You're gonna want that Tru-Coat -- and we'll also throw in this anti-Obama billboard

November 22, 2009 11:39 AM

An automobile dealership in Wheat Ridge, Colorado made the decision last Friday to post a billboard which asks if President Obama is a terrorist and if he's really an American citizen by birth. Part of the sign also references the recent tragedy at Fort Hood. The brainchild of Phil Wolf, owner of Wolf Interstate Leasing and Sales, the sign depicts a Bamboozled-esque rendition of the PUSA, with and without a turban. Protestors have gathered to display their dislike of the billboard, which even the shop's proprieter admits "may be a little scattered. It says several things. It brings us several questions and I think they got to be answered (sic)."
posted by porn in the woods (131 comments total)

There were crazy people before the internet, they just weren't famous for it.
posted by billysumday at 11:42 AM on November 22, 2009 [23 favorites]

Bamboozled-esque? You are too kind.
posted by box at 11:43 AM on November 22, 2009

Is this some kind of bizarre new version of burning the place down for the insurance?
posted by Sys Rq at 11:47 AM on November 22, 2009 [10 favorites]

PUSA? I thought POTUS was bad enough
posted by Riptor at 11:48 AM on November 22, 2009 [10 favorites]

Also: Racist or Rapist?
posted by Sys Rq at 11:49 AM on November 22, 2009

"Hate Doesn't Help".

I can think of about twenty different things to do in response to this sign and that wimpy, lame slogan sure isn't one of them.
posted by dunkadunc at 11:50 AM on November 22, 2009 [4 favorites]

Keep in mind these are the people that Obama and Reid want to get signed onto health care reform. Because if you don't have both sane AND insane people onboard, it isn't fair. Or something.
posted by DU at 11:50 AM on November 22, 2009 [9 favorites]

I guess I know where Orly Taitz is buying her next car!
posted by octobersurprise at 11:52 AM on November 22, 2009 [10 favorites]

There were crazy people before the internet, they just weren't famous for it.

I know, but in late 2009 it feels like they're taking turns sitting on my face.
posted by fleetmouse at 11:55 AM on November 22, 2009 [35 favorites]

Local business owner figures out how to get free publicity by stirring up controversy. Film at 11.
posted by fatbird at 11:55 AM on November 22, 2009 [3 favorites]

that's not even a full-size billboard. it's a dumpster-size billboard on some godforsaken road in the middle of nowhere. this is about as close to a sack of rice falling over as it gets.

this does not merit the attention of teh maightey metafilters.
posted by krautland at 11:57 AM on November 22, 2009 [2 favorites]

I guess I know where Orly Taitz is buying her next car!

Bob's Used Autos of Red Plains, Mars?
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 11:58 AM on November 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

None dare call it treason. Well. Yet.
posted by tkchrist at 11:59 AM on November 22, 2009

tkchrist: "None dare call it treason. Well. Yet."

Somewhere, Glenn Beck is double-checking when sweeps week starts.
posted by Joe Beese at 12:05 PM on November 22, 2009 [2 favorites]

Bob's Used Autos of Red Plains, Mars?

I'm not going to pay a lot for this birth certificate!
posted by octobersurprise at 12:10 PM on November 22, 2009 [3 favorites]

I've got nothing.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:13 PM on November 22, 2009

I'm curious as to whether this man will sell more or fewer cars, post-billboard. I know I'd never want to buy a car from someone that ignorant and out of touch with reality.
posted by orange swan at 12:18 PM on November 22, 2009

it's a dumpster-size billboard on some godforsaken road in the middle of nowhere.
Actually, it's in Wheat Ridge, which is in west Metro Denver, (pop. 2.7MM) inside the beltway, and not, as the pictures might lead you to believe, safely in BFE.
posted by toodleydoodley at 12:18 PM on November 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

There's one of those video screen billboards on my commute, and one of the slides for the past month or two has been "If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it's free!" ... sponsored by a local donut company.

Looks like I'll be buying fastnachts somewhere else this spring.
posted by MegoSteve at 12:18 PM on November 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

I know, but in late 2009 it feels like they're taking turns sitting on my face.

The mental image, it's not so good.
posted by Drasher at 12:18 PM on November 22, 2009 [2 favorites]

None dare call it treason. Well. Yet.

Outright knowing lies designed solely to destroy the country? Not exactly treason, but it does come close. Yes, yes, free speech blah blah blah. Didn't one of your lot say something along the lines of "With great freedom comes great responsibility"?

I'd propose that responsibility includes the responsibility to not spread fucking stupid lies that guarantee bad shit. But I'm naive and Canadian.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 12:20 PM on November 22, 2009 [7 favorites]

This is the end of the road. I'm no longer going to entertain the notion that people who want to tear down Obama might *not* be racists motivated by their racism. If you bad mouth the administration without a real, coherent argument against the man's policies, then you are a racist in my eyes, period.
posted by paisley henosis at 12:20 PM on November 22, 2009 [11 favorites]

I wonder, if I showed up at this dealership to apply for a job, would he hire me? All I have of proof of my U.S. citizenship is a state-certified copy of my Hawaiian birth certificate, a social security card, and a valid passport.

