Rejected as “offensive” by the Secretary of State, David DeVarti of Washtenaw County is suing the state of Michigan for refusing to grant him a license plate that reads “WAR SUX.”
Citing a violation of his First Amendment rights, Devarti is joining the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in a lawsuit challenging the manner by which license plates are judged by the Secretary of State. The case is being handled by a federal court in Grand Rapids.
There are many other cases of license plate censorship across the country; a simple, cursory web search will illustrate that easily enough. Kingsford resident and Iraq veteran, Michael Matwyuk, had trouble obtaining a plate reading a variation of the word “infidel”, for example, but in his case the state eventually approved his request in September and claimed any issues Matwyuk ran into were simple human errors. Needless to say, there are many more who do not end up quite so lucky.
Currently, Michigan law bars license plates that could be deemed as offensive, but what, indeed, is offensive?? Is a six-letter vanity plate throwing a little mud at the murder, conquest and bloodshed of war offensive?? Or is war, itself offensive?? One must also then ask, How is criticism of war offensive?? Even “good” wars fought for “honorable” reasons lead to civilian death, corporate profits, rape of women and resources… War is ugly — a wart on the taint of God — even the “good” wars.
Should we, instead then, as a country praise war? Is that the implication in such short-sighted censorship as these cases represent? Shall we all be good little bugle boys blowing a company tune?
What this seemingly small, incidental case underlines so glaringly is the jingoism in this country — the fact that we cannot even begin to think about publicly talking openly about some of America’s character defects, some of our moral and ethical blindness. Do not second guess America, not even its bloody imperialistic wars or ruthless colonization. It will slap you down, lock you up, or run off with Canada (or some other such country) in a cloud of denial and deceit. And if that doesn’t work, who knows what America might do? Keep your eyes peeled. America is considered armed, dangerous, and desperate. Keep all doors locked and stay away from windows.
We’ll pump billions into conquest, war, murder, global robbery. We’ll send our good old boys and girls halfway across the globe to “defend” and kill in the name of all of it, under the guise of “justice” and “holy blessings”. We’ll let a veteran eventually get away with his pride at being a thug in a foreign land, an “infidel”, in the name of America’s manifest destiny delusion (after a bit of obstruction denied even there), yet we will not allow a conscientious objector to voice his dissent to the horrors, the horrors of war?
Welcome to the Heart of Darkness.
Edited/Published by: SB
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