The Tennessee legislature just passed a law saying that posting images online can be a crime if they “frighten, intimidate or cause emotional distress.” The distress doesn’t have to be intended, or targeted at a particular person. The rule is so broadly written that anyone who sees a web image that is in any way distressing is now potentially a victim.
The one thing I find more frightening and distressing than offensive photos I run across online is that I live in a country where legislators have no compunction about wasting their time, and ours, secreting a law that any ten-year-old can recognize as an unconstitutional turd.
Anyway, here are some images that distress me. Or maybe I’m fine with ’em, I don’t know; maybe I’m just distressed by the distress they could cause to others.
Which one(s) should be a crime, do you reckon?
Hey, I have an idea: Why don’t the assclowns in the Tennessee state house put on their big-girl panties and decide that someone who’s offended by any of these images isn’t worthy of one scintilla of legal protection? Especially being that we have a First Amendment an’ all?
And if the image of lawmakers in panties offends you, and you happen to live in Tennessee, congratulations — you know what to do.
You can see my response to this new law as a Tennessee artist on my artist’s blog at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2011/07/potentially-offensive-portrait-governor.html with my portrait of our Governor Bill Haslam and his ravishing wife.