None of my jobs have required more than two out of the three.
posted by rtha at 12:21 PM on November 22, 2009 [8 favorites]

If you want a vision of the future, imagine Glenn Beck sitting on a human face - forever.
posted by found missing at 12:21 PM on November 22, 2009 [39 favorites]

This just proves once more that racism has absolutely nothing at all whatsover to do with right-wing opposition to Obama.
posted by Saxon Kane at 12:22 PM on November 22, 2009 [7 favorites]

Now we had a deal. A deal's a deal. I'll get that birth certificate faxed over right away.
posted by porn in the woods at 12:22 PM on November 22, 2009 [2 favorites]

You know how every so often peopel hold up business owners as paragons of level-headed sensibleness?
posted by Artw at 12:22 PM on November 22, 2009 [4 favorites]

Didn't one of your lot say something along the lines of "With great freedom comes great responsibility"?

Uncle Ben Parker was a Birther?!
posted by Saxon Kane at 12:23 PM on November 22, 2009 [2 favorites]

I am against this.
No, wait.
I am against caring about this.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 12:23 PM on November 22, 2009 [4 favorites]

In related recent billboard news: New Missouri billboard tells Americans to ‘prepare for war’ against the government.
posted by ericb at 12:26 PM on November 22, 2009

"Hawaiian officials have inspected his original birth certificate, proving he was born in the United States. The conspiracy theory has persisted, in part, because Hawaiian officials won't release the president's original birth certificate."

wait wait wait is this part true? (from the channel 9 news article, first link)? I thought that wasn't true?
posted by toodleydoodley at 12:27 PM on November 22, 2009

If we ignore them and refuse to give them media coverage, will they go away?
posted by autoclavicle at 12:29 PM on November 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

I think it relevant to repost a previous comment which speaks to the current political/civil climate which is of concern to many.

Thomas Friedman | September 29, 2009: Where Did ‘We’ Go?

"I hate to write about this, but I have actually been to this play before and it is really disturbing.

I was in Israel interviewing Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin just before he was assassinated in 1995. We had a beer in his office. He needed one. I remember the ugly mood in Israel then — a mood in which extreme right-wing settlers and politicians were doing all they could to delegitimize Rabin, who was committed to trading land for peace as part of the Oslo accords. They questioned his authority. They accused him of treason. They created pictures depicting him as a Nazi SS officer, and they shouted death threats at rallies. His political opponents winked at it all.

And in so doing they created a poisonous political environment that was interpreted by one right-wing Jewish nationalist as a license to kill Rabin — he must have heard, 'God will be on your side' — and so he did.

Others have already remarked on this analogy, but I want to add my voice because the parallels to Israel then and America today turn my stomach: I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Obama from the right or left. But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination. [more]

posted by ericb at 12:32 PM on November 22, 2009 [32 favorites]

If we ignore them and refuse to give them media coverage, will they go away?

No.
posted by ericb at 12:37 PM on November 22, 2009 [6 favorites]

Yeah, I agree, this doesn't need our attention..

I am willing, however, to register "fuckingidiot.net" (.com is taken, damn) so we have a place to talk about people like this and can stop wasting valuable mefi front page space....
posted by HuronBob at 12:44 PM on November 22, 2009 [2 favorites]

Anyone else recall the darkest days of Clinton's presidency? When most of the terrorism was western right-wing militas? Murrah Federal Building? Those days are coming back. The signs -- like this sign -- are pretty clear. The American right turns to violence when it is not in power.
posted by rusty at 12:46 PM on November 22, 2009 [9 favorites]

"I didn't expect employees to leave scared going home from work that were threatened, death threats and attempts to bomb the place. It's been pretty crazy out there"

I feel bad for his employees. Knowing the way these things work, they're probably not all crazy right wing bat shit insane. There is probably at least one liberal leaning sane person who just hates his or her bosses ignorant rants. Maybe not even liberal, just not insane. They bite their tongues whenever this stupid shit comes up because it's the boss and they need the job, nodding all the while biting back the bile in their throats.

Now this latest bit of fucktardary and and they're doing everything they can to keep it together. Sending out 20 times more resumes then they were before, but in this economy, there just isn't anything for them out there. So they go home every night fearing for their lives all because their boss is a crazy wing-nut and contemplate how each day they die a little more inside.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 12:49 PM on November 22, 2009 [9 favorites]

"Hawaiian officials have inspected his original birth certificate, proving he was born in the United States. The conspiracy theory has persisted, in part, because Hawaiian officials won't release the president's original birth certificate."

wait wait wait is this part true? (from the channel 9 news article, first link)? I thought that wasn't true?

“In an attempt to quash persistent rumors that President Obama was not born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961, Hawaii's health director reiterated Monday afternoon that she has personally seen Obama's birth certificate in the Health Department's archives:

‘I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaii State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen. I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008 over eight months ago....’

On Oct. 31, Fukino originally tried to put an end to the belief among ‘birthers’ that Obama was born in Kenya and thus was ineligible to run for the office of president.

Despite Fukino's statements, the issue has continued to resonate from Capitol Hill to the national airwaves.

Last week, CNN's Lou Dobbs demanded Obama's original birth certificate. CNN/U.S. President Jon Klein told staffers of Lou Dobbs Tonight that the issue is a ‘dead’ story, Kline told the Los Angeles Times in an interview published Sunday.

In an e-mail, the Times reported, Klein wrote that CNN researchers determined that Obama's 1961 birth certificate no longer exists because Hawaiian officials had discarded paper documents in 2001 — a claim denied Monday by Hawaiian health officials.

In 2001, Hawaii's paper documents were reproduced in electronic format, but ‘any paper data prior to that still exists,’ Health Department spokeswoman Janice Okubo said.

