Town’s new fine for public profanity points to problem of ‘public’ spaces

By David McElroy · June 14, 2012

If you plan to spend any time in Middleborough, Mass., you might want to be careful if you’re the sort who enjoys slinging four-letter words around. The town’s residents voted 183-50 Monday night to enact a fine for the public use of profanity, so police will have their ears open.

In modern American society, this is typically seen as a conflict between free speech and civility. Some people believe you should be able to say anything you want without government interference, and others believe that offensive and vulgar behavior should be prohibited. Merchants in the town say some of their customers have been uncomfortable with groups of teens hanging out downtown and swearing loudly. So which side is right?

I’m an advocate of keeping government completely out of the business of censoring speech, but I’m also someone who detests profanity. (I’m one of the few people you know who you’ll never hear it from. I didn’t grow up with it and I’ve consciously avoided using it. It’s not what I want to be.) So it sounds as though these two competing values are in conflict and there’s no logical way to resolve it.

That’s sort of true. There’s no logical way to resolve it under the current system of “public” ownership of property and the rules that come with “public” space. But what if the real issue isn’t free speech vs. civility? What if the real issue is who owns property — and who should be allowed to make the rules?

There’s a basic tension between freedom and democracy. Freedom demands that people have the ability to say what they want to say without government censoring it. Democracy demands that the majority of those voting in the town have the right to establish rules for the others to follow. How do we resolve this?

The problem is the existence of “public property.” If everybody owns something, nobody really owns it. In the statist model that we live with today, we’re perpetually faced with that conflict between freedom and democracy. But what if everything were privately owned? Then the question could be settled by the owner — and people would “vote” with their patronage.

What if a downtown area were owned by a commercial company? What if a company developed property and planned shops and attracted merchants to fill up those stores — and then established the rules of behavior for patrons? There would then be no conflict. One shopping area might cater to a more sedate crowd that wants more civility and decorum. Another development might cater to a crowd that’s freewheeling and boisterous. And so forth. Customers would choose the plan that suited them the best. Some models would succeed and some would fail, but they would change as their owners decided that changes could attract customers.

What I’ve just described can’t work in the public system, because the First Amendment prevents governments from making the rules that limit speech. (Whether Middleborough’s rules stand up in court is an open question. It’s hard for me to believe that they will.) On the other hand, it’s a genuine problem for merchants who are trying to conduct business in a pleasant atmosphere and loud, profane people are bothering customers. The current system can’t resolve those conflicts.

We already do a limited version of this with shopping malls. I don’t care for the sterility of most shopping malls, but there are exceptions (and the exceptions tend to be nice places to spend time). We also do a limited version of this at places such as theme parks. You go through a gate and enter private space where someone else sets the rules.

Why can’t we extend this to the rest of society? In fact, why can’t we eliminate all “public” ownership of anything? Why can’t we let entire cities and enclaves of varying sizes operate under their own rules? It’s not possible today, but why can’t it exist in the future?

As long as we live with the coercive state in what it supposed to be a “liberal democracy,” there’s going to be a conflict between freedom and majority will. The privatization of everything — of all of society — is the solution. It’s something that will scare most people. It won’t happen all at once. But I think it’s where we’re going to end up.

In the meantime, I doubt these Middleborough fines will stand up in court. At this point, free speech is still going to trump majority will, but it’s silly that we live under a system that tries to balance these two irreconcilable things.

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Spring always reminds me how glorious blue skies and green leaves can be. When I was in the second grade, Mrs. Arnold chastised me for using those colors together. She said they didn’t match. Mrs. Arnold had very specific rules about which colors could be used together. We couldn’t deviate from her rules. When I used green and blue together in one of my class drawings, she forced me to do it over, since she said those colors shouldn’t be used together. I was a polite and obedient child, but I asked her why they didn’t match — since God used them together in nature. She was exasperated and told me to follow her rules. So when I see glorious beauty which mixes green and blue — such as this photo I took just outside my office Friday afternoon — it always reminds me of Mrs. Arnold. It reminds me that she was wrong. And it’s a good reminder for us all. There are established rules about a lot of things. Many of those are good rules. But if an expert tells you something and you know he’s wrong, you might need to take a chance. He might be just as mistaken as Mrs. Arnold was.

In the coming months and years, we’re going to need inventive and productive people pursuing things that matter. We’re going to need smart and self-directed men and women who will find ideas and create enterprises that will help bypass the political class and build a new and better society. But everything I see in media right now seems geared toward telling people how to entertain and amuse themselves. The stories are full of advice about what to binge on Netflix and what games you should be playing while you’re stuck at home. We desperately need to ignore this advice and be looking toward building new futures instead. Being passive consumers got us where we are today. It’s time that we reclaim our former role — the one that made this country wealthy — as productive and free people who build far more than we consume. This could be a great opportunity for those who will take it. Turn off Netflix. Put down the video game controller. We need new ideas, new achievements, new goals — not more coach potatoes. This is the time to be thinking and creating and planning for the future that you and I both want.

The better I know myself, the more I realize that my core fault — and the source of many other failings in me — is that of believing on a deep level that everyone and everything in my world must be perfect, especially me. If I had seen any of this in myself as recently as 10 years ago, I would have dismissed it as a small failing that showed up only every now and then, but I now see it as the wellspring from which my other sins are born. It’s such an insidious belief — and one that can look on the surface like a reasonable desire to be good and right — that it’s hard to acknowledge it as the inner cancer it is. But until I understood this, it was always going to be impossible for me to get over my deep shame about my imperfection or to accept the love of another person, because she is bound to be flawed, too.

If it’s not yet spring where you are, you can at least enjoy 60 seconds of spring in the South with me. This was just outside my office late Thursday afternoon. Don’t you need a relaxing break today? See it on YouTube by clicking here.

It pays to be nice to the employees at Walmart — and everywhere else, for that matter. I was just in Walmart to buy some kitty litter when one of the employees called me over with a conspiratorial tone: “Hey, David, do you need some toilet paper?” she almost whispered. She had found a giant package hidden somewhere and she said she had been saving it for someone she really liked. So I’m the proud new owner of 24 additional mega rolls of toilet paper, which are worth something like $748 on the black market. On a more serious note, be good to people when you have a chance, as this employee was for me. And remember that people remember the way you treat them. I wouldn’t have treated this woman and her co-workers a bit differently in the past if I’d known she would someday do me this small favor, but there are benefits to treating people well, even if that’s not your purpose. Be good to each other.

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