No Sympathy for the Devil-Babes
Matt Welch | February 11, 2005, 2:14pm
Coop, the L.A. artist famous for his devil babes and hot rods, is not welcome in Clovis, New Mexico:
Stickers on a Clovis man's car portray cartoon images of bare-breasted female devils in sexually compromising positions. And the images have caught the attention of Clovis police.
Officials have charged 31-year-old Dean Young, the owner of a yellow Ford Focus displaying the images, with distribution of sexually oriented materials to minors. The charge is a misdemeanor carrying a maximum punishment of 364 days in jail and $1,000 fine. [...]
"Once you look at the picture it obviously depicts a sexual act. That's far beyond what is depicted on the mudflaps truckers have," [state prosecutor Chris] Chandler said.
What's the offending image? Check it out ... though I also enjoy the newspaper description:
The stickers depict one devil with its mouth around another's tail, which may suggest oral sex, according to the Dec. 12 police report.
Best of all is Young's reason for displaying such blatant tail-sucking:
He said he put the stickers on his car to protest a Clovis law prohibiting alcohol and beer sales on Sunday, something he believes is brought on by churchgoers.
"I'm offended by church people saying I can't drink on Sundays, so I put the devil chicks on my car, because I figured it would offend them right back," Young said. "That's not a government issue, because if it was, why not on Tuesday or why not on Wednesday."
kevrob | February 11, 2005, 5:37pm | #
UFP -
Democracy is all fine and good, but the essence of a free republic is that only
some decisions are subject to governmental decision-making, and I, and I suspect many who read this board, don't think that restrictions on selling booze (or other recreational drugs), with perhaps some exceptions*, are legitimate.
Imagine if you ran a restaurant or tavern in Clovis, but you were a member of a religion that kept a different Sabbath day. You might want to close on Saturday, and open on Sunday. I'd say that a law that demanded that every business close at least one day a week, but left it to the owner to choose the day, might pass 1st Amendment muster, even though I think it would violate my right to enjoy my property and liberty. Of course, for those who keep no Sabbath, their law is plainly illegitimate.
As for having the foresight to stock up on hooch, I have a different view. Years ago, I could work late, get home by 10:00 p.m., and still have two hours to wander over to a local grocer and buy a six-pack of beer. I could even stop for a drink at a tavern, and buy a sixer for take-out, as long as I was out the door by midnight. Ninnies on the city council of the state capital passed an ordinance pushing those sales back to 9:00 p.m. It was sold as a measure to combat drunk driving, drinking by the "underage" and as a general neo-prohibitionist tool to reduce drinking overall. When the same measure was proposed in my town, a smaller competing grocer, who also sold beer, lobbied in favor of the shorter hours. They must have figured that the competition, which was open 24 hours and had a parking lot, would lose so much business on the 9-12 p.m. shift that they couldn't afford it. The ordinance passed, and the 24-hour shop went into decline. First it started closing at 11 p.m., then the property was sold to a national drug store chain, who were unable to get the liquor license transferred to them.
When I was asked to sign the petition supporting the ordinance, I opined that, as far as alcohol abuse was concerned, having to plan ahead was a possible sign of dependence, whereas a healthy attitude towards drink came with the knowledge that, if one wanted it, one could easily go out and get it.
Religious reasons aside, many of these picayune local restrictions are an attempt to cartelize commerce. What they can't do voluntarily due to the (also illegitimate) anti-trust laws, they try to institute via legislation.
Kevin
*Selling watered whiskey, for example, should be a hanging offense. :)
anon | February 11, 2005, 7:15pm | #
This may be speaking unfairly, since I don't have kids, but perhaps it's not "for the public good" to pass parents' own sexual inhibitions and discomfort with the human body on to their children and generations to follow. People and children in Europe see sex and the naked human body all over the media, and I wouldn't say that they are all sexually perverse or worse off for it.
On the contrary, many people who are NOT religious or inhibited may see protecting their children from these "sins of the flesh" perverse as it were, because after all, that is what adults do by nature. Yes, even homosexuality occurs in nature (although to the dismay of some, naughty devil-lesbos do not). Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating SHOWING this stuff to children, but if they happen to see something inappropriate for their understanding/age level, it's the task of the parent to either shield them from these images, or else come up with a creative explanation for these things. It's yet again a question of "how good of a parent do you want to be"? One simply cannot expect society to raise your child, because the nature of children is that they are of YOUR flesh and blood, so it's the parents' job to raise them, not the society's.
Plus, it's faulty reasoning to suppose that just because you slap a big fine on some hick with a tasteless bumper sticker, that children won't ever be exposed to this stuff at some point or another.
Counterexample: As a childless person, maybe I would find it offensive that my rights to put an explicit bumper sticker on my privately-owned car are being taken away, simply because some parents don't want to take the time to explain complicated social phenomena, or the facts of life, to their own child. But of course it would be unheard of to defend my rights as a non- pro-family interest.(I would simplify with "anti-family", but that word isn't correct - I'm not anti-family, I just don't buy that every law is really "for the children" - particularly because it's usually old ladies and churchpeople who are always crying pro-censorship, not the kids, who probably don't even pay attention most of the time).
So it might seem like some people with children justify these laws in order to make parenting easier on themselves, or to ease their own sexual and moral hangups/biases.
Censorship laws are the adult equivalent (and possibly an inadvertent cause) of teaching kids in schools to "Feel Good About Themselves", instead of focusing on teaching them the subjects they're supposed to learn.
The attitude that if you are not comfortable with something to make a law censoring it, is just not right, in my opinion.