Okubo would not say where Obama's original birth certificate is but said, ‘We have backups for all of our backups.’

A congressional resolution introduced by Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of island statehood was delayed Monday.

The resolution includes a clause noting Obama's Hawaiian birthplace. The line ‘Whereas the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961’ appeared to be construed by birthers as a thinly veiled attempt to get Congress to affirm Obama's U.S. citizenship, said Dave Helfert, an Abercrombie spokesman.

As the issue came to a vote Monday, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., rose to object, saying there was not a quorum present. The House later voted 378-0 to approve the resolution. Bachmann voted in favor of the resolution.

Birthers denounce the notion that Obama was born in Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961, despite court rulings and statements by Fukino and Hawaii's Republican governor, Linda Lingle.”*

posted by ericb at 12:52 PM on November 22, 2009

"If you want a vision of the future, imagine Glenn Beck sitting on a human face - forever."

Christ, that's an image I'll never be able to scrub out of my brain. Thanks a whole fucking lot.
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 12:52 PM on November 22, 2009

can stop wasting valuable mefi front page space

That's ok. The tenants we had for that space backed out last summer.
posted by octobersurprise at 12:54 PM on November 22, 2009 [3 favorites]

Odd that there's no 9/11Truth!!!1! mixed in there. Oh wait, 9/11 conspiracy theories have no black people involved.
posted by benzenedream at 12:54 PM on November 22, 2009

I didn't expect employees to leave scared going home from work that were threatened, death threats and attempts to bomb the place.

I think you can safely assume that none of those things are happening. He's just working the right wing victim angle to get more sales.
posted by stavrogin at 12:54 PM on November 22, 2009 [2 favorites]

I wonder how much money he made from Obama's Cash for Clunkers program (and if we can make him give it back). Or maybe he's just bitter that he didn't cash in on it.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:55 PM on November 22, 2009

And in so doing they created a poisonous political environment

You know, the American political environment has been poisonous for about 9 years now. When the hell are we going to grow up (again). I am tired of this bull crap.
posted by sundri at 12:56 PM on November 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

Looking at idiots like this I can only shake my head slowly back and forth like a doctor in the third world might upon seeing a newborn baby conjoined with a duck, and question how it is this thing is even able to figure out breathing, an evolutionary mistake that under normal circumstances would have been naturally selected to extinction, or perhaps would go behind glass at Ripley's Believe It Or Not were they not so fucking plentiful.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 12:59 PM on November 22, 2009 [6 favorites]

9 years? Are you forgetting the long list of accusations against Clinton? Including an actual list of 40 or 50 people he supposedly killed.
posted by stavrogin at 12:59 PM on November 22, 2009 [2 favorites]

The New Yorker book review | The Things People Say -- Rumors in an Age of Unreason.

“This past June, Representative Mike Castle held a town-hall meeting at a community center in Georgetown, Delaware. Castle, a Republican, is the state’s only House member, and he had invited half a dozen health-care experts to take questions from his constituents. A woman in a red shirt spent most of the meeting with her hand in the air. When Castle called on her, she rose from her seat, clutching a ziplock bag filled with papers and a miniature American flag.

‘Congressman Castle,’ she began. ‘I have a birth certificate here from the United States of America saying I’m an American citizen. With a seal on it. Signed by a doctor. With a hospital administrator’s name, my parents, my date of birth, the time, the date. I want to go back to January 20th and I want to know: why are you people ignoring his birth certificate?’

‘Yeah!’ a man in the audience shouted. The Congressman appeared flummoxed. The health-care experts looked on, impassively.

‘He is not an American citizen,’ the woman in red went on. ‘He is a citizen of Kenya.

‘I am American,’ she continued. ‘My father fought in World War Two with the greatest generation in the Pacific theatre.’ She waved the flag and the ziplock bag in Castle’s direction. ‘And I don’t want this flag to change. I want my country back!’ The community center erupted in applause.

The phenomenon known variously as the ‘birther movement,’ the ‘birther conspiracy,’ and the ‘birther nut-job fantasy’ is now roughly two years old. Its adherents hold that Barack Obama, owing to his birthplace (wherever that may be), is ineligible to be President. As articles of faith go, this one falls somewhere between a belief in Santa Claus and ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’ Obama’s birth certificate, which has been posted on the Internet, shows that he was delivered in Honolulu on August 4, 1961, at 7:24 P.M. Further confirmation of these facts exists in the form of birth announcements that appeared in two Honolulu newspapers, the Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin, the relevant pages of which have also been scanned and posted on the Web. So unambiguous is the evidence that a spokesman for the Republican National Committee has called the question of Obama’s birthplace an ‘unnecessary distraction,’ and most elected officials have either ignored it or dismissed it as nonsense.

‘If you’re referring to the President there, he is a citizen of the United States,’ Representative Castle told the woman in red. (Her response was to lead the crowd in an impromptu recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.)

Still, the birthers are legion. So far, more than half a dozen lawsuits have been filed alleging that Obama is not a ‘natural born’ citizen. One plaintiff, an Army reservist from Georgia, argued in court that he couldn’t be sent to fight in Afghanistan because the military lacked a Commander-in-Chief. In a poll released over the summer, twenty-eight per cent of the Republicans surveyed said that they did not think Obama was born in the U.S., and thirty per cent said that they were unsure, meaning that fully half took birther ideas seriously enough to doubt the legitimacy of their government. When a video of the woman in red was posted on YouTube, it quickly went viral; within a few weeks, it had received some eight hundred thousand hits.

