Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Bumperstickers: One Last Ron Paul Moment

I generally don't like them. Today I saw a truck with a very impressive graphic displaying the driver's association with the US Marine Corp and his affection for the flag. Okay, that's fine. But underneath all the visual hullabaloo were at least two bumperstickers. The one on the right took me awhile to discern; I assumed it would have said "Bush Was Right," or Rush Is Right, or Support the Troops, or something typically jingoistic. Nope. I don't know if you've seen this one, but it said in all caps with several exclamation points: "WHERE'S THE FENCE?!?!?" Yipes. That gave me a chill up the spine, but shouldn't be surprising in the land of Tancredo. Then I scoped the other bumpersticker on the left side: "Ron Paul '08." If that doesn't give anyone pause who had ever even considered voting for Ron Paul, well. Well it just reinforces my prejudice regarding the American Right Wing "Libertarian" movement and Ron Paul.

And the Right Brothers and their song Bush Was Right reinforces my prejudice of against all things neo-punk. The guitar lick "neener neener neener;" what could be more idiotic? But that was the point of the Ramones. It seemed idiotic, except it was genius.

But, on the contrary side, I don't like the "anti-idiot" talk either. I saw a bumpersticker the other day about what this country needs is to get rid of all the idiots. In Orcinus terminology, this Eliminationist. I want to ask these people, people like comedian Lewis Black, who says we need to get rid of all the idiots: How do we determine who are the idiots? Mandatory IQ tests? What about idiot-savants? What about the Ramones? They seem like idiots, they act like idiots, they sound like idiots, but what they did was genius. Unlike the Right Brothers--who look like fratboys who got moderately high scores on the SAT.

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