Bumper Stickers!

[queerbychoice]

My official First Bumper Sticker Ever arrived in the mail today. It says:

You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.
Abbie Hoffman

Actually I think "democracy" is the wrong word, because I'm not that big a fan of "democracy" and I certainly don't equate the term with fairness. But Abbie Hoffman said "democracy" and I think that will suffice to get the basic message across.

I bought it here. I also bought "END SANCTIONS ON IRAQ NOW", "QUESTION GENDER", "QUEER: bold or daring, brave, original, unrestrained by existing conventions, uninhibited", and a set of politically-themed magnetic poetry. But I haven't applied the other bumper stickers yet, because I want to spend time contemplating whether, which, and where I want to apply any others. So the Abbie Hoffman is the first, because I knew exactly where I wanted to put it (right in the center).

I am happy. My car is beautiful.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Forget the whole thing. If I saw your bumper sticker, I would just ram you to test how much dissidents can get away with.

Some more of this cliche nonsense pap

[(Anonymous)]

"Civil liberties are always safe as long as their exercise doesn't bother anyone."
- New York Times editorial, January 3, 1941

"They gave me a medal for killing a man, and a discharge for loving one."
- Sergeant Leonard Matlovich

"The human heart has hidden treasures."
- Charlotte Brontë

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them."
- Mother Teresa

"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted."
- Aesop

"Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers."
- Victor Hugo

"To love another person is to see the face of God."
- Les Misérables

"Love sought is good, but given unsought is better."
- William Shakespeare

"The day we stop resisting our instincts, we'll have learned how to live."
- Frederico Garcia Lorca, 1933

"How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?"
- Charles de Gaulle

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."
- Albert Einstein

"A hero is a man who does what he can."
- Romain Rolland

"Blushing is the colour of virtue."
- Diogenes

"Look up and not down, Look out and not in,
Look forward and not back, and lend a hand."
- Edward Everett Hale

"The prejudices of ignorance are more easily removed than the prejudices of interest;
the first are blindly adopted, the second willfully preferred."
- George Bancroft, Address, Historical Society, New York, 1854

"If you can read this you are driving toooo close!" -
Abbie Hoffman

[(Anonymous)]

How about: "You measure democracy by the stupidity of the bumper stickers"

[grecianurn.livejournal.com]

I have no idea who you are,and no one invited me to reply to your comments,but why all the hatred??

[(Anonymous)]

Not hatred. Wisdom.

A stupid message, thoughtlessly shoved onto a bumper by someone who doesn't have to read it, wasting the time of countless thousands of people who want nothing more than to get from A to B with their own thoughts in their heads and without having to be bothered by reading this sort of meaningless drivel...that's how I see it.

If this sort of thing can be nipped in the bud, all well and good. A bumper sticker removed; countless thousands of people then don't have to waste their time considering a message which is badly drafted and which does not, on closer consideration, make any sense or contain very much logic...that's how I see it.

See it how you wish - we live in a democracy after all.

[subtlyironic.livejournal.com]

god forbid people think.jesus.

[embryomystic.livejournal.com]

Well, thank you for sharing your infinite wisdom with us, Sor Anonymous. May we now sit at your feet?

[(Anonymous)]

No, that would be silly.

[groovycat.livejournal.com]

...oh, god, no. not the thousands of innocent drivers. because they -are- forced to read other people's bumper stickers, and that then -does- disrupt the rest of their day. ... the hell? you say the sticker doesn't make sense, but what about your logic? did you have a car accident brought on by reading someone's bumper stickers so now you have an illogical hatred of them? please go find a worthier cause to gripe about.

[(Anonymous)]

Why should I go and find a worthier cause to gripe about? You seem to want to deny this particular dissident the freedom that the bumper sticker purported to give me in the first place. Not much of a democracy, is it?

If people are going to force information onto others from their rear ends, where they themselves are not forced to look, then the data/information ought to fulfil at least a sufficient number of the following criteria to make it worthy of display, that it is: (a) correct (b) logical (c) not annoying (d)of actual use to the recipient (d) not likely to cause an argument or annoyance within the vehicle following (e) not wasting people's time (f) possibly, amusing and/or enlightening. This particular bumper-sticker fails to meet the grade on this sort of test. This is my gripe. Accept or reject the point as you wish.