Jeff Fox: Curses foiled again

A town in Massachusetts has decided to make it a crime to curse in public. These things get dicey quickly, but I sure understand where they’re coming from.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m pretty much an absolutist when it comes to the First Amendment. I work for a newspaper. I go to church. I belong to various organizations that get along just fine without the government’s blessing or interference, thank you very much. So freedom of expression, freedom of religion and freedom of assembly – things guaranteed by the First Amendment – are not abstract civics class ideas. As I see it, they are crucial to life as we know it in this richly blessed country.  

I also think history is clear that when government, however well intentioned, tries to carve out exceptions to those bright-line rules, it sets disturbing precedents and leaves us with unintended consequences. Freedom means letting people worship in the pew, worship their favorite tree or worship at the Temple of Starbucks with the Sunday paper if they so choose.

Freedom FROM orthodoxy – whether orthodoxy imposed by the state or by the culture – is important, too. But there are always enough knuckleheads to make things difficult.

Just drive down Noland Road or walk through the mall, and you’ll quickly be reminded of what the folks in Middleborough, Mass., are trying to get a handle on. It’s the barking of f-bombs and their variants at full volume for all to hear. It’s the excessively crude bumper sticker that leaves you wondering if the driver takes that car to church on Sunday mornings or uses it to drop off the kids at school. It’s the frustrated driver who can’t handle his emotions maturely or civilly and starts calling the other guy names.    

What was it Harry Truman said? I don’t give them hell. I just tell the truth, and they think it’s hell. How quaint. There was a time – Truman’s time – when even that language in public caused a little wincing and clearing of throats.

In the early days of television, the government disallowed certain words and concepts, and you couldn’t suggest that married people did the thing that in fact a lot of married people do. You know, that thing. Well, that’s just stupid, and we’ve moved past it, but now the bar of crudity is pretty low.  

There used to be a condescending but useful measure: Is this language suitable for the ears of women and children? By all measures, there are any number of people among us who just don’t care, who feel that their immediate desire to humiliate the other guy – loudly and publicly – is more important than the sensibilities of anyone else in earshot. It’s not only a dismissal of the humanity of the other person with crude and over-the-top epithets, but it demeans everyone else nearby.

That’s not illegal, but it is highly corrosive to society.  If I were king – what a grand idea – you wouldn’t be able to leave the house with those inappropriately sagging shorts. An f-bomb loud enough to be heard across the street would mean a couple of hours of community service, and picking up litter would be metaphorical justice. T-shirts and bumper stickers would need my personal approval. And those folks who turn left on red would be deported.  

Perhaps it’s best that I’m not king, though I promise to be benevolent and wise.  

There can be a fine line between wisdom and whimsy. Here’s what will happen. Some knucklehead who probably doesn’t even realize he’s in Middleborough, Mass., will get a ticket and refuse to pay the $20 fine. He’ll sue, and some luckless judge will have to spend time and effort deciding if the city has gone too far. It’s a safe bet that the guy with so much self-regard that he’s spewing anger and crudeness to the masses will be the same guy who feels victimized by society’s attempt to rein it in.

For sure, this is the least efficient way to educate those intent to ignore society’s notions of common sense and common decency.