That such a wacky idea should be so persistent is, to put it mildly, disquieting. Here we are, quadrillions of bytes deep into the Information Age. And yet information, it seems, has never mattered less.

… ‘FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate,” the group’s Web site announced on August 21, 2008. ‘Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.’ Nine high-resolution photos accompanied the post, showing the raised seal, as well as a set of creases.

The birthers were unfazed. ‘I, for one, of course, am not surprised,’ JM Hanes wrote on the Web site JustOneMinute. ‘I mean he’s had more than two months to find a better forger.’ Others insisted that the birth certificate was meaningless, since it was just a computer-generated copy of the original handwritten or typed certificate that should have been filed with the state of Hawaii. When, on October 31, 2008, the Hawaiian health director, Chiyome Fukino, issued a statement saying that she had ‘personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record,’ this evidence, too, was dismissed.” Read much, much more.

posted by ericb at 1:04 PM on November 22, 2009 [6 favorites]

Oops: Read much, much more.
posted by ericb at 1:05 PM on November 22, 2009 [2 favorites]

… ‘FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate,” the group’s Web site announced on August 21, 2008. ‘Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.’ Nine high-resolution photos accompanied the post, showing the raised seal, as well as a set of creases.

The birthers were unfazed. ‘I, for one, of course, am not surprised,’ JM Hanes wrote on the Web site JustOneMinute. ‘I mean he’s had more than two months to find a better forger.’ Others insisted that the birth certificate was meaningless, since it was just a computer-generated copy of the original handwritten or typed certificate that should have been filed with the state of Hawaii.

Well, uh, obviously this is the time for the offending document to be placed in a gas-filled, UV-proof protective box in the Smithsonian for every damn fool to inspect to his own satisfaction. Did nobody think to take a video of the birth?
posted by toodleydoodley at 1:10 PM on November 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

well, we all know that used car salesmen are the most trusted men in america
posted by pyramid termite at 1:12 PM on November 22, 2009 [7 favorites]

If you want a vision of the future, imagine Glenn Beck sitting on a human face - forever.

Last night's Saturday Night Live: Could This Happen in 2012? Sarah Palin/Glenn Beck?
posted by ericb at 1:16 PM on November 22, 2009

As a friend of mine says, "At this point someone would have to prove that Obama was from an alien race of robot lizard people before I'd care where he was born. Even then I'd want to hear the robot lizard people out."
posted by cjorgensen at 1:19 PM on November 22, 2009 [16 favorites]

well, yeah, if the robot lizard people (you meant people of robot-lizard ethnicity/nationality, right?) were there agitating in pride for recognition. Is there a counterpart group of Indonesian/Kenyan/wherever-ians demonstrating to claim Obama as one of their own?
posted by toodleydoodley at 1:24 PM on November 22, 2009

>: They'll regret broadcasting their open contempt when Obama opens the FEMA death camps for republicans.

I really don't get the outrage over the FEMA coffins, because if I was really intending to systematically kill off Republicans I would just bury them in a big pit somewhere. Coffins would be too expensive.
posted by dunkadunc at 1:24 PM on November 22, 2009 [7 favorites]

So.. did someone FPP the billboard that was calling for people to refuse to pay taxes then take up violent revolution if they got in trouble for it?

I mean honestly, there have been and always will be jackasses of all political stripes, be they Paulities, Palinwanks, Bushidiots, Naderstones, Clintonasses etc.... This has openly been going on as long as there has been any level of free speech and politics. Some of the things that where said between the oh-so-agust founding fathers would make Sarah Palin blush.
posted by edgeways at 1:25 PM on November 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

None dare call it treason. Well. Yet.

Currently, it's not treason, it's sedition -- and very clearly so.

Treason (in the US) is simple: Take up arms against the United States, or offer material support or comfort to those who are doing so, while a citizen or national of the United States. Sedition is the advocation of treason, not the act. So far, there has been lots of seditious activity, but very little to no treason.*

Sedition is also very hard to prove, and may not, in fact, be illegal at all unless you are a member of the armed forces subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Teaching an ideal considered treasonous is explicitly *not* sedition, see Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298 (1957).

Simply believing that the US Government must be overthrown under certain circumstances doesn't meet the test, but advocation that the current government must be overthrown now does. And this is a really dicey subject, any actual prosecution of sedition will almost certainly go all the way to the Supreme Court.

In effect, as long as it remains words, it is, at worst, sedition and will almost certainly not be successfully prosecuted.

* Whomever hung that census worker is really close to the treason line. Had that attack been against a member of the military in the performance of their duties, it would have been explicitly treason, along with the rest of the crimes it is.
posted by eriko at 1:26 PM on November 22, 2009 [15 favorites]

If we ignore them and refuse to give them media coverage, will they go away?

Yeah, no. I want these idiots out in the open where I can see them coming, dude. Like horribly crunked drivers on the highway of life.
posted by elizardbits at 1:38 PM on November 22, 2009 [3 favorites]

Is this how conservatives viewed the liberal's response to the 2000 elections? I know liberals didn't put up this kind of a fuss, and the complaints were mostly legitimate. At least Hawaii had the courtesy of disproving the birthers on non-poltical grounds from several sources. Gore V Bush came down to the supreme freaking court and Scalia (thanks for that, really.) Had the Gore V Bush case been settled in Florida (with the, you know, recount, which could have totally been non-political) and Bush came out with more votes then I would have been miffed but at least the outcome would have been legitimate.

