Do you think police officers should give people tickets for excessive swearing?
I have heard some people who use The F word or some other bad word in every sentence. They don't even care children are present. Perhaps if they had to pay a fine they might learn to watch their language.
I don't really have that strong an opinion on this one.. I grew up thinking it was wrong to swear so I rarely do. But subsequent generations, sometimes from older generations, learn that it's more and more acceptable... and now most people do it.... I try to tell my daughter off for it... but the thing is.. all her peers do it... so where do you start?
They probably do something like that in Singapore. Over there you can be caned for spitting on the sidewalk.
It's rare that I come across people swearing in public egregiously. I can see why someone might want some action taken against someone doing that, but realistically I don't think it's necessary.
If we started that, what would happen to our first Amendment rights? Policing people over their speech in public is not something I can get behind. Sorry, but we can't have it both ways. It's hypocritical. They're just words. We are the ones responsible for placing a stigma on them.
The police have enough to do. More than enough. They have laws to enforce, the abridgement of Free Speech is not currently law. To even begin a process to accomplish what you describe is a slippery slope. Where does it end? Tyranny.
Actually I thought it was against the law to use offensive language in public. I was with my son's boy scout troop touring the local police station where one of the female officers was obviously having a fierce argument with her husband/boyfriend on the phone and finally she slammed the phone down and started yelling for the captain she said "that's it he said F...... on the phone, tell the captain". So I gathered from that it was definitely something that could get a person into trouble.
Every state has their own laws regarding it. Usually a person has to do more than simply cursing during a conversation in public. At a minimum it has to be proven they were a public nuisance. Bozette's post is a great example of why charges of swearing in public would be thrown out. I suspect with your police incident, there was a lot more going on than his using one curse word.
Benedict Arnold 