Political/Religious bumper stickers, etc.

Great Debates
1

Hmmm…this has been something I’ve been wanting to ask about for a while.

I have as many political/religious views as the next person, but I am paranoid about sharing them on my car. My car is a “no political zone”. It is crammed full of Yosemite and travel bumper stickers, and a few goofy bumper stickers, but I am careful about anything too “political”. I guess I was influenced by my dad, who was a paranoid soul, and worried that a political bumper sticker could piss someone off enough to deface your car. He might be right, I don’t know. (I did have someone scratch off part of a Wyoming bumper sticker off of my car once - though I think they were just jealous that my little crappy car had been to so many neat places! ;))

I guess my some of my questions/comments sare - do you find political/religous bumper stickers to be effective? Do you feel that there is some “risk” to your car if you have a sticker on it? Are there different “levels” of political intensity? Which “level” do you think is most comfortable for you, or do you think it makes no difference?

For instance, I might dare to put a bumper sticker on my car that said “Vegetarians are sprouting up all over” (since I am a vegetarian) but I would NOT put a sticker up that said something like “Meat is Murder”. The second one is “in your face”, connecting “meat” and “murder”, and bound to piss someone off. The first one is cheery and happy, all about “sprouting” vegetarians - no mention of murder there.

And there is the “Darwin Fish” thing - this is an obvious take-off on the “Christian Fish”, something that I have seen on cars for years. Now, I know I am probably out of the loop with the Christian Fish/Darwin fish thing, but the fish symbol has been symbolizing Christianity for years now. The “Darwin Fish” seems to be a more recent thing, and is an obvious attempt to kind of parody the “Christian Fish”, which will (alas) piss some people off. (A friend of mine had her Darwin Fish peeled off her car several times.) I suspect that if my friend had chosen some other sticker/symbol to show her atheism/belief in Evolution, one that did not directly parody a long-held symbol, she might not have gotten it ripped off her car. (It is sad that we have to worry about these things, though, isn’t it? Why can’t we put what we damned well want on cars, and never have to worry about someone taking them off?)

I guess I’m just senstitive or paranoid about this. I get a little ruffled and want to cringe when I see an “in your face” bumper sticker, whether it be about vegetarianism, abortion (either side) religion/evolution, whatever. I think the happy “I’m for this thing!” bumper sticker is OK, (even if the “thing” is something controversial to some). But I am not comfortable with the obvious parody of someone else’s belief, attack on someone else’s belief, what have you, on a bumper sticker.

But, like I said before, it is sad that we have to worry about what we put on our cars, and gague whether it is innocous enough to be allowed to remain on our cars!

Well, that was my ramble. Any thoughts or opinions, input?

2

Actually, I seem to recall dopers saying that they have wanted to slap pro-choice bumper stickers over pro-life ones. I guess that sorta goes along with what you’re saying.

3

This is pretty sad. I have wanted to put a Canadian flag license plate on the front of my truck for a while but I have been cautioned against it because it could be viewed as political and my car could get defaced. I live in Quebec. I think I’m going to do it anyways.

4

I have a “science” Evolve-fish–it’s a Christian-fish that says “SCIENCE” in it and it has fins on it like a rocket. I think it’s real cool, since I don’t consider myself pro-Darwin or pro-evolution, but rather pro-science–though I worry that someone might confuse it for a statement in favor of Christian science.

Nobody’s ever molested my pickup or tried to pry it off. I’ve never been rear-ended–though I admit that if I see a Christian-fish on a car gives me a greater urge to hit 'em if they’re driving like an idiot.

I think the political-bumper-sticker thing taps into the anonymity one feels in traffic. You know how you catch people singing along with there radio while gesturing grandly, or picking their nose like the windows of their car magically let them see out but don’t let anybody else see in? Same thing that seems to encourage expressions of extremist sentiment on the internet.

Sometimes bumper stickers annoy me, but just as often I find myself thinking, “Right on, brother or sister!” when I see one I agree with. I get a huge laugh out of combos that either don’t make much sense or are somehow seem more profound than the vehicle owner intended–like one time I saw a whole bunch of cheesy Christian-themed bumper stickers on a car that had mud flaps with that anatomically-impossible lewdly-posed woman in chrome sillouete. Huh? Is that how Jesus wants you to think about women?

