There are some suggestible, ignorant, and/or overly invested folks in Orlando:
Vandals spray-painted “Obama Smokes Crack” and other hate messages on 60 city vehicles parked across the street from City Hall in downtown Orlando.
Investigators said the vandals painted the messages — which appear to be politically motivated — after dark Saturday night.
Politically motivated? Ya think???
It’s going to be a very long campaign season… but this story reminded me of another I’ve been wanting to share.
The other day, I pulled into a parking lot at about the same time as another vehicle. The woman who got out of the other car turned out to be someone I know, and she told me that she’d wondered who that was driving around with an Obama sticker in the back window.
She then went on to tell me how lucky I was that her husband hadn’t been in the car behind me, because he would have wanted to ram the back end of my vehicle.
???
This is a major emotional malfunction, folks — but now you know why I used tape. I have no intention of becoming a moving target, and it’s only going to get worse.
A question for the universe: Why are some people such asses?
I think I’ll use your tape trick. I really hadn’t thought of someone hurting my poor little chevy.
One of the reasons I picked my neighborhood, apart from my general preference for central city living, was that there are a lot of political signs and stickers – and they’re not all the same (though Obama definitely wins the yard sign poll).
Up the street two neighbors had a little yard sign battle going; one house has had a sign saying “We support President Bush and our troops” and the next door neighbor has one saying, “Support the troops – bring them home.” That seems to be as heated as it got, and that’s fine.
(Though I always wondered why nobody has made a sign saying “I support the troops, not President Bush.” Of course, “I support the troops” is a bit like saying “I don’t kill puppies.”)
Oh, as for your “why are people such asses” question: some of it is human nature. I don’t think years of “our political opponents hate America and will let us all be destroyed by terrorists” doesn’t help. You can’t tell someone that the other side hates their way of life and would like to see them dead without some blowback. A better question for your friend might be, “What’s it like being married to someone with violent tendencies and poor impulse control?”
Sometimes, when I’m driving and there is nothing else on the radio, I’ll listen to Sean or Rush. I understand where the hatred is coming from.
According to right-wing radio, Obama is either the antichrist, or the second coming of Jimmy Carter, and I’m not sure which one they actually think is worse.
Wanting feedom of speach for yourself and giving to others…. for some people it is how I feel about my chocolate ( its mine and you can’t have any) 🙂 , lucky there is plenty to go around….If you lived here it all about Obama…haven’t seen who’s playing for the other team….
She’s the lucky one – after all, she isn’t having to live with a wrecked car, a husband in jail on felony assault charges, and a cancelled auto insurance policy.
I like the bumper sticker on my son’s car (it was left over from a previous owner), which says “Back off, before I shed my human form and kill you.”
~EdT.
Y’all are sooooooo much more level-headed than I am. My reaction, as I recall, had something to do with 4-wheel-drives, and backing right up over the hood of a certain husband’s car…
LOL!
A really, really big 4-wheel drive vehicle, I be thinking. Something on the line of “Bigfoot” or “Grave Digger”, perhaps?
Me, I would be thinking of a tank. Of the M1A2 Abrams variety. With a fully operational main gun. Pointed right in the windshield of the husband’s car.
That car would leave two black streaks down the road (and a brown one in between) as it tried to escape.
~EdT.
I ordered an Obama sticker and put it on my car a few weeks ago. I definitely considered not, though, considering that I’m in Republican country for the rest of the summer. I’m hoping nothing happens.
There are enough visible Obama supporters in San Antonio that the worst you have to worry about is having your car keyed.
It looks like we had an actual “incident” down near my part of the world, however it has a slight twist to it: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5904413.html.
~EdT.
I saw that earlier today, and even drafted a post about it — but didn’t hit publish. Maybe I should. Though I really haven’t got anything nice to say about either party in the argument…
I hope you do – I am working up a post on it myself, though I may take a little bit different tack than you (my opinion being that the McKains, while their bumper sticker may have been tacky and tasteless, were acting within their rights of political self-expression, while Ms. Gragg was simply acting outside the law.)
~EdT.
Trackback from Campaign ’08: Tacky & Tasteless vs. Terroristic & Threatening: