Yesterday morning around 9:00 AM I was returning home from my doctor’s office after seeing him for my lower back pain. Yesterday, we also discovered that all my wife’s jewelry had been stolen including her wedding ring. I was almost home. I intended to call the 911 so I could file a police report regarding this theft (which I did later yesterday morning). I was stopped at a red light. I looked straight at the backside of the vehicle in front of me, a Mazda Cx 7. Plastered there on its rear bumper and hatchback door were several familiar bumper stickers I’ve seen before, including these two:
Liberalism is a Mental Disorder
and the ever popular:
Government Isn’t the Solution, Government Is The Problem
I thought that was funny considering I was just about to make use of our government servants to report a crime. At the same time I was listening to NPR where there was a discussion about the debt ceiling impasse and how much the federal Government would have to be cut from its budget after August if no deal regarding the raising of the debt ceiling is reached by then. The speaker mentioned that once the money the government can borrow from its employee pensions and other available funding sources run out, the amount that the federal government would need to cut to not go insolvent would equal the entire Defense Department Budget and all spending for Medicare and Medicaid.
I wondered if the person in the car in front of me was willing to cut spending for all the soldiers, sailors, airmen, generals, and of course defense contractors, who no matter what we think of them, do employ a few people in this beloved country of ours. I wondered if he (it was a white male driver) had any family who depended on Medicare or family in Nursing homes, who having exhausted their savings, now relied on Medicaid to pay the cost of their frightfully inadequate care.
Then my thoughts wandered around that liberal brain of mine (the one that was so clearly disordered) and wondered what other parts of the “government” he considered “the problem? The Criminal Justice System? The Homeland Security Department? The FBI? The Border Patrol? Probably not, but who knows.
I pondered some more. Did he think that NOAA and the National Weather System were not worth the money we spend on them to provide warnings of severe weather? Perhaps. Did he think the FDA and its monitoring of the safety of our medications and food supply was a bad idea? Or that FEMA, which is providing assistance to the millions of tornado and flood victims of this year’s horrific spring storms, should be eliminated? Perhaps.
What about the underfunded SEC whose authority to regulate the financial institutions has been eroded over the years is not worth more thin dime of his tax dollars despite all the evidence of fraud and criminal activity running rampant in the Big Banks that nearly destroyed the world’s economy? Maybe.
What about the FDIC that insures the deposits in his bank accounts? Could he live without that protection? Would he like to return to the days when banks that went insolvent wiped out anyone who kept their savings in them and triggered runs on solvent banks by other people in a panic that their money would disappear as well?
What about OSHA who monitors work safety? Workers compensation for employees injured on their jobs? Unemployment insurance?
Then I thought more locally. Was he willing to eliminate the police forces in our community? The fire departments? Probably not, but who knows. What about teachers and the public schools at which they teach the three R’s to our youngins, possibly his own kids? That’s a tough call considering how furious the “mighty right wing wurlitzer” has been spinning to stir up anger at those “thugs” (i.e., the folks formerly known as your kids’ teachers) who are members of despicable unions organized crime gangs like the NEA.
And Librarians? We all know how useless Libraries are, loaning out subversive books (print and audio), DVD’s, and providing free computer access to people at our expense. I’m sure he’s opposed to libraries, right?
And what about federal and state money spent for road repair crews that keep the highways functioning so he can take road trips, and which also allow truckers to deliver all those precious goodies he craves to his favorite big box stores for him to buy on sale? Those have to go too, right?
Or, oh, oh! — what about the air traffic controllers that keep airplanes he may fly on from crashing into each other, making flying safer than driving your car? Bad idea to keep paying those greedy bastards with our tax dollars? Bet he thinks so.
And let’s not even talk Social Security benefits (except his own or those of his family members, of course). What a ponzi scheme that is. Better to let people save for their own retirements themselves by investing in Wall Street stocks and mutual funds on ETrade or stuffing cash in their mattresses if they want. Right?
Then I had an epiphany. I suddenly realized that he probably never thought about it in those terms at all. Because when you think about all the things government provides, many of them government programs and services that “liberals” and “progressives” from former eras fought hard to obtain, you realize that you actually need most of what “government” in one form or another provides us every day. In fact, I bet he’d have a hard time finding a lot of programs and services that he could live without. Oh, research on climate change and public television, no doubt he wouldn’t miss. And food stamps for “those lazy parasites” who use them to buy “junk food” sure, I know he;d fight like hell to get rid of that program. But I’ll bet he doesn’t have a clue how small a percentage of government expenditures those programs he loves to hate actually represent.
