, and that’s about it. Making a hangup/taboo/fetish over harmless things like “fuck” and “shit” strikes me as… well, silly, to be blunt.
(Note the irony that I edited the front page article while saying this.)
You guys are missing the point. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try to be civil in public, I’m saying THIS sort of nonsense is just a waste of time and money, not to mention being a load of sanctimonious hypocritical crap.
If we really want to stop the profanity then we have to stop it in the culture, not through silly proclamations from a bunch of self-appointed moral watchdogs. The reason swearing is rampant is not because teenagers are doing it on the street, it’s because we allow it to be piped into our homes, into our radios and onto our iPods 24×7. When kids are making songs about raping women and shooting cops #1 hits, this sort of legislative windmill tilting is just pathetic.
You want to do something about it, stop the flood coming into every kid’s eyes and ears through TV, movies, radio, popular music and video games.
If you aren’t going to do that, then you’re just pissing up a rope.
Personally, compared to what the gov’t usually does, pissing up a rope is an improvement.
When I figure out what I want to say, I’ll get back to it.
I wish we could get our legislators to spend more time on questions like these. What if they were required to spend most of their time working on ethical handbooks which did not have the force of law?
I bet elected representatives could produce really good ethical handbooks if we were watching and voted them out when they messed up.
Yours,
Tom, aka Wince
Who decides which words are cuss words and which ones are acceptable?
That’s where true power emanates with proclamations such as this.
And that position will naturally carry a six figure, tax payer funded salary, with an inflation indexed pension…
Right now, Dean decides which cuss words are acceptable (bugger, damn, ass) and unacceptable (fuck), at least on this site. But I suppose in the future he’ll have to comply with state and national standards.
Eric, well, only during “cuss free blog” week…
Wait, is “Frak”, “Frell” and “Kriff” acceptable on this site?
I only ban words on the front page that I know are likely to cause people to suddenly not be able to access this site because their admins at work have installed filters to look for those words.
It is a service to readers, nothing more.
I would note once again that the story we are discussing was likely the effort of one or two legislators (these guys, apparently) and it was just one of those standard, routine, pretty much daily things where any legislator can get any petty bullshit on the floor he wants and it will pass by consensus because it doesn’t have the force of law and no one gives a crap. If anyone but those two spent more than 30 seconds on it, I’d be shocked, and they probably did it because they thought it was cute and would score them some points with bluenoses in their home districts.
It has no more significance than a resolution declaring that puppies are cute. (Which they aren’t by the way, they’re smelly, destructive and annoying.)
In South Dakota, they just defeated a bill (a bill, not just a resolution) about whether to ban teenagers under the age of 16 from using tanning beds.
Tanning beds…
Um…tanning beds…
There is skyrocketing unemployment, housing crises, budget shortfalls at the state level, a myriad of other important issues to address, and the legislature is debating in committee and on the floor about…
tanning beds.
I am chagrined.
Somehow anyone that suggests it might generate some sort of merit to refrain from cussing voluntarily in social circles, needs to be condemned for breaking the code of our enormous monocultural pit, we call America.
Oppose them, and you are a blue-nosed busy body. If you are a teenager that starts a high school “no cussing club” and the kid gets death threats.
I’m fairly sure I’m not blue-nosed and can swear with the best.
Ironically, I’ve never heard my son , use the f word once in his forty + years. I doubled checked that last night and asked my wife, if she has ever heard him use the f-word. She said, she can recall no such incident.
Well — EXCCUSSE ME — for suggesting a non-generic approach.
I guess I just don’t get it. My inner teenager died a long time ago. My inner parent still lives on. And I think that is a valid approach.
One would thing that a government dealing with the throes of economic collapse could find something more interesting to spend its time on.
McK, since you think this is a valid approach, and I don’t, let’s check on the resolution’s progress in a year.
You wanna make any bets on the effectiveness of it?
CC,
My point is that I am neutral on the resolution, not whether it is effective. What I don’t understand is the overkill, that those who oppose it deem necessary that must be imposed as though the resolution itself is some sort of threat to their worldview.
McK, if you don’t understand our objections, then you either aren’t reading them, or you’re not comprehending them. To reiterate:
1. This is a waste of taxpayer time and money.
2. This is a totally ineffective effort that is more likely to have a negative backlash than a positive impact. (“Hey, we must really be getting to those old farts!”)
3. It is a classic manifestation of the accelerating impulse of elected officials to believe and act as if they are the public’s “parents.”
4. If our elected officials actually want to do something about profanity and incivility, they need to control what comes into our homes through the media. They don’t have the guts to do that, and so they do these asinine exercises in political feel-good self-promotion instead.
Understand now?
CC,
Thanks. I’ll do my own thinking on the matter.
So notwithstanding your dogmatic blather, who put you in charge how others shud think ?
It was really nice around here during your sabbatical.
McK, lol, I’m sure you had a ball without me around.
Your dismissiveness of my valid points is not compelling. Who put YOU in charge of telling others how THEY should think? Or, more importantly to the context of THIS thread…
Who put YOU (or these folks) in charge of telling others how THEY should ACT? I find it absolutely hilarious that you are now lecturing ME about telling others how to think when that’s the whole POINT of this resolution, which YOU support and I oppose. LOL, you can’t make this stuff up. Take your own advice McK.
There is almost never any point to arguing with McKiernan. ;-)
> One would thing that a government dealing with the throes of economic collapse could find something more interesting to spend its time on.
Given that doing nothing is almost always better than what they decide to do, perhaps fripperies is the best we can hope for.
Yours,
Tom, aka Wince
Do you ever get the feeling you’re just a small internet ant that was recently awarded first amendment rights and them some brainiac with size 16 shoes comes by to stomp on your parade :), of course he is fully justified by his actions because he knows how to PARSE sentences more gooder and use CAPITAL letters effectavely.
Tom:
Good point… hmmm….. something to think about. Frivolous, sanctimonious frippery is almost always better than finding some other nonsense to spend taxpayer money on…. Worth thinking about.
Dean, you’re right, you know. The same goes for mikeca. I am in a 12 step internet debate program right now. I think “ignoring the noise” is step 6. I’ll get there eventually. I gotta get past step 5 first though.
Step 5 is “using italics instead of CAPITALIZATION to emphasize.” I’m still working on that one.
Nothing more to add. Just didn’t want you to have the last word.
OK, that’s fine. You can have the last word then. ;)
I thought it was my job to kill threads by having the last word!\
Yours,
Tom
Sorry Tom,
That’s not your job.
Oh . I didn’t know it was someones job. Does the last one to comment have to notify the others? What if they comment back. Who turns out the light?…
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