Bumper Stickers
“Annoy a Liberal
Work. Succeed. Be Happy.”
I love bumper stickers. Seriously, I think they’re great. Pick your view, your religion, your ethnicity, your kid’s Middle School…and display it on your car for all to see. Why? Because you CAN of course! My favorite stickers are funny and slightly sarcastic (think ‘I get paid by the hour, don’t bother tailgating’). Often they’re political, especially recently, when every bumper and it’s neighbor were touting “Obama/Biden” or “McCain/Palin”. Thank the lord we’re done with THAT, because now we can go back to the broader, “I hate you because of your label” stickers, and that’s just what we need.
I’ve got a long commute, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have trouble keeping my concentration on the road. Often I’ll arrive at work and realize I don’t remember anything between leaving my apartment, and pulling into the concrete parking garage. There’s a particularly long tunnel several miles from my apartment, and it worries me when I try to remember passing through it and I can’t dredge up the recollection. I like to believe that while I block the rides from memory, I’m still aware of my surroundings…after all, I have commuted for almost two years and never hit another car, so in some dimension, I must be paying attention. The last thing I need to see is a bumper sticker that gets me thinking (horror of horrors!) and takes my attention as far away from the road as it can possibly get.
The rundown of bumper stickers that piss me off include “Pro-Life, Accept the (one and only) Lord, Marriage is between a man and a woman, etc”. Basically any bumper that tries to tell me and my friends how to live our lives annoys me. What can I say, I don’t do well with “authority”, especially when it’s coming from some random driver I don’t even know trying to exert theirs on me.
The bumper sticker I saw today was a bit different, this was more of an “in your face!” sticker, and I didn’t like its “tude”. The first reaction I had was that they were actually demeaning themselves, and what it means to be a “conservative”. The Republican movement (as I understand it) is trying to shake up their image a bit. They want people to believe that they care, regardless of what your take home pay is, and that they’re not just out to help the guy with a BMW in the garage. (bumper sticker free of course…can’t ruin that paint coat) But this bumper sticker…it was the antithesis of the “new” republican party. It was anti bleeding heart liberal (ok…that’s me), pro-money, pro-look out for yourself, and definitely anti-look out for your less fortunate neighbor.
Maybe I’m understanding liberalism wrong, but I thought it was about the right to be happy, no matter whom you are and what being happy means to you. Many career-oriented, well-off, HAPPY individuals are liberals. I surround myself with liberal people who don’t take any offense to happy people, on the contrary, we want those around us to be happy, because the better your environment, the better off you’ll be…or so I think…but then I’m a bleeding heart liberal talking.
Selah.
Work. Succeed. Be Happy.”
I love bumper stickers. Seriously, I think they’re great. Pick your view, your religion, your ethnicity, your kid’s Middle School…and display it on your car for all to see. Why? Because you CAN of course! My favorite stickers are funny and slightly sarcastic (think ‘I get paid by the hour, don’t bother tailgating’). Often they’re political, especially recently, when every bumper and it’s neighbor were touting “Obama/Biden” or “McCain/Palin”. Thank the lord we’re done with THAT, because now we can go back to the broader, “I hate you because of your label” stickers, and that’s just what we need.
I’ve got a long commute, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have trouble keeping my concentration on the road. Often I’ll arrive at work and realize I don’t remember anything between leaving my apartment, and pulling into the concrete parking garage. There’s a particularly long tunnel several miles from my apartment, and it worries me when I try to remember passing through it and I can’t dredge up the recollection. I like to believe that while I block the rides from memory, I’m still aware of my surroundings…after all, I have commuted for almost two years and never hit another car, so in some dimension, I must be paying attention. The last thing I need to see is a bumper sticker that gets me thinking (horror of horrors!) and takes my attention as far away from the road as it can possibly get.
The rundown of bumper stickers that piss me off include “Pro-Life, Accept the (one and only) Lord, Marriage is between a man and a woman, etc”. Basically any bumper that tries to tell me and my friends how to live our lives annoys me. What can I say, I don’t do well with “authority”, especially when it’s coming from some random driver I don’t even know trying to exert theirs on me.
The bumper sticker I saw today was a bit different, this was more of an “in your face!” sticker, and I didn’t like its “tude”. The first reaction I had was that they were actually demeaning themselves, and what it means to be a “conservative”. The Republican movement (as I understand it) is trying to shake up their image a bit. They want people to believe that they care, regardless of what your take home pay is, and that they’re not just out to help the guy with a BMW in the garage. (bumper sticker free of course…can’t ruin that paint coat) But this bumper sticker…it was the antithesis of the “new” republican party. It was anti bleeding heart liberal (ok…that’s me), pro-money, pro-look out for yourself, and definitely anti-look out for your less fortunate neighbor.
Maybe I’m understanding liberalism wrong, but I thought it was about the right to be happy, no matter whom you are and what being happy means to you. Many career-oriented, well-off, HAPPY individuals are liberals. I surround myself with liberal people who don’t take any offense to happy people, on the contrary, we want those around us to be happy, because the better your environment, the better off you’ll be…or so I think…but then I’m a bleeding heart liberal talking.
Selah.