In the United States of America, the First Amendment to the Constitution is sacred—the free press honors no commandment above it (excepting, perhaps, the Second Amendment in the case of “Soldier of Fortune” and Guns and Ammo Magazine).

As the dust settles on Moveon.org’s “General Betray Us” advert in the New York Times and the Rocky Mountain Collegian’s “Fuck Bush” editorial, I’m wondering whether I’ll need to find a new occupation; the season’s premiere free speech battles have polarized millions of people, but I’m left feeling ambivalent about the breadth of protection the amendment provides.

My doubts aren’t the result of a radical anti-free speech agenda, just a matter of taste. Case in point: the Moveon.org ad. As political speech that a great number of people (nearly three-quarters of the Senate) seemed to find offensive, the advertisement is exactly the kind of thing the First Amendment is meant to protect, since truly offensive speech serves the valuable function of encouraging debate.

However, Moveon’s decision to print a bad pun several inches high across a full page is not so protected because speech that is merely annoying does not have this same value. Furthermore, in the United States the use of puns is strictly reserved for non-political speech (i.e., the titles of feature columns), and is also subject to the so-called “Rule of ‘Frasier’,” which places a number of demands on the erudition and genteelness involved in most types of wordplay.

The Collegian’s use of “Fuck Bush” presents a similar dilemma. The offensive language of the editorial is protected but the trite unoriginality of the message itself is not. By adding a simple modifier such as “…in the ear” or turning their message into a hit single à la Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen” the editorial board could’ve avoided this shaky legal ground.

Offensive speech makes people talk—it drives the debate crucial to a functioning democracy. The problem is, too often we’re bombarded with the polar opposite—relatively inoffensive but annoying speech.

Advertising is a crucial part of capitalism. Everyone agrees capitalism is great, but almost everyone agrees advertising is obnoxious. Some forms of advertising, such as those in the print medium, avoid this problem because they require consumer consent, but others aren’t so polite.

Roadside billboards, for example, are ubiquitous and annoying on the scale of “Family Guy” but are much more difficult to avoid. From a distance it’s hard to tell one kind of highway sign from another, but I tend to get speeding tickets when I try to ignore them all. Vandalizing them however, although morally correct, is probably illegal.

Fortunately, many billboards neutralize their messages through poor wording and design. Anyone who’s driven from Madison to Minneapolis has probably wondered whether the “Concrete Abortion” billboard is staunchly pro-life, staunchly pro-choice or staunchly a death metal band.

The flyers and posters campus marketers hang up in classrooms all over the university are potentially even more annoying, but at least there’s an easy way to deal with them. As far as I know, there’s no legal precedent keeping credit card ads out of classrooms in the Humanities building, but nor has anyone tried to protect them when I round them up and dump them in the recycling. “Axe” deodorant launching a new campaign? In the bin! Blood drive? Better leave that one alone.

I know I’m just one person, but I’m committed to lowering awareness of the kinds of speech and issues that annoy me.

Angry you wasted all that time hanging those Axe posters? E-mail Matt at hunziker@wisc.edu.