Snapped this pic on the road the other day on Long Island.
Regards,
Posted on 07/07/2015 12:46:05 PM PDT by Sopater
It’s the NANNY-ST8 for your license plate.
In addition to outright vulgarity and racism, some states prohibit messages on vanity license plates that can be viewed as “anti-government.”
In Pennsylvania, for example, where five state employees in Harrisburg get to decide what’s allowed on vanity plates, banned words include “PUTSCH,” a German word roughly equivalent to the more-well-known France term “coup d’état” but with an uncomfortable connection to Hitler and the Nazis.
But “ENDFED,” a reference to libertarian-led efforts to shut down the Federal Reserve Bank, is also on the do-not-license list, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Melissa Daniels explains that any reference to drugs or sex are also banned, no matter how subtle — “Grass” is banned because it could be an alias for marijuana — or odd: “SexNazi” got the hook, though we’d like to hear a bureaucrat give the official definition for that one.
The wordsmiths at the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation are always on the look-out for new offenders.
“When vanity plate applications arrive, PennDOT license specialists check them against a list of 20,000 dirty words and banned phrases. They look up Internet slang and scroll through acronym dictionaries,” Daniels explains.
Presumably, they pass the rest of their day by playing Scrabble and listening to “Stairway To Heaven” on repeat, trying to find new double entendres for drug use.
But don’t blame Pennsylvania for its silly rules — pretty much every state does this.
In Connecticut, “BALZ” and “SCREWU” are illegal, probably because they offend the state’s charming, idyllic vision of itself.
But the CT Post reported last month the state also bans “PITA” and “TOBASCO,” seemingly for no reason at all.
Before plates are handed out to drivers, the requests are first automatically reviewed and checked for potential offensive phrasing through the banned license plate list, according to William Seymour, director of communications of Connecticut DMV. More than 1,000 words make the list.
We’ll concede the government gets to decide what’s allowed and not allowed on license plates, because it is the state that is making and selling them (is it really “selling” if they are mandatory?) to car-owners.
Indeed, that’s exactly what the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month in a case that flew way under the radar of the court’s other big decisions.
In a 5-4 ruling, the court held that Texas’ decision to ban the confederate flag from state license plates was not a violation of free speech because license plates are a form of “government speech.”
“When the government speaks, it is not barred by the Free Speech Clause from determining the content of what it says” wrote Justice Stephen Breyer in the majority opinion.
In the wake of that decision, Virginia Gov. Terry Mcaullife has asked Attorney General Mark Herring to challenge a 2002 federal court decision that Virginia could not block the Confederate Veterans from displaying its logo, which includes the Confederate flag, on state license plates.
You could even make a case — though a less constitutionally sound one — that the state should limit expressions of outright vulgarity or blatant racism on license plates, in the name of keeping our highways more civilized and cutting down on road rage, perhaps.
But is it worth it to have taxpayer-paid bureaucrats spending all day searching through UrbanDictionary.com and scouring the darkest corners of 4chan to make sure no one will be driving around with the latest slang drug reference affixed to the back of their car?
For that matter, is there any good reason at all to ban so-called “anti-government” statements on license plates? It’s not as if someone can really make a convincing case for anarchy in 10 letters or less.
Or can they?
GUBMENT SUX
Nailed it.
Snapped this pic on the road the other day on Long Island.
Regards,
Knew a lady in Idaho who got a random tag for her new car that read 8ME. Her husband was a little irritated.
Know a lady in my present home state who managed to get a vanity tag that read MSBITCHE.
She was nice to look at (still is) but she definitely believed in truth-in-advertising.
Shucks, I guess FUBO is right out.
Well since the government actually ISSUES plates it’s not really a first amendment issue. Nobody is saying you can’t put something ELSE on your car that says these things, only that the government isn’t going to HELP you say these things. And there is a bit of a cottage industry out there trying to find ways to sneak things by.
Yes, it was real. I actually saw it a number of times.
What about the anti-government message on every New Hampshire license plate?
"Live Free or Die," that is, not "Cops Lie" (which was one fringe political candidate's plate).
Once upon a time, New Hampshire prosecuted a Jehovah's Witness who covered over the slogan because it conflicted with his beliefs.
I’ve seen TAX2DTH on a Kansas tag.
Well now...sounding a lot like Russia.
He did it in protest of government corruption. I'm not sure how far this guy thinks ahead. In 2012 he changed his name to "Human". Then he ran for state rep. last year, and was listed on the ballot as "Human". I think he got knocked out in the primary.
Most poverty results from an inability to think ahead. I suspect that unless there's a trust fund, his life will not be a happy or productive one.
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