The ACLU finally gets one right by taking the side of a beleaguered bait shop owner in Clearwater, Florida that is under attack by city officials over a mural of game fish painted on the outside walls of his bait shop.
City officials are claiming that the fish painting is an “advertisment sign” that falls under a beautification ordinance prohibiting large signs for businesses. The City has fined the shop’s owner Herb Quintero $700 and is warning that a further $500 a day fine can be imposed unless he paints over the fish.
But Quintero feels there is a fallacy in the City’s position. The ordinance is supposed to prohibit large signs advertising for products sold within the establishment. Quintero says that the game fish painted on the side of his building are hardly “products” and that no words appear among the depictions of those fish to advertise for anything. His mural is art, not advertising, Quintero says. And in the somewhat run-down section of the city in which his bait shop is situated, that art adds to the beauty of the area.
In protest to the treatment he is receiving at the hands of the city, Quintero covered the fish with a banner displaying the First Amendment to the Constitution. But the city was no amused.
“Only in Florida could a business owner be targeted and fined for displaying artwork, and then in protest of the fine, display the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — and then be ticketed for that,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida.
The ACLU is taking the city to court on behalf of owner Quintero.
This is a fight for a certain amount of free speech. All liberty minded Americans should hope for the ACLU to be victorious over this corrosive power of the city to impose itself on its citizens. Anyone interested in the rights of property owners should support Mr. Quintero in this fight. More of these thuggish city rules should be challenged throughout the country to put a check on the nanny state in which we increasingly live.
(Photo credit: DOUGLAS R. CLIFFORD, Times)
Moe Lane
Steve Maley
Dan McLaughlin
Neil Stevens
Daniel Horowitz
Finally
sdan (Diary) Thursday, February 26th at 7:11AM EST (link)something the ACLU is fighting that i’m not rolling my eyes over
No kidding
Warner Todd Huston (Diary) Thursday, February 26th at 7:32AM EST (link)That’s one of the reasons I found the story interesting, myself.
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This just goes to show
wayneinnh (Diary) Thursday, February 26th at 8:46AM EST (link)that even a stopped clock is right twice a day. I’m still waiting to see the Association of Crackpots, Lunatics, and Undesirables take on a pro gun issue.
Jon 14:6 –
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
It’s not intellectual to believe we evolved from hydrogen gas.
Remember the ACLU is not a monolith
civil truth (Diary) Thursday, February 26th at 9:00AM EST (link)There are muliple local chapters and a national organization. The national organization is hopeless left wing, but the local chapters are more variable and probably are somewhat better reflections of local sentiment, although they may also reflect the make-up of local universities.
Thus it would not surprise me if some local chapters act sensibly at times. That is, let’s be a bit more careful about painting the entire family of ACLU chapters with the bilge of their radical siblings (or parents) – but judge each chapter on its own record.
The greatest evil…is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern. -C.S. Lewis
http://www.gmsplace.com/
I judge them in part by their chosen associates (nt)
Neil Stevens (Diary) Thursday, February 26th at 9:05AM EST (link)RS contributing editor, technical administrator, and “a hardy variety of crabgrass.”
Read the RedState Posting Rules
Unlikely Voter: Poll Analysis, Election Projection.
“I rejoice that America has resisted.” – William Pitt, the Elder
The main
Warner Todd Huston (Diary) Thursday, February 26th at 9:18AM EST (link)The main problem with the ACLU is that they were started by communists that intended to destroy the Constitution and the USA both. This organization, as a whole, still is interested in just that. Once in a while they take a case that makes them almost seem to be centrist, but the bulk of its cases have the original goal in mind.
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Be sure and Visit my Home blog Publius’ Forum. It’s what’s happening NOW!
Communists are entitled to civil liberties too
civil truth (Diary) Thursday, February 26th at 12:37PM EST (link)Indeed, it is unpopular minorites have been the most helpful in reminding us to the need to preserve civil liberties for all, because with the shifting political wind, we may need those protections some day (and indeed that day is fast at hand).
The problem is the redefinition of civil liberties that the ACLU leadership has been engaging in. Civil liberties involves protecting the rights of individuals against a despotic government actions. That is what genuine civil liberties are about.
However, what most of the ACLU and elsewhere are doing is to change civil liberties into asserting a “right”against another individual and demanding that the government coercively enforce your right. And creating ever expanding collections of “rights” that require ever expanding government intrusions into personal lives and ever tightening restrictions on individual freedoms.
That’s the poison of the today’s ACLU – its Orwellian perversion of civil liberty into an agent of state tyranny.
The greatest evil…is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern. -C.S. Lewis
http://www.gmsplace.com/