(Of course, one could argue the Supreme Court's decision was all the legitimacy needed, but I'm comparing a birth certificate to that of election results.)

The birther movement is one out of anger, it's as if they need an outlet for their anger and have just attached themselves to a non-issue or two.

I'm actually more surprised this happened in Colorado. I find the mountain air to put me in a super-chill mood, enough so that I wouldn't care who the president was.
posted by hellojed at 1:44 PM on November 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

hee hee haw haw! hee hee hee haw haw!
posted by pianomover at 1:46 PM on November 22, 2009

I mean honestly, there have been and always will be jackasses of all political stripes

Exactly. And violent, sometimes untrue political attacks. And insulting caricatures. (I was struck by how much the ones of our President on the billboard resemble the cartoons of our last President.)

The American political body has been making up mean and sometimes untrue stories about opponents since pre-Revolutionary days -- our early newspapers put the current liberal/political screeds to shame. We have somehow survived.

The only thing that really bothers me about this billboard is the use of the turban. I'm also really tired of people who feel comfortable demonstrating their racism in public. More shame/contempt for them from the rest of us, I say!
posted by bearwife at 1:47 PM on November 22, 2009 [2 favorites]

I am of the opinion that if we all just ignored Fox News and their ilk they would just go away. Their audience is fed not by what they are watching but by the outrage felt by liberals. I have two children and am constantly telling my younger one that if he just ignored the teasing by his older brother it would just stop. It's the reaction that Fox News is looking for, nothing more. If they fail to get a reaction they fail period. I never watch cable news but am still aware of every minute controversial thing said by Fox/Limbaugh/Malkin/Coulter etc because it all covered extensively and with predictable outrage by Metafilter/Kos/Daily Show/Colbert.
posted by any major dude at 1:56 PM on November 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

These people who constantly claim they are just asking questions—do they not understand what innuendo is?

Oh.
posted by defenestration at 2:06 PM on November 22, 2009 [3 favorites]

I didn't expect employees to leave scared going home from work that were threatened, death threats and attempts to bomb the place.

I think you can safely assume that none of those things are happening. He's just working the right wing victim angle to get more sales.

I'd like to believe that, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he really is getting those kinds of threats. And not even necessarily from liberals -- these kinds of things tend to bring the crazies of all stripes out of the woodwork, people who just need an object of their anger. That said, right-wingers do not, unfortunately, have a trademark on political douche-baggery, although they have raised it to an art.
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:07 PM on November 22, 2009

Re: Making FuckingIdiot.com: Instead, why not do a spin on LATFH? It'd be either Teabagger or Idiot, depending how political you want it.

I think the dealership owner is sincere about his craziness. It's not a sales ploy. Chances are that this will lead to more lost sales, because most rational Americans don't want to support a racist.
posted by mccarty.tim at 2:16 PM on November 22, 2009

do they not understand what innuendo is?

this is america and we speak english here and you can take your innooendo back to france or whereever the hell it came from
posted by pyramid termite at 2:16 PM on November 22, 2009 [6 favorites]

Amazing! Give right-wing ideologues thirty years to fester, a 24-hour news channel blaring lies and propaganda, and an opposition party too weak to make substantive policy without first consulting their enemies, and look what happens!

You can't reason with them. They won't hear it.
You can't appeal to their better natures. They don't have them.
You can't roll your eyes and ignore them, because they're demonstrably trying to tear your country apart.

Imagine how much WORSE this would be if Obama were actually a progressive, instead of a moderately-left centrist!

I despair. Liberals are fighting holding actions on issues we should have put to fucking bed a generation ago, every single day another municipality criminalizes poverty in the form of indigency, vagrancy, and panhandling laws, and more and more people DIE from lack of access to basic health services.

And we get a bad health care bill that's a sop to another bunch of rich old white men, we get a Congress declaring it National Take Your Grandmother to Brunch Day instead of writing meaningful legislation, we get FUCK ALL and we're told to lie still and take it.

I don't know what to do. I write quarterly checks to the ACLU and Planned Parenthood. I've made a fucking target out of myself by loudly and publically standing up for drug law and sentencing reform. I visit the vets at the VA, and I motherfucking VOTE. And I'm tapped out. Mentally, emotionally, financially.

Hey, racist fuckwit fascists: you want the goddamn country? Fucking take it. Have at it. Run it into the fucking ground and steal and pillage to your hearts' content.

But know this: there's about to be a little farm, way down in a quiet corner of rural Alabama, where the last goddamn Southern liberal will be holed up, and he's ARMED, ANGRY, and NOT TO BE FUCKED WITH.

This comment's vituperation is directly proportional to afternoon beer intake. Please regard it as the drunk guy yelling at the TV in your local
sports bar.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 2:23 PM on November 22, 2009 [92 favorites]

I'm actually more surprised this happened in Colorado. I find the mountain air to put me in a super-chill mood, enough so that I wouldn't care who the president was.

For reals? Even though Colorado is the home of Focus on the Family and the Promise Keepers? It's not all Boulder, you know.
posted by toodleydoodley at 2:26 PM on November 22, 2009

Hmm. Just around the corner from where I live. First I've heard of it.