5

This disturbs me. I think people should be able to restrain themselves, no matter how offended they are by someone else’s sticker. (But dopers were merely tempted to cover up the pro-life sticker, so that doesn’t count since they didn’t do anything!)

I saw lots and lots of Bush/Cheney yard signs on my recent trip up the CA coast, and several of them were defaced. Why? Isn’t someone entitled to put a sign up on their lawn without it getting defaced? I recall reading on this board about how some dopers bragged about how they removed “offensive” (read, expressing an opposing view) signs off of other people’s lawns. Why? I think this is so tacky.

I see a Bush/Cheney sign as being a happy “I’m for this thing!” sign. It’s not the same as slamming Gore, or calling anyone unpleasant or insulting names. I think people should be able to deal with that, the way they should be able to deal with Renton having a Canadian Flag license plate.

Of course, I also think people should be able to deal with a Darwin Fish or “Meat is Murder”, or whatever. But I do feel that these are more “in your face”, and they make me cringe a little.

6

Stealing or defacing a sign or bumpersticker is just so unbelievably immature. Do people have a right to disagree with you or not? If not, who died and made you Hitler? Cripes.

7

Poor Jack E. Robinson - the doomed Republician challenger to Ted Kennedy here in Mass - sent me a big bumper sticker in the mail a month or so ago (I signed up on his site out of pity).

As much as I don’t like Kennedy, I’m not sure putting such a ‘I’m a loser’ sticker on my car is going to enlighten the body politic, or improve my social life.

Still, I might stick on my microwave.

8

In one of the threads a couple of weeks ago, a poster said that she was always tempted to heave a brick through the window of a car with a pro-life bumper sticker. My, my, where’s the tolerant attitude? Someone has serious issues.

9

How dare people express their political or religious views publicly!

:wink:

10

Don’t you think “challeger” is a very strong word? :smiley:

I’m still pissed that he’s so obviously trying to attract the “I kinda like baseball, support civil rights, and think what the Dodgers did back in the 50s was great but I’m too stupid to realize that the real Jackie Robinson is long dead and this guy is no relation to him.”

The “E.” is so unnecessary here, and just reeks of shameless vote grabbing that it pisses me off.

11

I’ve had a Darwin fish emblem and a “Support America, Buy A Congresman” bumper sticker on my car while going through high school and college and never had anyone deface it. Unfortunatly I can’t put one on now because I lease.

12

This is ironic—my mom put a political lawn sign up in her yard yesterday, today it is conspicuously MISSING!!!

What a bunch of twits some people are…

13

Yosemitebabe said:

I had a Darwin Fish sticker on my car at one time, and it was also peeled off (or, I should say, half-off; it was stuck on there rather well).

I find it amazing what “good Christians” who are against evolution will do…

(Yes, I know, it’s an assumption. But who else would target Darwin fish stickers?)

Incidentally, I was also manning a booth at the Illinois Science Teachers Association conference one year, and selling Darwin fish stickers and pins and the like (mostly, we were there to distribute information, but we sold those on the side). Most folks were thrilled to find them. But a couple were royally pissed that we would “make fun of Christianity.”

Eh. F*** 'em if they can’t take a joke. :slight_smile:

14

I don’t understand why someone would go to the bother of peeling a Darwin Fish sticker off someone’s car. And I don’t see why someone would deface a Bush/Cheney sign on someone’s lawn. Or, as some dopers have confessed, be tempted to cover up a “Pro-Life” sticker, either. I also have seen dopers gleefully admit that they removed Conservative political signs off of neighbors’ lawns. So I think it’s obvious that this sort of intolerance goes both ways.

I think in the case of the Darwin Fish (or another example I gave, “Meat is Murder”) there is an obvious attempt to parody or in some way “tweak” people who have an opposing view. (I do think the “Meat is Murder” sticker is more “in your face” than the Darwin Fish, though.) It’s a different thing that to merely profess your admiration or support for something (as in “Vegetarians are sprouting up all over”!)

