Jill, official older daughter of NewMexiKen, reports:
I had to drive over to the school this afternoon to drop Mack off for drama class. When I pulled into the lot, there was only one space left. I hesitated to take it, because it was next to a big white van (not a mini van) with two different bumper stickers for George Bush, one about not being “Fonda Kerry,” one encouraging me to support the troops (I guess we’re supposed to support the current troops, but not troops from the past), an anti-abortion message, and some sort of Jesus thing.
I usually don’t park next to people like that, because — although I’m sure we’d just be super great friends with so much in common — I don’t want my car catching anything.
So I was glad when I came out of school, after dropping off Mack, and saw that the van was gone. Until I got up to my car and saw the big ding mark of white paint on the driver’s side door. And do you know what, I wasn’t even surprised.
Jill adds, and I surely agree:
I find that the type of people who lecture with bumper stickers are generally much more concerned with telling other people that they are wrong than with actually being/doing right themselves.
Perhaps Jill should get this bumper sticker.
Oh my god, do I need that sticker. It would go over REALLY well in the preschool pick-up line.
My birthday is coming!
Why is it that liberals ALWAYS react in a sacrigelious way?
Live and let live!
Teach your daughter to be more tolerant than you!
EFM
Teach your kids to spell better than you!
Oh, and to spot irony better than you! (i.e. recognizing the deep chuckles to be found in one person lecturing another not to judge others.)
(Oh wait, I’m a “liberal” so I’m contractually obligated to respond in a sacrilegious way. Um…teach your kids to spell better than you and spot irony better than you, and organized religion is a crutch for small-minded people. Does that work for you?)
I thought sacrigelious was the inability to set, as in jello that never quite gels.
Dear EFM:
Why is it that fundamentalist Christians can’t keep their religion to themselves?
How do you explain the Christian Left? Are they “sacrigelious”, or are they not Christians?
Remember: “live and let live.”
I thought sacrigelious was the inability to set, as in jello that never quite gels.
No, that’s ingelious. Sacrigelious is when you see the face of saint in the un-gelled jello.
Jill was reluctant to park next to a white car because its bumper stickers proclaimed the owner of the white car as a Patriotic Christian. She said “I don’t want my car catching anything”. I can imagine what Mack heard as she was parking. Sure enough, a paint speck she discovered later proved that the *’*/*! Patriotic Christian was guilty.
This is called prejudice. It’s of the worst kind. A judgement was made based on evidence that didn’t point to anybody in particular. So since no particular one, everyone.
Instead of looking inwards, you all concentrate on a mis-spelled word. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.
Teach your children to be more tolerant than you.
EFM
While it’s true, that it is usually inappropriate to judge all members of the group in the same manner, let’s keep in mind that the available evidence indicates that the people with the white van did actually damage Jill’s car.
Huh? Dude, a “judgement (sic) was made based on evidence that didn’t point to anybody in particular”? Seriously?
Okay, there is no damage to my car. I park next to a WHITE van. I come back about three minutes later and the van is gone (“evidence” that someone got into the van in the last three minutes). There is a big ding of WHITE paint on my door. You can’t manage to connect those dots? Are you by any chance a high-ranking member of the current administration?
I do feel some grudging admiration for your returning here and seeing the various comments about your misspelled word and having the guts to then post a comment with at least five errors of capitalization, punctuation and spelling. Bravo.
Pray to your fake God that your children pay more attention in school than you did.
in america, all ideology gets debased, degraded to the level of spectator sport. that’s one of the chief funxions of pop culture in this country– to make sure you miss the point
Dear EFM:
What makes a person patriotic? Having an American Flag sticker on an imported car, or perhaps blindly following some leader without question.
Maybe having a reference to Jesus Christ on one’s car?
Alternatively, is it patriotic to question and or oppose leadership, as did the revolutionary Founding Fathers of this great county?
Let me quote the author of the Declaration of Independence regarding Christianity: “Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity” (Notes on Virginia, 1782). “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own” (letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814). “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State” (letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802) “History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes” to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.
I want to add; only a fool would have voted for Bush, but only an idiot would still be proud of it. Supporting this illegal war is both immoral and unpatriotic.
Spelling Schmelling. Who cares? As a healthy Independent, I’d like to know who’s business is it of anyone what bumper stickers one puts on their vehicle. It certainly doesn’t stop many New Mexicans from having Kerry/Edwards bumper stickers on their cars 3 years later. Not parking next to a car that has bumper stickers stating an opinion you oppose is just plain silly. Yes, Jill…you are certainly entitled to your opinion. So is the person in the white van. To be prejudiced against them makes you no ‘better” than they. Please try to be a little more accepting…rise above it…and maybe they will do the same.
What I’d like to know is how someone who writes “liberals ALWAYS react in a sacrigelious way” can go on later to define prejudice for others and suggest they look inward.
“liberals” implying all?
“always” meaning every time?
Furthermore, bumper stickers are a means of communication. If a person communicates something that I find wrong or foolish, I am in a pretty good position to define their character. That’s not prejudice. Saying “liberals ALWAYS react in a sacrigelious way,” that’s prejudice.
“only a fool would have voted for Bush, but only an idiot would still be proud of it”
that’s an excellent line. except for too many words, it would make one helluva bumper sticker.
If a person has six or seven bumper stickers on his/her van that directly contradict my beliefs, I have every right to think “ugh” and not want to park next to them.
In no way does this make me intolerant. It’s not as if I am throwing cow’s blood on people’s cars, or lying in wait to make rude comments to them, or ripping off the stickers. (Or opening my car door into their vehicles and leaving marks.)
I couldn’t care less what people put on their cars. If they think political and religious expression is best done through stuff they pick up at Wal-Mart and slap on their bumpers, fine. But I am sure as heck allowed to think that they are idiots.
Telling me to “rise above it” is ridiculous. This isn’t political discourse, this is parking. Is that where you draw the line on freedom of thought? I’m literally not allowed to make a completely innocuous decision that affects nobody but me, based on my personal gut reaction to something?
What is the point of being an informed, reasoning individual who has opinions? We’re SUPPOSED to have prejudices, and preferences, and beliefs, based on what we’ve seen and learned and decided in our lives. We’re just supposed to understand also that other people often have different beliefs, based on what they’ve done in their lives.
I don’t feel guilty for thinking what I think. And I would never tell someone else that they weren’t allowed to have their own opinions. (I might try to change them, sure, but not by putting a sticker on my car.) But I’m not going to act as if the things I’ve come to believe don’t affect the way I live my life, even when it comes to minor decisions. I mean, isn’t that the entire point?
I’ll stop banging my head against a wall on this topic with this: I didn’t want to park next to the van because I’m come to the opinion that people with that many stickers, particularly on those topics, are often jerks. And these particular jerks opened their door into my car, damaged my car, and drove away. So if I learned a lesson here, it’s that next time I should listen to myself and wait for another space to open up.
Jill, I think Ephraim F. Moya was the driver of the van.
So, if I see someone wearing a Yankees ballcap, it would be predjudiced of me to assume they were a Yankees fan.
But, on the other hand, if I say all Chicago Bears fans are jerks, that would be ok? (No offense meant to Bears fans. I had to pick someone for this metaphor.)
ooOooo… NewMexiKen… I like your Jill. 🙂 She’s smart and spunky!
I was highly amused by the bumper sticker (and totally want one) and then read on…
All I can say is, “Lawds have mercy!”
One can’t help but notice the misspellings, poor grammar, and lack of eloquence in EFM’s pontifications. That, in and of itself, is equivalent to a few bumper stickers short of an assumption.