Governments are weird. Maybe “weird” isn’t the right word. The more accurate word may be “opportunistic.” When it comes to speech they don’t like, they move into…

Governments are weird. Maybe “weird” isn’t the right word. The more accurate word may be “opportunistic.” When it comes to speech they don’t like, they move into this mode. If they think they can silence it, they will try to. And they’ll do this while still pretending the speech they’re trying to control is nothing more than their own.

Dig if you will, my brothers: vanity plates. Government speech or personal speech? Those who view this rationally likely believe that the message on a vanity license plate is the expression of the plate’s purchaser. That it’s delivered by a state-issued plate doesn’t matter. We don’t actually believe the government is trying to send a message with their IMGOD or COPSLIE or LOVETOFU vanity plate. (ALL ACTUAL CASES.)

Instead, we would logically infer the truncated statement on the vanity plate expresses the views of the person paying for this privilege.

But the government also believes it has some obligation to “protect” other drivers from being offended by the personal expressions of others, which is a supremely ridiculous belief to entertain, even professionally. So, the entities issuing plates tend to err on the side of absurdity (governments tend to phrase this as “caution”), rejecting any plate any government plate content moderator might view as “offensive.”

  • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    5·
    1 year ago

    If you read the ACLU complaint their examples are less about political bias and more about just the arbitrary nature of the decisions. Most of their examples are “you approved this and therefore you shouldn’t have rejected a similar thing”. Like some approvers read the vague statute to say “BEERRUN” is ok, while others think “BEER4ME” is not. Which, ok, sure, maybe the MVD should send out a memo clarifying what’s ok and what isn’t, but is this actually lawsuit worthy? Are civil rights in South Dakota really doing so well that this is where the ACLU should be directing its limited funds?

    And they’re not just saying “be more consistent”, they’re demanding that every rejected license plate be approved when the policy is defined to reject:

    “vulgar words, terms, or abbreviations[;]” that are “offensive or disrespectful of a race, religion, color, deity, ethnic heritage, gender, sexual orientation, disability status or political affiliation[;]"

    So their examples are BEER4ME, but their suit is almost certainly going to also be freeing up plates like “DIEJEWS” and “WHTPWR”.