We’ve taken our shots at liberal bumper stickers in recent years.

Dr. Emil from Atomic Trousers has taken the logical next step; a top ten (?) list.

To wit (with some post-facto nominations of my own):

“COEXIST” (spelled out with various religious symbols) – If some of the followers of the religion represented by the crescent moon “c” on your cute little bumper sticker would stop hijacking planes and blowing up buildings, coexisting would be a little easier.

“Honorable” mention in this category: “My Karma Ran Over Your Dogma”.  That’s right, oil-belching Subaru-driving earth-granny, the fact that you don’t attend a “church” with other “believers” does make you “better than me”.  Or whatever.

“A PBS Mind In a FOX News World” – This particular bumper sticker is positively oozing with smugness. “God, I can’t stand being surrounded by these Wal-Mart-shopping, NASCAR-watching, deer-hunting troglodytes. How can these country-fried rubes allow themselves to be spoon-fed White House talking points from Bill O’Reilly? They must not be smart enough to enjoy watching some dusty old Brits mumble through a clunky drama on PBS like I am.”

 As if Bill Moyers isn’t the left’s high-gloss Bill O’Reilly (or, for that matter, that Bill O is a “conservative” in the first place).

“Live Simply So That Others May Simply Live” – The airheads with this little chestnut on their bumpers are confusing simple wordplay with incredible profundity. This bumper sticker sounds really deep until you realize that a.) it doesn’t mean a damn thing and b.) the dork in your office who asks if you’re workin’ hard or hardly workin’ is making an equally clever play on words.

And when all of us tax-paying, charity-donating first worlders move to yurts and revert to tending cattle and hunting and gathering, who is going to help those who can’t “simply live”, simply, live?  Without western (read: First-World) charity, whither Gambia? 

(…)

“Pro-Child, Pro-Choice” – I’m for the kids, but I’m also for aborting them willy-nilly too. This bumper sticker has the intellectual consistency of “Pro-Ants, Pro-Raid.”

• A close runner-up in the worst abortion-related bumper sticker goes to “Against Abortion? Don’t Have One.” (Against Robbery? Don’t Rob People!)

(…)
“Defy Corporate Domination” – I spotted this gem on the rusty bumper of a Honda Civic on November 8th. Chances are you have never heard of Honda, but its a small automobile-making co-op based out of Mazomanie.

(…) 

“Peace Through Music.” – Trouble in the Sudan, you say? Send in State Street’s bongo-playing hippies. They’ll calm things down. Al-Qaeda insurgents wreaking havoc in Iraq? I’m sure Mr. Johnson’s fourth-hour band class can get in there and straighten things out.

A few nominations of my own:

“You Can Not Simultaneously Prepare for Peace and for War” – This quote, attributed to Einstein, ignores the fact that Einstein had to flee for his life from a continent that largely “prepared for peace” after World War I, in the face of a belief that repudiated “peace”, and ran to a nation that did prepare (belatedly) for war.  Better sticker idea; “Preparing for peace without preparing to defend it is worse than meaningless”. 

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 at 5:00 am and is filed under Blogs, Culture War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.