“Get Osama” is Prohibited Speech in New York (Of All Places)
Posted on November 20, 2007
We read:
“There’s a $25 million reward out for his capture, so it’s no secret the United States government wants to get Osama Bin Laden. But when a Long Island man wanted to express that thought on his license plate, he got more than he bargained for. He’s the most wanted man in the world, or as President Bush once put it: “He’s wanted dead or alive.”
Just like the president, Arno Herwerth of Hauppauge on Long Island wants to get “Osama” also, and he’s making it known…. So when Arno, a retired NYPD sergeant, ordered personalized “Get Osama” license plates from the DMV, he said he thought he was being patriotic….
In a letter addressed to Herwerth, the DMV said they “prohibit the issuance of any license plate combination that is, ‘in the discretion of the commissioner, obscene, lewd, lascivious, derogatory to a particular ethnic group or patently offensive.’”
Arno points out, however, there is a little something called “free speech” in the country he so adamantly believes he is supporting. He claims the president’s September 2001 speech in which he announced Bin Laden was “wanted dead or alive,” should not be forgotten, and if it was okay for the Commander In Chief to say, then the same words on license plates should be permitted.
Cringing before Muslims again, I guess.
(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)
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6 Responses to ““Get Osama” is Prohibited Speech in New York (Of All Places)”
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Really? Are they saying that Raymond P. Martinez commissioner of the NY State DMV “personally” reviewed this application and rejected it?
If so just when did he see this application and make the decision?
Or was it in fact some low level clerk who arbitrarily decided that the application violated the rules?
Find out who this clerk is and let’s take a good look at him/her!
Is Osama bin Laden an ethnicity now?
Or is the objection that bin Laden somehow represents Muslims, and that the plate
therefore is an attack on Islam. If that is the objection, it directly contradicts
the standard liberal talking point that Islam is a religion of peace, it has
been hijacked by a few crazies, etc. One would think the liberals would be the
most anxious group in the world to catch Osama, to clear the name of Islam.
Maybe not so much.
A personalized license plate is not a free speech platform just like running commercials on television or other media is not. He can use a bumper sticker though.
License plates are property of the DMV. Just as if you drop your insurrence you must turn in your tags. So i agree with Kerwin.
Really? Not in Georgia.
Used to be, tags (that’s what we call license plates down here) stayed with the vehicle. If I sold my car, or just quit driving it, or whatever, the tag stayed with the car.
Now, they stay with the individual. That is, if I sell my car, I keep the tag. If I quit driving it, and get another car to drive, I can move it. Lot of paperwork, though.
Must be a yankee thing where the state keeps the tag.
If the state owns the tags, then why do we have to pay so much to register and maintain the registration in “taxes”?
DMV fees are paid, then the items become the property of the purchaser in my opinion.
Also, a regulation is not the law. If a regulation and the
law conflict, the law trumps the regulation and the regulation must
be changed, made clearer [re-legislated], or repealed. Especially when it
violates the 1st amendment.