"Truck Nuts"=Free Speech - You Decide!
 

Well now we get into ridiculous territory. First the little girls lemonade stands are shut down and now we can't haul our "nuts".

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/08/02...speech-debate/

On July 5, Virginia Tice, 65, from Bonneau, S.C. pulled her pickup truck into a local gas station with red, fake testicles dangling from the trailer hitch. The town's police chief, Franco Fuda, pulled up and asked her to remove the plastic testicles. When she refused, he wrote her a $445 ticket saying that she violated South Carolina’s obscene bumper sticker law.

The South Carolina code of laws reads, “a sticker, decal, emblem, or device is indecent … in a patently offensive way, as determined by contemporary community standards, sexual acts, excretory functions, or parts of the human body.”

Those things are extremely stupid, but if people want to display them on their cars, more power to them.

Well... "parts of the human body" kindof covers it, no? Whether or not it's "protected speech" would be something for the courts to decide.

Also, I like truck nuts, for the very purpose of telling me what assholes to avoid on the roads.

What's up with a woman hauling truck nuts? They're just gross. I agree with agzg, though, they do identify the assholes on the road.

I don't mind them. Not every one that has them are assholes. Although I do agree that cars stay away from trucks with them. I like for cars to stay away from me when I'm driving my truck. Then again I think the assholes are the little cars that think they can cut in front of a truck and not realize the truck is heavier and will take longer to stop.I think they are funny and just an accessory. I don't have them on my trucks yet but my husband is going to put them on.

Shouldn't the State's Rights advocates be all up in here defending SC's right to do awkward stuff like this? :p

I don't know what the State's compelling interest in banning truck nuts might be, but I don't know that truck nuts really impart information or ideas in ways commonly defined for freedom of expression. I'm for leaving well enough alone, but I'm generally for fewer laws rather than more, and I'm certainly not the litmus test.

Obscenity laws are among the most bizarre in the United States, though - hell, let's start with the notion of "community standards" as a test and just quit on it for good. I wouldn't touch them with a 10-foot pole (that has a glans and balls attached, of course).

Kind of like a necessary, but not sufficient, condition. Got it.

Really?

I never thought it was some sort of concious decision that made people want to put them on their truck. I always thought it was the result of someone going on a xanax and coke bender, waking up and being like "what the fuck did I do to my truck?"

My husband just likes them for some reason. I quit trying to figure out his logic.

I don't have a problem with them... but does this law mean that the Pro-Life bumper stickers with pix of fetuses on them are off-limits as well? I respect the right to everyone's point of view, but it's a body part of sorts and definitely a result of sexual acts.

Point being - I have no problem banning balls if the law is applied across the board, and not selectively.

do "contemporary community standards" apply to which "parts of the human body" are deemed offensive? is Calvin's butt gonna be offensive when he's peeing on the Ford symbol?
http://www.windowdecalz.com/decalsto...gfordcolor.png
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3614/...2d3573126e.jpg

i think truck nuts are funny, but i don't see them very often. i might see a pair on the interstate. i like trailer hitch boat propellers better.

and flirt's right, the little car narrowly slicing through traffic is the asshole to avoid.

Personal opinion:

As with any form of "free speech," it is fine as long as it doesn't impede on the speech of, or endanger, others. Being offensive based on some opinions and some standards is not enough.

I don't remember ever seeing truck nuts so it is probably not something so distracting and shocking as to cause a car accident. That stupid arm in the trunk of that truck, on the other hand.....

I remember seeing some on a truck while my friend and I were driving home. We thought they were pretty funny!

When I was first (indecently) exposed to them (haha), I thought they must serve some purpose but just happened to resemble nuts. Y'all are telling me they intentionally look like nuts and are decorative?

*definitely avoiding men who have trucks with nuts* Honestly, I avoid most men who drive pick up trucks if they don't have a valid reason for driving them. There is something about the idea of buying a huge utility vehicle (think F150 or bigger) and then refusing to use it as a utility vehicle because the bed might get scratched. I don't get it. At all.

http://tosh.comedycentral.com/blog/f...9/06/balls.jpg

Most of the ones I've seen are silver or some other non-human color, but occasionally I've seen flesh colored ones. If I saw a woman driving a truck with them, I'd assume she's kin to Lorena Bobbitt.

But I'm all for Free Speech. Sometimes, Free Speech makes it really easy to identify the nuts. {rimshot}

*Inappropriate joke about how MysticCat has shown me some nuts.*

That's all? I thought it would be more interesting looking (not a nuts joke). I don't recall ever seeing one so they either don't stick out (not a nuts joke) or I thought they were golf balls (not a nuts joke) or something.

Indeedlydoodly. :)

You just don't live in the right area. Four years ago when I lived in Louisiana, I saw these all over the place. I rarely see them in Phoenix and never saw them in MD. The ones MC showed look like half a Nylabone.

If those are really supposed to be the testicles of a truck, the proportions are way effed up and there aren't going to be any baby trucks any time soon.