Ugh.
posted by koeselitz at 2:35 PM on November 22, 2009

rusty: The American right turns to violence when it is not in power.

If preemptive war is any indication—and I think it may be—The American right turns to violence while in power as well.
posted by carsonb at 2:35 PM on November 22, 2009 [9 favorites]

I am of the opinion that if we all just ignored Fox News and their ilk they would just go away

Pray, sir, to where would they go?
posted by octobersurprise at 2:54 PM on November 22, 2009

It's not all Boulder, you know.

Oh yeah, I know that. For the record, I live in Olathe KS, which is pretty conservative too. Just down the road in Topeka we have Fred Phelps and his church, as well as some anti-abortion stuff (George Tiller's shooter hailed from Gardner KS, just down the road from Olathe)

I realize local politics in Colorado aren't super duper left wing, but I'll take Focus On The Family over the Westboro Baptist Church any day of the week.

Plus, I like mountains.
posted by hellojed at 2:56 PM on November 22, 2009

hellojed: “I'm actually more surprised this happened in Colorado. I find the mountain air to put me in a super-chill mood, enough so that I wouldn't care who the president was.”

toodleydoodley: “For reals? Even though Colorado is the home of Focus on the Family and the Promise Keepers? It's not all Boulder, you know.”

Indeed. In fact, for those who aren't familiar with Colorado, the best way to imagine the sociopolitical climate of the state is to picture an axis running through the center of the state. In the north lies Boulder, home of knee-liberals, trust-fund yuppies, a precious, dwindling store of weirdness, and a certain amount of social permissiveness, as well as the largest university in the four-state area. But travel over the hills to the south and you'll come to the other pole on this axis, Colorado Springs, which is the home of the aforementioned Focus On The Family, Promise Keepers, a few militias, the Air Force Academy, the New Life megachurch (Ted Haggard's old haunt), and a general stinking malaise of festering, seething conservative angst. Boulder is full of local breweries and open-air malls and the densest population of bikers I've ever seen (goddamned things are everywhere). Colorado Springs, on the other hand, is a would-be industrial metropolis, with constant highway construction – I know for a fact that El Paso county, of which C. Springs is the seat, spends more on development and is growing faster as far as infrastructure is concerned than any other in the state. It's low on public spaces, but thick with churches, evangelical schools, and residential neighborhoods.

I despise judging geographical regions based on their predominant political disposition, and I can't stand the tendency which people have nowadays to paint all human beings as either 'conservative' or 'liberal,' but I wholeheartedly believe that something evil lurks in Colorado Springs, something brooding and base and vile that seeps up out of the soil and infects everyone the breathes its stench. And I could never really completely put my finger on what that is; it isn't simply the staunch know-nothing political outlook of the 'family conservatives,' infected with a subconscious racism as bad as any in Arizona; it isn't even the perversion of a great faith that calls itself evangelical christianity, a systematic denial of everything good and noble in it which renders it toothless, vain, crude, and cruel. But something about the blind pretention that leads these angry family folks to become so politically active makes me sick in the pit of my stomach. This is something that's evident, too, on a personal level; I have known people who spent their formative years in C. Springs, and almost invariably their youths were full of events that they had little help coping with and uncomfortable, unhappy, awkward passages - especially the white evangelical ones, who remarkably hardly ever seem to stay evangelicals when they grow up. In short, Colorado Springs is not a happy place at all, and I am not exaggerating when I say that I wouldn't mind if the whole city. I apologize if anyone finds themselves really loving the town, and I'm happy to hear arguments for its merit, but to me it represents the dark side of what Colorado can be; Boulder is a weird town (god knows it used to be weirder, and I for one wish it still was) but people who grow up there tend to end up naive, nice, pleasant, and open-minded. As well they should - Colorado is a great place to grow up because of those things.

Anyway, if you want to understand the sociopolitical environment of Colorado, just keep in mind that every town in the state (with the sole possible exception of Pueblo) falls into the continuum between these two polar opposites: Boulder and Colorado Springs. Or "Mordor," as I like to call it.
posted by koeselitz at 3:22 PM on November 22, 2009 [29 favorites]

'knee-liberals'? Liberals with lots of knees? WTF? Meant knee-jerk. Not necessarily in a bad way - just, y'know.
posted by koeselitz at 3:23 PM on November 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

octobersurprise - I'm sure you, like me, know many people brainwashed by the Fox/Limbaugh noise machine. Contrary to the majority opinion - I believe that machine exists only as a tool to distract liberals from actual progress. It's easily proven that these people will say or do anything to derail and fracture any agenda liberals try to enact so why do they continue to take the bait? At this point in my life I don't even consider a debate with someone who brings up right wing talking points. Just the other day I was on the phone with someone who mentioned to me that the entire mortgage mess has its roots with Acorn. I just said in my saddest voice "oh, your one of them" and changed the subject. I think we'd all be served much better if we treated these people as if they were beneath having a discussion with us because they truly are. Our time is much better served ignoring them and getting on with making this country a place that serves individuals- not corporations. The more I see our Democratic representatives give Republicans equal footing the more I think the whole game is fixed. What have the Republicans done in the last 15 years that shows they deserve any respect as a party?
posted by any major dude at 3:25 PM on November 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

Having moved back to the south this year, I no longer believe that this is just some crazy people. A large majority of people here are freaking out of their minds. Maybe Obama was a little ahead of the times? If Bush and his administration hadn't been such douche bags maybe he wouldn't have been elected. All I know is that people are really angry that a black man dares be their president. There is a lot of dehumanizing of him going on. People make up nasty names for him, refusing to address him as president or even Obama. It is sickening. Fear rules, common sense is dead and people are trying to kill anything that would be in their self interest rather than further enriching big business and corporations. I was a Republican until 2004 and that part of my life seems way gone in the past.
posted by UseyurBrain at 3:51 PM on November 22, 2009 [4 favorites]

It's not all Boulder, you know.

