Vehicle license plates once were simple forms of official identification.
No longer.
State governments soon turned them into cash cows, offering expensive vanity plates to vain motorists.
Every state department of motor vehicles, however, keeps a list of no-no words, phrases and letter combinations of flagrant or subtle naughtiness.
Despite the restrictions, vain motorists still have been able to come up with both imaginative and trite personal monikers.
Inevitable legal complaints, however, now challenge a state’s refusal to issue objectionable plates.
One popular legal argument is that the refusal amounts to infringement on free speech.
Nonsense. Government shouldn’t aid and abet objectionable language.
That’s what bumper stickers, window decals, T-shirts and websites are for. (24 MARCH 2002)