Which is why I, as a vegetarian, won’t put a “Meat is Murder” sticker on my car, because I personally see it as an attempt to piss people off. I see no need to “tweak” anyone with things on my car. (But that’s just me!) Now, even though I am a Christian, I am not all that offended by the Darwin Fish. (And, I am as annoyed as anyone else that my friend had her Darwin Fish removed several times. That’s just tacky.) But I admit that it does make me roll my eyes a bit. It is an obvious take-off on the Christian Fish. I ask myself, “Why didn’t they design an original symbol designed to express this belief, instead of parodying someone elses’ symbol?” (But that obviously was the whole point – to parody.) These things I just don’t get. If you are “for” something, can’t you just express that? Do you have to express what you are “for” by making a point to show how you are “against” something else? (If you follow that?)

I also roll my eyes about those lame “In case of rapture, this car will be unnoccupied” stickers too. Sigh. I guess I am just picky… Well, I’m starting to ramble now. One of my original thoughts was that we should all be tolerant of each others’ bumper stickers. At least enough so that we don’t want to cover them up or pry them off!

15

Yosemitebabe said:

Some people can’t bear to see opposing viewpoints, I guess.

Oh, I can understand being tempted (especially with some of the more insipid ones), just not actually doing it.

Well, I haven’t seen it. If I had, I would have given them a stern talking-to! :wink:

No doubt. But, of course, if you are so “Christian” that you believe in the literal truth of the Bible and all, one might think that you might recognize vandalism to be a sin…

Sure there is. Same with all the pro-life stickers (other than the simplest that says something like, “I’m pro-life and I vote!”).

You want in-your-face? There is one making the rounds where I live that just says: “A. Hitler, J. Stalin, G. Ryan” (George Ryan is Illinois’ governor – he apparently has some policies that gun nuts don’t like). To make it worse, when a local Rabbi wrote an opinion piece in the paper criticizing that type of idiocy, somebody actually wrote back a letter to defend comparing George Ryan to men who murdered millions!

Exactly. It attracted attention.

What’s funny is that I have a friend who won’t put it on his car because it’s too easy to mistake it for a Jesus fish from a distance (and I’ve had people make that mistake when I wore a Darwin pin a few times).

Well, the Darwin fish shows you’re for evolution. It’s not like the anti-Darwin stickers that followed them, showing a dead Darwin fish, or a Jesus fish eating a Darwin fish, or any other variant.

Yeah. Me, too. But probably for a different reason. :wink:

Incidentally, I current have no bumper stickers, but my license plate is a variant of “SKEPTIC.” :slight_smile:

16

David, we basically agree, I guess! I do not deny that some these bumper stickers (on both sides of the political/religious spectrum) are “in your face”, and I personally choose not to display any of them on my car. Too contentious for my taste. Hell, since someone wanted to scratch a WYOMING bumper sticker off of my car, imagine what they’d do with “Meat is Murder”!!! Yikes!

So, what’s your point here? What do the atheists/non-Christians think when they are vandalizing someone’s yard or car?

17

I have no idea. No matter who does it, it’s wrong. But it seems extra hypocritical coming from somebody like I described.

18

I guess it seems extra hypocritical to you, as a non-Christian. (As a Christian, it seems hypocritical to me, sure. Just not extra hypocritical.)

I could just as easily say that it would see extra hypocritical for any person who considers themselves “tolerant”, “free-thinking” or “open-minded” to go around defacing signs and bumper stickers that they don’t agree with. But I don’t actually think that.

I think that it’s just hypocritical, and tacky, plain and simple. No matter who is doing it.

19

When I eventually get my license and a car, I plan on having an MST3K sticker on it. Nice and simple!

20

It occurs to me to respond to this:

The Darwin fish certainly does more than merely show you are “for” evolution. It shows you are for evolution while simultaniously parodying a Christian symbol. That was my original point - the Darwin fish was designed to (in part) “tweak” other people.
And the subsequent Dead Darwin fish, etc., are just following the lead of the Darwin fish, IMO. It starts a slippery slope, of “making fun of them because they made fun of us first”, and on and on…

Yikes. Too contentious for me. I’ll stick with my Yosemite stickers!