Even then.... I was at CU for five years. The liberal-socialist-pot-smoking-Buddhist-hippie stuff was just a veneer. Under the surface Boulderites were crazy libertarian, racist, and xenophobic. The Soldier of Fortune offices are in Boulder.
posted by dw at 3:54 PM on November 22, 2009

Anyone who utters the phrase "Ignore them and they'll go away" has never actually been bullied in their life. Bullies don't read that as a reason to stop. They read it as acquiescence.
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:07 PM on November 22, 2009 [15 favorites]

Weak sauce, Colorado. We've got assassination lotteries here in Maine.

Which is why I won't move to Standish.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 4:10 PM on November 22, 2009

I am not exaggerating when I say that I wouldn't mind if the whole city.

You accidentally the whole city?
posted by albrecht at 4:17 PM on November 22, 2009 [11 favorites]

Pope Guilty wrote:

Anyone who utters the phrase "Ignore them and they'll go away" has never actually been bullied in their life. Bullies don't read that as a reason to stop. They read it as acquiescence.

_______

Once upon a time around 30 years ago the NY Post used to be the laughingstock of journalism - a paper that no one with an IQ of 80 would ever admit to reading and if they were caught reading it they would quickly give the disclaimer "I only read it for the sports". We need to get back to that. People should be ashamed to be caught watching Fox News or listening Limbaugh. That can only start when liberals start considering those outlets and those that patronize them as not worthy of their time. Right now they are treated as legitimate news sources and that needs to end yesterday.
posted by any major dude at 4:33 PM on November 22, 2009 [2 favorites]

You accidentally the whole city?

Actually by the tone of the post, I think he'd the whole city on purpose, if he could get away with it.
posted by chimaera at 4:35 PM on November 22, 2009 [6 favorites]

E. Pluribus Imbecillus

The America Store: There's an idiot for that.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:36 PM on November 22, 2009

I hear BitterOldPunk plays Farmville.
posted by ooga_booga at 4:57 PM on November 22, 2009

>: Anyone who utters the phrase "Ignore them and they'll go away" has never actually been bullied in their life. Bullies don't read that as a reason to stop. They read it as acquiescence.

And this is why I'm not one of those ponytailed old Quakers holding a sign of Gandhi in the town park every Sunday.

Thing is, the Democrats need to have their feet held to the fire. If they know 'liberals' will keep voting for them for lack of a better alternative even as they negotiate everything with the enemy and nudge over to the center right, they'll be quite happy to betray them.
If the Dems are going to start being an opposition party, they need the living shit scared out of them.
posted by dunkadunc at 5:05 PM on November 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

If the Dems are going to start being an opposition party, they need the living shit scared out of them.

I'd be happy if they actually acted like the governing party.
posted by eriko at 5:21 PM on November 22, 2009 [4 favorites]

You accidentally the whole city?


Wait....then who was phone?
posted by Senor Cardgage at 5:23 PM on November 22, 2009 [3 favorites]

Yesterday I called the number on the sign and the conversation went like this:

"Hi, can I speak to Phil Wolf?"

"Speaking."

"Hey Phil..I saw you were asking the question 'PRESIDENT OR JIHAD?', so I just wanted you to know...the answer is 'PRESIDENT'"

"Well, you have your opinion and I have mine, I don't see any point talking about it."

"Well, Phil, you can't just put up a sign like that and not get calls from people wanting to talk about it. I'd also like to point out that by selling all those gas-guzzlers you've done more to support Muslims than a hundred normal men...how DO you sleep at night?"

"You have your opinion and I have-"

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH*click*
posted by chronkite at 5:31 PM on November 22, 2009 [27 favorites]

Mr. Wolf is living in fear of Barack Hussein Obama. Fear can be a terrible, crippling thing, and I feel for him. Fortunately, I happen to have in my possession a rock that, when stored safely in Mr. Wolf's home, will guarantee his protection from Obama. Obama will not hurt him as long as he has this rock. And I, being a good American, will be glad to sell Mr. Wolf this rock at a very reasonable price.

I can't give it to him for free, of course. That would be socialism.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:03 PM on November 22, 2009 [11 favorites]

For somebody with such conservative values, Mr. Wolf sure doesn't mind taking advantage of the free services of Craigslist, run by the self-avowedly liberal/libertarian, Craig Newmark. He's got 126 ads running right now on that commie-run site. Not that I think anybody should flag him for spamming or anything.
posted by ereshkigal45 at 6:07 PM on November 22, 2009

This shit never stops coming does it.
posted by nola at 6:09 PM on November 22, 2009

BitterOldPunk: "Please regard it as the drunk guy yelling at the TV in your local sports bar."

But you dint misspel nuthin
posted by mwhybark at 6:48 PM on November 22, 2009

Not that I think anybody should flag him for spamming or anything.

