What American cars look like

[davidn]

This specimen spotted outside the library on 1/9/2012, 11:23.

Comments

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

Half-tempted to suggest you send the 'God "Bless" America' one to the Unnecessary Quotation Marks blog... http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/

[kjorteo]

My dad's car is only about an eighth of the way there right now, but this is image is going to be a lot less funny when he catches up.

[lupineangel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was gonna remark on that... with the quotes around it, it comes off as though he's using 'bless' as a euphemism for 'destroy' or 'set fire to' or something. Kinda creepy, really.

D.F.

[davidn]

Mine is very plain - I question the wisdom of putting contentious and/or provocative stickers on to a very expensive collection of parts that I leave unattended for most of the day.

[davidn]

God bless America!

[kjorteo]

It's especially creepy with how easy it is to do the mental math and figure God "Bless" America in sarcasm quotes + Obviously fire-breathing hard-right-wing rhetoric everywhere else = http://www.godhatestheworld.com/america/index.html .

[wolfekko.livejournal.com]

Yes, "give the American nation and government back to the people! Oh, but only good Christian people. Those damned heathens and fags ain't Amur'cuns."

[davidn]

I should note that there is no hate speech on any of this... vast rainbow array of bumper stickers - but the way that it's so easy to assume that is testament to how hijacked American patriotism has become. Over the last couple of years, it's become part of the national vocabulary to call things "true" and "fake" depending on how closely they match a set of imaginary ideals... so many of the arguments I've seen involve someone being called a "fake American" for believing in twenty-first century ideas. If being a "true American" is to become as hateful and as proud of ignorance as these people are... then not being a true American is one of the greatest things I can imagine.

[xaq.livejournal.com]

Good thing the whole planet's already gone kablooey then, I guess. (http://qntm.org/board)

[xaq.livejournal.com]

As a country, we're a bit like Anghel in that regard....violently allergic to reality checks.

[kjorteo]

It must be a bit liberating in your case, in that when someone defaults to the usual response of calling your views "un-American," you can just say, "well, yeah."

[davidn]

It... is - but a lot of other Americans I know are quite un-American in this way :) It is as if anything but the way America currently operates is considered heretical and untrustworthy, while so much of the developed world has moved ahead of it. The country is sometimes like some sort of ignored middle child, hungry for praise and interpreting any criticism or attempt to improve as outright hatred.

[davidn]

What am I... looking at here, a site that collects together Westboroish articles over the world? I looked up Britain, and was quite proud to see that they're actually banned from the country, if the Sun can be trusted (NB. it can't).

I never really considered that they would have an Internet presence, but... I'd be terrified to look up their real site, if that exists.

[kjorteo]

That is the Wesboro site, or one of them, anyway. It's their ... international perspective.

[davidn]

Ah, fuck.

[scani.livejournal.com]

With the use of the term "un-American", McCarthyism appears to be alive and well despite the fact that it's 50 years later.

Except instead of "He's a Communist!" the preferred smear is "He's a LIBERAL!" (or the preferred indoctrinated spelling of the various conservative bloggers, which is frankly pathetic, of "lieberal".)

[wolfekko.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm guilty of stereotyping here, but every time I see a car decked out in that many stickers criticizing anything perceived as "left wing" AND bringing religion into the mix (the God "Bless" America) sticker, I often see connected bigoted catch-phrases on there too... And it is, after all, a Republican cornerstone to oppose equality for same-sex couples. That's why I used the particular sarcastic phrasing I did.

[davidn]

That is perhaps the worst part, that someone can unironically take a term that stands for something good, an ideology that's taught me to be nice to people and allows general progress in society, and twist it as if it were an insult. However, the fierce ones on the left don't help either with terms like "repuglican" or "rethuglican", which I'd quite like them to stop 'cause it's stupid.

[davidn]

I put that widget on the site for one of my games in 2006 (it was... secret agent-themed) as a bit of a laugh - it did once read "Not destroyed", and it was a real shock when I went to check the scoreboards and found it suddenly telling me that Earth had exploded!

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

People like this can read well enough to make a visit to the library worthwhile?

Yeah, okay, I know caricaturing or vilifying someone based on their bumper stickers isn't the best practice, but... come on.

[davidn]

I think so.

Otherwise the bumper stickers would be rather lost on them.

[xaq.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you wouldn't think something like that would slip by unnoticed, would you?

[kjorteo]

Only it needs sarcasm quotes, I guess?

[davidn]

Yes, well, I'm unsure how to react here - thank you for putting this profoundly hideous thing on my journal. Were the bloody tears your own idea...?

[kjorteo]

I actually just wanted to find a stupidly over-the-top picture along those lines, and it was on the first page of results when I searched for "crying eagle."

Of course, between their randomly being bloody, coming out of the wrong side of the eye, and the MS Paint-looking line of teardrop shapes, they really do add that special charm and complete this whole masterpiece, don't they.

[davidn]

What, you mean this isn't something that you mashed together yourself in a deliberate caricature of thoroughly awful patriotic garbage?

No... I see that you didn't. Hmm.

I need to rename that song so desperately urgently.

[kjorteo]

Which one, now? I'm afraid you lost me.

[davidn]

This one, named before I even had a concept that it could possibly be taken to mean anything else.

[kjorteo]

Ahh. Yes, that's ... rather unfortunate.