Free Speech in Los Angeles = dead
City of Los Angeles and Mayor Villaraigosa confirm.
As my long time readers know, I own a classic Porsche, and I enjoy driving it up in the hills and canyons of Los Angeles. During the early summer, my boyfriend and I spotted a huge McCain sign on private property. It gave me chills, and I cheered, “I love that we can do that — in some countries you can’t!”
Silly utterance, given he is from another country. In fact the one to our north where US radical lefties threaten (and fail) to move to when they no longer care for all the naughty American things our Founding Fathers brilliantly thought up over 200 years ago. Like elections or freedom of speech.
Here is what it looked like when political free speech happens in Los Angeles, beautiful, no?
One thing you can count on with the ‘tolerant’ left, at least here in Los Angeles — is their toddler-like tantrums when it comes to people who choose to express their right to free speech, and dare stray from the de rigueur liberal line.
By a true coincidence, I was disheartened to see the fate of that independent expression of thought today. Pictures are worth a thousand words, so behold:
Let’s zoom in on the progressive’s paint and razor work. Sloppy but what did you expect:
It gets worse…
The city of Los Angeles is demanding he remove the banner.
During this, the most crucial time for a person to express their political opinions and exercise a highly protected act of political speech — the city of Los Angeles is now pursuing a relatively zealous enforcement effort aimed at this private citizen — intimidating him and fining him for doing so.
Let’s imagine for a moment, had the sign said… “Say Yes to Recycling” or “Say Yes to Same Sex Marriage” would it have been challenged?
How about if it said, “Drive patiently as Mayor Villaraigosa and Councilman Tom LaBonge gleefully spend your tax dollars to improve your convenience and safety on this road”?
This isn’t even hypothetical! The sign is posted right in front of our McCain supporter’s house, which you can see in the background.
While I enjoy the inadvertent message — that the Mayor and Congressman will improve our safety and convenience through McCain/Palin — we’re sure of the double standard on the left coast when it comes to who and what party we can show support for…
It’s common in Los Angeles. Various and all types of banners or billboards are posted or painted on the facades of businesses, or on the private property where businesses are located. If those businesses or public works departments are not being prosecuted and fined as the City of Los Angeles is threatening to do to our McCain supporter, it would seem, on its face, that he has a good case for dismissal under equal protection. I’m no lawyer, but there are more opinions written on free speech and equal protection cases than I could possibly look up and summarize in a week of 20 hour days.
Ostensibly, Los Angeles picks and chooses which citizens to prosecute AND persecute.
And so our McCain supporting citizen has appealed the city’s demands to curb his free speech. If you care about free speech join me in wishing him Illegitimis non carborundum!
Oh and spread the word, by sending this to friends or linking on your blog. There is mud on the city’s face and it might take a few million people in order for it to be noticed.
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September 10th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Don’t fret - we’ll get to the Church signs soon enough my lovely!!! BWAAAAAAHHAAAAA
September 10th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Hey this is SMELL A the place run by demacrooks LETS JUST BOYCOTT THE MISERBLE PLACE AND TELL ITS IDIOT MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL TO GO JUMP IN A LAKE
September 10th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Tom LaBonge
Rather appropriate name for a Democratic politician, don’t you think?
September 10th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
This is precisely why I am supporting Walter Moore for Mayor. Ive written to the asshole mayor, la bong and a few other elitist politicians about my concerns for this city but not a single one of those assholes has ever responded.
September 10th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Ventura County chiming in here….can’t vote for your Mayor, but I agree wholeheartedly with your piece.
Will link….oh, Hi Eddie!!
September 10th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
WTF OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
TYPICAL LIBTURD TACTICS WHAT A SUPRISE. PALIN RULES!!!!!!!!!!! TAKE THAT LIBDORKS. WOW SEVEN YEARS AND WE HAVEN’T HAD ANOTHER TERROR ATTACK ON OUR SOIL.
September 10th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Senator McCain hasn’t axactly been a friend of Amendment1. Campaign finance reform is the top of the slippery slope. Oh the irony.
September 10th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Why I Don’t do Bumper Stickers…
First Amendment Unimportant to Liberals Moxie lives in California, the land of tolerance. See how Californians express their tolerance for a McCain banner on private property. Better still: if you leave the banner up so people can see what happened,……
September 10th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
[…] Check it out. […]
September 10th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Not to worry, the ACLU will be in with a team on Nov.4 to handle it - how dare freedom of speech be trampled upon.
The left’s idea of freedom of speechios that they have the freedom to take away your speech.
I do have to admit to a little bit of a thrill running down my leg because of McCain/Feingold and him getting a good tast of his own medicine and all that stuff.
September 10th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
You folks who live in L.A. deserve L.A.
The rest of the country is just waiting for the “Big One” to happen…maybe the whole state will fall into the ocean…..wow that’ll be real pollution….
September 10th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Dadling, your maturity and eloquence are impressive.
What you don’t know — when California falls into the ocean — the weight of all the dirty hippies will drag the rest of the continent down with it. Canada and all.
September 10th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Hey L.A. conservatives, the Supreme Court has already ruled in favor of the right to place political banners on your own property, describing it as protected political speech that no local ordinance can supersede. A quick lawyer letter to the city should be enought to quiet the local pols.
