I'm sure you've all seen it, the guy in the car in front of you, who incidentally has trouble driving, feels that he can craft a witty political or personal statement and conveniently place it on the back of his car in the form of a bumper sticker. These statements come in all forms, but most come in the form of haughty, contemptuous "humor" in the Jon Stewart vein, which I hate. My hatred of that form of expression reaches new heights when the yahoo driving that car decides to do something stupid like cut me off in traffic, get in front of me in traffic or just drive slow (which is the worst of the aforementioned offenses). Sitting behind the car, I am often a captive audience, with nothing to do but look at the poorly thought out views of the person in front of me with more contempt than is shown on the bumper sticker. Simply put, bumper sticker humor or politicking is its lowest form no matter how you slice it and no matter what side of the aisle you operate.
San Francisco, an otherwise beautiful city, is chock full of superior arrogance when it comes to politics. Many people here take pride in having views that are on the fringe of American politics and are supercilious enough to think that not only are they in the majority, but also that nobody has a right to a divergent viewpoint. Needless to say, the atmosphere here, especially since the beginning of the war has made for very interesting bumper sticker fodder. With the number of Kerry-Edwards bumper stickers still around, you'd think by looking that it was still the Fall of 2004 (guys, it's over your guy lost, get a grip and move on). Not only that but the selection of creative anti-Bush stickers is staggering. You've got your classic "Impeach Bush" and a W with a circle and a line through it, another more classic one where a "No War" bumper sticker has been recycled and transformed into a "No W" bumper sticker (I'll give these people credit, at least they're trying to save the environment in their contempt for the Bush Administration). Beyond these, come some of the more creative and annoying, including, "Re-Defeat Bush" (well he was re-elected, not sure that's what they wanted...), "More trees, less Bush," "Support our troops, bring them home now," "Doing my part to piss off the right," and "Some village in Texas is missing its idiot." These bumper stickers are moronic and sophomoric in my opinion, and I feel that people who put them on their cars do not grasp politics well enough to have an intelligent debate.
Aside from the individual messages about specific candidates or current events, there is another class of bumper stickers that take the cake as the absolute worst. We've all seen them, these are the stickers with lengthy political statements on them, often four to five lines. These are problematic for a number of reasons: primarily because they're too small to read, so, out of curiosity I often maneuver into a position where I can eventually read what the sticker says, and secondly because once I finally do read the thing I am more pissed of because I had made an effort to read something so ridiculous. The prize for the most absurd bumper sticker message I've seen is actually a fairly popular message, "It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber." That bumper sticker is very popular with teachers, and I actually first came across it in my middle school English class. It is laughably wrong on so many levels, mainly because it marginalizes the military (as protection is the single most important thing our government is charged with providing), and it assumes that schools are underfunded, which they are not (more on that in a future blog). It's scary that people who can put this ridiculous statement on their cars are charged with teaching kids.
Bumper sticker politics plainly stink, as do any other bumper sticker messages, and they just convey bad messages about you if you use them. "Proud parent of an honor student," means that you're pretentious, while the counter message of "My C student beat up your honor student," reeks of insecurity. "How's my driving, call 1-800 EAT SHIT" reflects a simplistic person who thinks he's clever, while the morons who put "School's open drive safely" bumper stickers and/or, "If you can read this you're too close," stickers on their cars are just pricks (especially since the small writing entices you to drive closer so that you can read it, go figure...). All in all, stay away from bumper sticker politics and bumper sticker humor, all it does is further piss off the other drivers on the road.
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