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Originally Posted by Bababooyee
IMO, this is how it should work. The government doesn't have to be involved in every damn thing. Let public discourse, public and financial pressures cause a "natural" censorship, of sorts. While unintended, these billboards have allowed some real meaningful discussions to take place on some important topics, some of which may never have happened in the first place.
(also, fwiw, wrt the first amendment, "speech" does not mean any sort of verbal or written utterance. There is a distinction between "speech" and verbal acts - the distinction is often unclear, but a good starting point when thinking about it is what is the intended "target" is (eg mind vs groin, mind vs pure shock) and how the message is actually received (causes thought vs some kind of lower level "arousal" (and I mean arousal in a broader sense than what you may typically consider in this context...perhaps "response" would be a better word). That being said, I tend to agree with Joss' assessment of this being something less than speech...not even commerical speech which has some 1st amendment protections).
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Baba,
I agree! I think a distinction can be made here as well regarding private vs government, the marketplace is the best place to protest in a capitalistic society...no government action is needed. A billboard, publically displayed forces folks to see it's contents...the contents in this situation is so perverse as to be harmful...I think the rights of the many win out here!