Because he’s a member of what I’m cslling the “Bumper Sticker Party.” Oh, he might not be registered as a Republican, but I bet he votes for them every election, and the more extreme they are, the better. I bet he listens to Limbaugh and Hannity and maybe even that paragon of family values, Michale Savage. And, as we know, most of the bumper stickers you see on cars like his were originally quotes and sound bites by Republicans and conservatives. Bumper stickers like these that I’ve seen on the cars of Bumper Sticker Party people where I live (and I’ll bet many you have seen as well):
DEFEAT Big Government
DON’T BLAME ME: I DIDN’T VOTE FOR SOCIALISM
PROUD MEMBER OF THE VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY
Tea Bag OBAMA
A Village in Kenya is Missing its Idiot
HONK if I’m paying your mortgage
DHS CERTIFIED RIGHT WING EXTREMIST
Goodbye America-Hello Change
Basic Socialist Theory: Demonize “The Rich”
Invent Huge Government Program to Solve …?
Then … Tax the Heck Out of Everybody!
GET A JOB YOU LAZY ASS!
WE’RE REPUBLICANS AND WE SUPPORT THIS MESSAGE
GLOBULL WARMING
HITLER GAVE GREAT SPEECHES TOO
That’s just a small sample of course, and I didn’t bother posting the most offensive or violent ones I’ve seen (Hint: they usually involve Guns, Bulls-eye targets over the name of certain “Socialists” or readily identifiable faces of people like Pelosi and Obama), Rats, Cockroaches, Confederate Flags, Nooses, Hunting Licenses and the N word). There’s no need for me to do so. My point is made well enough without descending to that level of sheer nastiness and bile.
Now, I admit there are people who have “liberal’ or “Democratic” or anti-Republican/Tea Party” bumper stickers on their cars as well, though I don’t see very many of them compared to the rash of right wing bumper stickers I see every day. Probably that has something to do with the dominance of right wing voices spouting conservative memes and talking points daily on our TV’s and radio stations, and the paucity of liberal or progressive voices to counter them.
And many conservatives do seem more aggressive about spouting their views and shouting down those of others who don’t subscribe to the “truths” Fox News blares forth 24/7. Certainly I’ve never seen any liberal bumper stickers advocating nuking Mecca, holy wars, the denial of human rights for [name your minority here] or suggesting that the “elimination” of certain of their fellow citizens would improve our county, or in their own words take it back (Back to what? I always wonder).
But I believe there is another factor at work. When you let a bumper sticker do your talking for you, you really don’t have to think about the consequences of the message that it presents to the rest of the world. You don’t have to come up with your own ideas to solve the problems facing our country or even critically analyze ideas and policies that have been proposed by others with whom you may disagree.
Instead, all you need do is adopt the simplified slogans of others to do your talking for you. You get to express your anger and vitriol and aggressive emotions, the ones that arise in the reptilian structures of the brain, without ever having to engage the higher functioning regions like the frontal lobes of the cortex where critical thinking arises.
You get to piggyback on the rancid and misleading statements of others. You can be a follower while pretending to be a rugged individualist who blazes his or her own way in the world. You can turn your mind into a tape recorder that keeps playing the same mindless message over and over on an endless loop so information that conflicts with your cherished beliefs never gets through to make a make a dent in the wall of denial you’ve erected around yourself. You can blame others for your problems rather than do the hard work of taking an active role in fixing those problems for yourself and others, or at least working ameliorate the worst consequences through cooperative and even –yes, say it — government action.
In short, you can take the easy way out by not taking any responsibility for forming your own reality based opinions regarding the critical issues facing our nation and the world. That’s what a bumper sticker does, after all. That’s what the people I have labeled members of the “Bumper Sticker Party” do.
They just emote, they don’t think. They trust the lies before they trust the facts. They cheat themselves and their country. They are fools by choice and their support for the people and corporations manipulating them is destroying the fabric of our society and the welfare of its people.
I should, at this point, in the interest of fairness, disclose that I actually have two bumpers stickers on my car.
One is political. It says this: “Yellow Ribbons Don’t Bandage Wounds-Support Veterans Funding” and I make no apology for it. It was placed on the back of my minivan during the height of the Iraq war when yellow (and other colored) magnetic ribbons saying “Support the Troops” were all the rage. I make no apologies for it because I placed it there to make people think that supporting the troops meant more than being a cheerleader for war.
It’s a little faded now but I keep it there though I rarely see those “Support the Troops” stickers anymore. I still believe the message it conveys has value because it forces people who read it to think about what simple slogans like “Support the Troops” really mean. It makes them consider the consequences of wars if only briefly.
The other one says that I support my daughter’s High School Robotics Club.
Hey, I needed to get my car washed anyway.
