Public proclamations and personal poster pulling

October 13, 2008 5:44 PM

An ethical question about political posters/signs.

An argument I've been having with friends: People have been putting political posters on the public medians where I live (Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley) that support a position I disagree with. When I see those posters, I take them down. Some of us believe this is fine and well withing our rights of free speech in a public area, while others feel that it is a suppression of the free speech of others. Posters/signs on public medians are technically considered litter, so it is legal to remove them- but is it morally acceptable to only take down those signs that I disagree with?

posted by dogwelder to law & government (20 comments total)

Taking down a sign is as much an expression of speech as putting one up. If it is not private property, you have as many rights as anyone else to your expression of speech.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:53 PM on October 13, 2008 [3 favorites]

They aren't yours, you shouldn't touch them is probably a good rule. You have the right to put up your own signs.
posted by lee at 5:58 PM on October 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

I say take them all down; you're right, they don't belong there.

is it morally acceptable to only take down those signs that I disagree with?

I say no to this. Your premise is that you don't like signs in public places, therefore you shouldn't pick and choose which you take down.
posted by inigo2 at 6:06 PM on October 13, 2008

When it comes to ethics, intention matters. And your intention is to silence people with whom you have a political disagreement. Your justification, therefore, is disingenuous.

Furthermore, because the political speech is so important to a functioning civil society, I would argue that there should be a high threshold for taking extreme actions like interfering with the expressions of others. You shouldn't use a technicality to silence your opponents, especially when you're acting on your own without official sanction.

You should contact the group that is putting up the signs (if possible) to inform them that they should not be placing the signs in the public areas. If that does not work, you could contact the relevant city authorities about the matter.
posted by BobbyVan at 6:15 PM on October 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

Is your motivation for tearing the posters down to clean up litter or to suppress a viewpoint that differs from your own? If it's the former, I'd say taking them down is fair game, but only if you take down any and all signs on the medians regarldess of their content.

But since you acknowledge in your question that the only signs you tear downs are the ones whose political viewpoint you disagree with, I guessing litter removal isn't your main concern here. I think it's at best childish to try to remove from sight any material supporting causes you don't. Would you think it was ok for people to tear down signs of a political position you did support? Why not fight fire with fire and put up posters advocating the opposing position to the signs you disagree with?
posted by The Gooch at 6:16 PM on October 13, 2008

Gooch - if the signs were on public land, I'd be fine with someone removing them. If signs are on private land, then they shouldn't be touched regardless of whatever position they express.
posted by dogwelder at 6:34 PM on October 13, 2008

Posters/signs on public medians are technically considered litter, so it is legal to remove them-

Really? You'll need to cite chapter and verse for that. Your belief may not be true.

Ethically, I'm of the opinion you don't have a leg to stand on. Is it wrong to shut up some one you disagree with? Yes,
posted by Ironmouth at 6:41 PM on October 13, 2008

Ironmouth- there's this:
"Los Angeles Municipal Code Section 28.04
A. No person shall paint, mark or write on, or post or otherwise affix, any hand-bill or sign to or upon any sidewalk, crosswalk, curb, curbstone, street lamp post, hydrant, tree, shrub, tree stake or guard, railroad trestle, electric light or power or telephone or telegraph or trolley wire pole, or wire appurtenant thereof or upon any fixture of the fire alarm or police telegraph system or upon any lighting system, public bridge, drinking fountain, life buoy, life preserver, life boat, or other life saving equipment, street sign or traffic sign."

...and there's some litter statute somewhere that I "conveniently" am unable to locate right now.
posted by dogwelder at 6:44 PM on October 13, 2008

political signs are not allowed on public property in FLA. our county code enforcement take them down:-). You can stand on the street corner & wave a sign but you can't litter our right of ways.
posted by patnok at 7:08 PM on October 13, 2008

dogwelder: it's all about selective enforcement of the law. a law that is clearly not being enforced by the state and only selectively enforced by certain citizens to advance a political agenda has an unjust impact. you shouldn't take advantage of this power vacuum to advance your own agenda, using the law to mask your true intentions.
posted by BobbyVan at 7:09 PM on October 13, 2008

Depends on your morals. I've wanted to do similar things, but resigned myself to the fact that if everyone were 100% knowledgeable, they'd make the "right" choices.

Plus, if you start taking down signs for X, supporters of X might start taking down signs for Y.
posted by worstnerdever at 7:36 PM on October 13, 2008

I think you can take them down, and that it might even be fair to take them down, but that it would be better to put up your own signs alongside the ones already there.

What you're proposing is more like shouting down someone you disagree with, rather than presenting your own position and allowing people to compare them, which doesn't seem very democratic to me.
posted by The Monkey at 8:12 PM on October 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

Sometimes ordinances about signs (where and when signs may be posted) are found to violate state or federal constitutional free speech requirements. Just as an FYI, the ordinance may or may not be consistent with free speech. If the signs are generally there, and tolerated by the public officials, the plot of land becomes more and more likely to be a place for public speech. If the signs are consistently taken down by city workers, it may go the other way. (Not a speech rights lawyer, there are likely more factors, and the law doesn't answer the moral question, I vote leave the signs be, add your own.)
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 8:24 PM on October 13, 2008

Do you consider the proposed position highly immoral? (For example, a ban on homosexual marriage?) If so, I'd counter that an action like yours which is normally distasteful acquires a morality. Same idea as killing someone to stop an unjust murder, except a lot less important.
posted by TypographicalError at 9:25 PM on October 13, 2008

What you're proposing is more like shouting down someone you disagree with, rather than presenting your own position and allowing people to compare them, which doesn't seem very democratic to me.

On the other hand, political signs are advertisements that shout at people in a public forum, who can't communicate back. There's no dialogue involved with political signage.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:18 PM on October 13, 2008

Posters/signs on public medians are technically considered litter, so it is legal to remove them

Where did you hear this? It varies by state and may also vary by more local levels. In many places, it is completely legal to put campaign signs on public property (although sometimes there are restrictions on that as well) and is certainly not classified as littering. It is a common part of campaigning for volunteers to go drive the area looking for spots of public land where they can put the signs, and when they do that, they take the legal guidelines with them.

Anyway, I feel it's suppressing free speech. And the important part? In some places it is illegal to remove the signs exactly for that reason. Seriously. You need to do research for your area to settle this issue. In places where it is illegal to remove the signs, there will be tricks to drowning out the signs, but those too depend on the specifics of the law -- sometimes stuff like putting another sign directly in front of a rival sign (so that you can't see the rival sign) is also illegal, sometimes it's not.

Chances are if the signs are still up, they are legal, and you could get in big trouble for taking them down. Worse yet, if you take down the sign for one party because you disagree with them, you could potentially get that person's rival campaign in trouble since they'll be investigated for it.
posted by Nattie at 11:07 PM on October 13, 2008

On a public median they are probably iilegal and if they were advertising a commercial service they would certainly be litter -- a number of cities have had problems with fly-by-night places putting up job ads at busy intersections or along highways.

We had a big flap here a couple of years ago when somebody built a huge (like 4' by 8') wooden sign for a candidate, only it was actually in the easement, not on the property that had given permission for the sign. A sheriff's deputy removed it and it became the talk of the town for a couple days. I think it was resolved by the sheriff returning the dismantled sign parts, which were promptly erected feet away from the original location, now on private property.

If it gives you comfort, there's a lot of feeling in political wonkland that signs don't mean all that much.
posted by dhartung at 12:00 AM on October 14, 2008

I disagree with those who say that you are being disingenuous. Getting down to the nitty gritty of public speech, everyone has the ability to say what they want. You should not stop some nut out on the street from spouting his opinions. You have the right to argue with him and spout your own opposing opinions, and let the public decide.

However, the sign posters are not being "pure" in their speech. They are in effect carpet bombing their speech without giving the opposition a chance to argue with them. By leaving their position undefended on public property, they give up the right to maintain it. So you do have the right to remove the signs.

As someone else said, intention matters. I would argue the your intent to remove their message is more pure than claiming that you are just enforcing the law and removing litter. Because vigilanteism is wrong, and that that's not really your goal at all- you would be using the litter law as a shield to hide your true motivations.

However, better form would be to place your own signs and let the public decide the truth of the matter. That is more in line with the idea of the meritocracy of ideas.

But no, you are not wrong to remove the signs. It is abandoned property.
posted by gjc at 7:53 AM on October 14, 2008

I disagree that removing a sign is an exercise of free speech. (Is a TV channel that is unwilling to air half a debate an exercise in freedom of speech?) If you hung up your own sign next to it explaining your point of view and why the other party's ideas were wrong, that would be an exercise of your freedom of speech.

All of this ignores the fact that the signs are posted illegally. I'm sure you'd be pissed off if Joe Citizen down the block decided to boot the tires of cars parked illegally simply because it was against the law and he felt something needed to be done so why shouldn't a person hanging signs that you disagree with be pissed that you're removing them.

Then there's the issue that you seem to be selectively enforcing a law (that you shouldn't be enforcing anyhow, see paragraph two). What if there was a law against protesting the party conventions during election years. And what if the law was enforced at the Republican convention and anyone who showed up to protest was quickly jailed and tried. But at the Democratic convention, the law wasn't enforced. Would you claim that the jailing of the protestors at the Republican convention selectively was morally just and allowed the Republican delegates to exercise their freedom of speech that they otherwise wouldn't be allowed to express?
posted by Brian Puccio at 7:33 PM on October 15, 2008

On the other hand, political signs are advertisements that shout at people in a public forum, who can't communicate back. There's no dialogue involved with political signage.

I suppose this is true. Perhaps some very clever, very carefully crafted defacements would be the order of the day?
posted by The Monkey at 10:25 PM on October 17, 2008