September 10th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Hey Bob, it’s L.A. liberals we’re discussing here. Nothing short of a .45 window to the soul, er brain, er never mind. Only death will stop a liberals assault on the Constitution.
September 10th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
okay, so i realize this is an incredibly stupid question and i’m probably just blind, but is there a link to an article talking about how the city is making the dude pull down the sign?. . . it’s not that i think you’re making it up, i’m just curious ‘cuz i’m wondering what law the city is citing for the takedown and can’t figure out what your source is. . .
and on a somewhat related note, one statistic that would be interesting to keep track of during this election would be to see which side is vandalized more. . . using “xx signs vandalized” where “xx” is mccain or obama, googlefight says obama has considerably more results than mccain. . . if you add “california” to the end, mccain has *way* more results than obama. . . but then if you replace “california” with “los angeles” it’s almost a dead heat. . .
and yeah, i know googlefight numbers don’t really mean squat, i just thought it’d be interesting to check out in a shits and giggles sort of way. . .
September 10th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
Bloopy, your questions are never stupid. What was that thing our teachers said? The only stupid questions are ones that aren’t asked…something like that.
There is no link because I am breaking this story. This is news.
Yes, on Moxie. Shocking. But it has happened before and prolly will happen again.
Working on a follow up, just so you know
September 10th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
dadling, since you don’t live here, keep your pie hole shut and kiss my ass.
September 10th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Unfortunately the city of Minneapolis, MN is run by liberals. Of the 13 members of the city council 12 are Democrats and the other is a member of the Green Party. The mayor is also a liberal. Then there is our “Representative” in Congress, Keith Ellison. At least in LA you have nice weather. Here we get 20° below zero and five feet of snow. But global warming will get rid of that for us, right? We just have to surrender all of our liberties to politicians like Mayor Villaraigosa or the Minneapolis city council and we live in utopian bliss.
September 10th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Holy Obamatron, Moxie!
Please give me the city phone number where I can turn in my neighbors. Political speech offends me.
September 10th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
i had a fluid mechanics professor who, at the beginning of the last class before finals, said, “this will be a review class so if you have any questions, now’s the time to ask ‘em, and remember, there’s no such thing as a stupid question.”. . .
someone then asked what was essentially a stupid question for a third-year engineering student and the professor turned to him and said, “except for that question, which has to be one of the dumbest things i’ve ever been asked, next question?”. . .
the lesson i took from that class was that there *are* stupid questions, the problem is knowing whether or not you’re too stupid to realize it’s a stupid question. . . and with politics, i’m kind of a tardhead. . .
September 10th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Manuel — great name! You made me laugh, which is difficult since I am one of those fat, old, bald, humorless Republicans.
Bloopy — Luckily for everyone, I am not your fluid mechanics professor.
But if I were, I’d likely be living the high life on tax payer dollars, or government grants while pursuing my full-time hobby of professional Scrabble on high-stakes tables in Vegas.
That said, you are not a tardhead. I am. Because you are right there are stupid questions and I asked about 10 of them today due to lack of sleep.
September 10th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
IANAL, but I believe this issue has already gone through the courts and the parties demanding the removal of the signs got a brisk and well-deserved spanking. If your guy is a little less lazy than I am, he could come up with the precedent (I think it was in KS but decided in a federal court) and ask why the city proposes to waste taxpayers’ money on a hopeless legal fight. You know, First Amendment and all that 18th century stuff.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:39 am
[…] Moxie has a post showing how one citizen supports John McCain with a large yard banner. The City of Los Angeles has ordered him to take it down, but the City itself has a similarly large sign promoting itself just a few yards down the street. Go read it. […]
September 11th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
There is a restriction on how large a political sign can be on private property in LA, max is 12 x 12, or under 144 sq ft the sign is 10 x 20, or obv. 200 sq ft. By the way I hate california I know only 3 fellow republicans basically in my school of 750. The case over the sign is in the appeals process, but they have ordered it to be taken down–can just appeal until the end of the election or the city attorney may give till the end of the election then order it taken down. By the way that public works project is taking forever I haven’t seen any work on it in over a week.
September 11th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
LA citizen — are you sure it just applies to political signs, or is it any signs? Content-based speech restrictions are pretty hard to uphold, but content-neutral “reasonable time, place, and manner” restrictions are often found acceptable. If the same ordinance would also restrict someone from putting up too big a sign advertising their plumbing business or whatever, it might pass constitutional muster. I’d still fight it if I were the property owner, though.
As for the guy who expressed the opinion that California should fall into the ocean, because it has some people living in it whose political viewpoints differ from his own: Screw you, pal. I live in California, I’m a Republican, and as part of the potential collateral damage in your little disaster fantasy, I’d like to let you know that I don’t really like people back East very much either, but I don’t wish death upon them.
September 17th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Another reason not to move to California. We may have hurricanes but at least we still have free speech.
September 19th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
This McCain supporter has serious balls! Love it.
I also love the irony that there is a greater chance of him getting property damage than the chance his sign will actually sway anyone who sees it to vote Republican.
And yet the city is spending taxpayers’ hard earned cash by pursuing this matter.
SO GLAD I FINALLY MOVED FROM LA.
Kisses, from a swing vote state!