I've always been more of a Carstache man myself. http://www.carstache.com/

Not if it infringes on ones free speech rights. Those are granted explicitly by the constitution in the First Ammendment. The Tenth Ammendment, as I am sure you know, is what is considered the State's Rights Ammendment. It states:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

But Freedom of Speech is Enumerated in the First Ammendment so IMO it trumps State's Rights. Others may disagree and that is why we have challenges in the courts.

BTW - I think they (nuts) are tacky and offensive and I hate them but so what.... People do have the right to be tacky and offensive.

I am, as you probably know by now, one of those who believes in State's Rights. I am a Constitutionalist first, though.

Because they secretly have their husband's/boyfriend's cajones in their purse? Personally, I don't know what purpose they serve and think that they are hella tacky? Do they justify getting a ticket? Um, no


DH's baby is his Toyota Tundra (I nicknamed it The Beast). It irritates him when small cars try to cut him off too. He always says "might makes right"
I drive a smaller car (Civic). Trucks are bigger than me, they can have the who freaking road for all I care. I'm not gonna take them on!

And he hates truck nuts :)

Maybe it's a southern thing, but I remember seeing these a few times about 4 years ago, but not recently. I figured they had gone to bad car accessory purgatory* to keep the spinning rims company. I don't understand why this is just now an issue.

*I wish those stupid Mom, Dad, cheerleader daughter, baseball son, baby, two cats and a dog window stickers would follow quickly and die.

I thought about getting one as a joke. Like one dad figure (me) and have my stick figure dad surrounded only by cats. Like 12 of them.

I saw a variation of this the other day where it was footprints. A large pair for the husband, a smaller pair for the wife and then two paw prints. Just two though. Which made me think - does their cat/dog not walk on all fours?

And then I started wondering what mammals would walk just on their hind legs, and also have paws. And if any of them made suitable pets.

Another variation on that around here is brightly colored flip-flops.

I seriously don't get it.

Right - but "free speech" as guaranteed by the 1st A. is not universal ... I'm sure you're aware of limitations such as those for obscene materials.

It appears that SC has couched this fine under a law that is, at least on face, a ban on obscenity. Now you're in a hornet's nest, as I mentioned before, since obscenity often depends on "community standards," and can be temporal, and blah blah blah. There might be a lot more going on here than one would think at first blush.

Also, I was mostly joking about the state's rights thing - although I suppose one could argue SC should have the 'right' to determine for itself what is or isn't obscene? Keep those loosey-goosey New Yorkers out of my obscenity rulings!

It never ceases to amaze me the extent to which people will brag about their ability to do literally the simplest thing in the history of the human race.

I was aware of the exceptions (fire in a theater, community standards for obscenity, etc) but thought you guys would be bored with the repetitiveness of a recital.

I agree that there is a lot more going on with this then what one sees at first blush. This isn't a slam dunk either way. One thinks free speech and then obscenity is thrown into the mix along with "community standards" et al. Guess that is why we litigate.

truck nuts=extreme tackiness

i always figured that the guys that have trucks sporting truck nuts, were overcompensating for personal inadequacies in their own lives.

Ugh, I saw so many of those in Oklahoma.

I wonder how big the outrage would be if it was a plastic vagina dangling from the trailer hitch? Would people still think it was "funny" then? I bet the reaction would be vastly different..

lol, like this?

http://www.2sportscars.com/vaginacar.shtml

might be NSFW

I have a Camaro and I at least give respect to the trucks and semis that are one the road when I'm driving. I am not going to take the chance of the trucks not being able to stop and hit my car. But when I drive my trucks I notice all the little car around like nothing is going to happen to them. They might have more horsepower but some people don't understand the laws of physics.

If truck nuts tell the other drivers to stay away then I'm all for them. Especially in the Phoenix area. I see a few on some truck and I just laugh. I say let people put what they want on their vehicles. The next thing that they might target is that little kid showing his butt pee in whatever. How many of those do you see every day?

I drive a small car. I've noticed that more often than not, the idiot tailgating me is driving a huge truck. Which is ridiculous, I don't even know how they can see me over their hood when they get as close as they do. Of course, it irks me to see folks driving trucks (that aren't "work trucks" - I mean pristine, won't put anything in it because they don't want to scratch the bed) in the city because they're often the folks paying $4.50 a gallon and complaining about gas prices.

Technically, to be analogous, it would have to be ovaries, and I'd be willing to bet most folks couldn't pick a pair of ovaries out of a line up.

Well, they would be inside the truck, so no one could see them anyway.:p

They're trying to get this going here. Boobies!!!! (Chris Griffin voice)

http://www.themilktruck.org/Home.html

First place I've seen them is in Northern Cali (Stockton/Modesto area). I've seen them more there than out here in the Midwest
I'm with you on this. To be honest, I never understood the truck cajones

Well I have to admit, being male, I think I would like it better then the "nuts".

Point well taken, though.

Truck nuts are rampant here - but this is Kansas so....