October 12, 2006
Thinking in Bumper Stickers
Nothing brands someone as an idiot faster than a carload of bumper stickers making political points.
It will be a wonderful day when the schools get all the money they need and the Deparment of Defence has to hold a bake sale to get a bomber.
Sure. Right. Whatever. If you want to live in some pinko country where they have more schoolteachers than soldiers, move to Costa Rica. And pray hard that Nicaragua never gets its stuff together enough to invade (never mind that what keeps Costa Rica safe is that the United States DOES have a standing army, and one that is well equipped).
Newly discovered truths go through three phases...ridicule [I am paraphrasing, as it is one of these longer ones], reluctant acceptance, and then full embrace as if it were self-evident." -Schopenhauer.
First, what are the odds that anyone with this sticker has actually read Schopenhauer? Second, there are plenty of untruths that were correctly tagged as ridiculous.
Free Leonard Peltier/Mumia Abdul Jabar
Hang 'em both. Dangerous murderous revolutionaries.
Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty
OK. I can live with random acts of kindness. Help an old lady cross the street. Give a lost tourist directions that don't land him in Bayview. Etc. However, there is no such thing as a senseless act of beauty. Can't happen. Does not exist. Senseless acts of violence? Yes. Senseless acts of cruelty? All the time. But there is no such thing as a senseless act of beauty. This betrays a horrible neo-puritan thinking that the good and the true are not always also the beautiful. Practice that act of random kindness. Piss on the car with the sticker as a gratis educational device. With love.
Question Reality
This says much more about the driver than the driver probably intends.
Posted by erik at October 12, 2006 3:44 PMSounds like fear-based living when you need a military stronger than a good education for your child.
Too bad all of our American jobs are being replaced by people from other countries, especially high-paying jobs. I guess that's what you get when they are better educated and our kids don't even know who the vice president is.
Posted by: Missy at August 6, 2008 9:34 PMI can't find documentation, but here is what I believe to be the origin of the phrase "Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty". Some time in the 1970's, the phrases "Random acts of violence" & "Senseless acts of cruelty" were recurrent in news stories & headlines. This was soon after the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders by the Manson "Family".
Whoever came up with the bumper sticker phrase was reacting to the above facts. Given the context, the phrase seems a little less trite & sappy to me.
Posted by: Jacqueline Y. at October 14, 2006 10:25 AMReject provisos on bumper stickers!
Posted by: at October 12, 2006 8:48 PM