I received a link from a conservative commentary site, townhall.com. It sent me to a site with conservative-, as well as anti-Obama, bumper stickers. Two of the stickers in particular (one which described President Obama as a "village idiot" from Kenya, and one which questioned President Obama's constitutional ability to serve as President), I found very distasteful, and sent an email saying so to the site owners, as well as to townhall.com. As a conservative, I believe that my fellow like-minded thinkers and I must be held, and hold ourselves, to a higher standard than our liberal brothers and sisters. I think there are two main problems with these kinds of attacks on President Obama (and, for that matter, other liberals):
- It is petty and childish. In general, we conservatives have the advantage of having right on our side. We can defeat our fellow loyal Americans in reasoned debate, not by resorting to sophomoric attacks. As I have written to a liberal friend, as a conservative, I need to convince others to follow me by thoughtful arguments, not by forcing my views on them through legislation and the courts. After all, I'm not a liberal, right?
- We conservatives got upset at liberals who created bumper stickers like "Buck Fush." We can't do something similar back at them. We're better than that. Our slogans may not be as clever as liberals', but they are more in concert with reality than "An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind" (that's why one should adopt the strategy of overwhelming force [think The Untouchables' style of "they pull a knife, you pull a gun; he sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue"]), or "Give peace a chance" (what if the bad guys do not desire peace?), or "You can't hug children with nuclear arms" (no, but you sure can protect your children with nuclear arms!).
It seems that your basic argument is as such: Liberals (or, at the very least, their tactics) are petty, childish and sophomoric. As the party of the "right", conservatives must not sink to their level. And yet, the evidence seems to lead to an entirely different conclusion.
ReplyDeleteAs you yourself admit, this anti-Obama propoganda was disseminated via a website that supposedly represents the "best of conservative commentary" (as per your links). How can a website that represents mainstream Republican thought be associated with such filth (more on that later)? You fail to address this fundamental question, but in lieu of an answer you launch an attack on your "liberal brothers and sisters", the rightful bearers of offensive and misleading slogans everywhere. Nevermind the fact that, despite living in liberal NYC, I've never seen one of these "Buck Fush" bumper stickers. (It seems that I'm not alone; a quick google search suggest that Dennis Prager may be the only one who's actually encountered these stickers, although he claims to have seen them at least once a day and cites them as evidence that "leftist anger -- make that hatred -- of its opponents is probably the greatest politically inspired hatred in the country." Ouch.) Nevermind the fact that I would challenge you to find a respectable liberal news site that would advertise such garbage. Nevermind the fact that recent history reveals that Democrats have been on the receiving end of these attacks as much, if not more so, than their Republican counterparts. To suggest that these anti-Obama bumper stickers represent the extreme exception to the well-established Republican rule of "reasoned debate" and "thoughtful arguments" is to ignore the Clinton impeachment and the swiftboat attacks, among many other such examples. While I applaud your sentiment in objecting to the petty and childish attacks that we are currently seeing from the right, by blaming liberals for the existence of such tactics, shrugging your shoulders and declaring that "We're better than that", you're acting no less petty and childish than the bumper stickers that inspired this post.
Finally, just to clarify, are we to assume that the examples you cited above were the only two bumper stickers on patriotdepot.com that jumped out at you as "distasteful"? I might want to include these gems on the list as well:
Obama Bin Lyin'
Obama is doing the work of Al Qaeda
Comrade Obama
Obama & God
I guess that being characterized as a Communist terrorist with delusions of grandeur is one thing, but a true conservative draws the line at birth certificates...