The town of Lockport, New York has an ordinance that electronic display signs can’t change more than once every ten minutes. Business owner David Mongielo was apparently in violation of such an ordinance in 2009.

For violation, he gets fined $700 and if he violates the ordinance again, he serves 15 days in jail.

I am a lawyer, I tend not to like to quote other lawyers, because we have this habit of using big words to explain simple things, so you can get lost in them. But I will quote Mr. Mongielo’s lawyer here, because he says it like it should be said:

“There’s so much wrong with this prosecution – sign ordinance,” said attorney Frank Housh.

The REAL SHAME is that Mongielo shouldn’t even be in court, he shouldn’t have to spend money on a lawyer, and he shouldn’t have to pay a fine and get threatened with jail for expressing himself in a non offensive message (no other allegations apart from violation of the ordinance). He also had the best defense, the one that should have won the day, but it didn’t:

“Displaying a fundraising event, happy birthday message, anything non-commercial, it’s my constitutional right; they can’t regulate it,” Montielo said.

If this is the future of America, then I am ashamed of it, because we are much more decent than this. We also know that we should be free, but the only thing that seems to matter is money. This makes absolutely no sense, so I encourage you to question, more and more, why must things be this way? Are we so certain that we’re on this path, where you live a certain age, you have kids, and you die? That the only thing you can ever hope to possibly do now is to have enough money to leave behind so that your children won’t starve?

We must stand. We must be willing to stand up for something that’s not just for the good of us, but for the good of all. We know this, but for some reason, we come up with excuses, and it almost always has to do with mundane bullshit indirectly or directly connected with either making more money or having enough money, etc.

So, there you have it, a money grubbing lawyer telling you we need to be decent and stand up. I hope you do, because I will, I will not take this bullshit. This isn’t our country.

But I will do so peacefully, because I know that the only lesson violence has taught us is that it gives us reason to hate each other, and that it resolves nothing, so I will continue on this bullshit, I’ll continue to write legislators even though I know they’re bought, but I don’t care, because they are so concerned with re-election that they need my vote, and I know if their mailboxes are jammed with people like me complaining, THEY WILL CHANGE.

Further, for those that are wondering what to do, I post constantly on social networks (which I never liked, by the way, and I still cringe on Facebook) links, news stories about how we live in a not so legit society because of this rigged game.

There, some ideas.

Story is HERE.