Just finished flagged the 40+ posts from Nov. 21 alone as "spam/overpost." It figures these people would drop trou and shit all over a free service.
posted by porn in the woods at 7:00 PM on November 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

OK, I'm feeling a bit more practical. After all, seceding didn't work the first time, why would I think it would now?

Look, Mr. Birther Beck-Worshipping, Rush-Frenching Moron:

Define your perfect country. Don't leave anything out. Include every detail, like if you'd like it to be all-white, or if you'd prefer some form of subservience by brown people.

Now, take that vision you have and compare it to reality.

Got it? Good.

Now think what it would take to achieve that change. Your reality. The one you want.

Do you have it in you? Are you THAT mad? I'm guessing, no. You aren't.

So, having briefly glimpsed reality, whatcha got left? Some posturing, some feeble dick-waving money-talks bullshit that's gonna get your favorite white old rich man re-elected for one more term?

The tide of history is against you. You're gonna drown. And me and my gay black atheist Muslim socialist druggie bisexual abortion-celebrating Satanist Canadian Russian friends are gonna sit right here and watch you drown.

Is it worth it? Really?
posted by BitterOldPunk at 7:12 PM on November 22, 2009 [19 favorites]

What is up with car dealers from Colorado?
posted by Anyamatopoeia at 7:31 PM on November 22, 2009

At this point in my life I don't even consider a debate with someone who brings up right wing talking points.

As a way of maximizing your own personal contentment in life, this is very wise; I do the very same thing. As a broader political strategy in a nation where a significant fraction of people refuse to believe that a President elected by a majority of the voters is even a citizen, this may be less effective. I do agree with you that many sources of "news" should be delegitimized, but I fail to see how stopping our ears and mumbling "la-la-la-la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you" is going to do that. No single person needs to refute everything that Limbaugh/Beck's et al. say, but they aren't going anywhere. They have an audience. Pretending that that audience doesn't exist won't change anything.

(You didn't answer my question: if these people will just "go away" if we ignore them, where will they go?)
posted by octobersurprise at 8:45 PM on November 22, 2009

BitterOldPunk: “Rush-Frenching Moron”

I would French-kiss Rush. All three of them, in fact, and I'm not ashamed to say it.

"Rush" is a band. In fact, Rush is the band. If you're talking about a person, you'll have to actually use their full name, since in the only sense that really matters the word "Rush" has always referred to, and will always refer to: Neil Peart, behind a drum set, flanked by Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee.

(Sorry, BitterOldPunk. I know you didn't mean anything by it. It's just that this is the third time I've had to give this lecture this week.)
posted by koeselitz at 9:36 PM on November 22, 2009 [4 favorites]

Mod note: A few comments removed. Quit it with the fucking cross-thread sniping or take it to Metatalk.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:40 PM on November 22, 2009

I'll take Focus On The Family over the Westboro Baptist Church any day of the week.

i see what you're saying but the thing about James Dobson is the guy has connections in ways that (i'm assuming) none of the total fucking nutjobs from WBC just do not have, or will ever have. Fred Phelps is too far out there to be taken seriously. Having said that if anyone has information to the contrary I would like to know about it.
posted by rainperimeter at 9:56 PM on November 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

octobersurprise wrote:

(You didn't answer my question: if these people will just "go away" if we ignore them, where will they go?)

_________

They'll stop listening to the Limbaughs and Fox News' of the world because we are no longer giving them the legitimacy through our outrage. I truly believe that the only thing that is propping up these propaganda machines is that liberals pay them heed - self loathing progressives are probably 30% of the audience. Tell me, what is the point of arguing with someone who's intent is not to prove a point but to just get you angry? That's why Limbaugh/Hannity/O'Reilly/Beck exist. They were career failures until they sold what was left of their souls to the Roger Ailes. That's the only reason someone like Limbaugh exists - to spread lies that liberals have to take time and energy to refute. If all liberals - representatives and general public - shunned the likes of Limbaugh and Fox News - just ignored them and ridiculed their mere existence as a joke - then they would suffer the indignity of being marginalized. I don't believe this will ever happen because liberal outrage is more important to liberals than actual progress. It gives them a reason to feel superior without having to do any work at all. How about acting superior and ignoring them because their actions and motives are specious? What's that old political adage - never get into a fight with a pig, you'll both get dirty but the pig likes it - it's been around as long as dirt yet who ever heeds its wisdom?
posted by any major dude at 10:56 PM on November 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

chronkite

If he doesn't see any point in talking about it, why on Earth did he put his phone number on the sign?
posted by Target Practice at 11:06 PM on November 22, 2009

hellojed: “I realize local politics in Colorado aren't super duper left wing, but I'll take Focus On The Family over the Westboro Baptist Church any day of the week.”

rainperimeter: “i see what you're saying but the thing about James Dobson is the guy has connections in ways that (i'm assuming) none of the total fucking nutjobs from WBC just do not have, or will ever have. Fred Phelps is too far out there to be taken seriously. Having said that if anyone has information to the contrary I would like to know about it.”

Well, for one, it seems like Dobson's influence is almost kaput. He made one or two impassioned pleas during the last presidential campaign, but they didn't seem to have the resonance that they used to have with the base. I'm pretty sure he retired earlier this year from public life, and has generally withdrawn. This is not to say, of course, that Focus On The Family is now hunky-dory, or that Colorado family conservatives aren't cads.

But to do justice to Colorado - especially since I know for a fact that most of the people I knew when I lived back in Boston would like to believe that everything west of Chicago is a wasteland of neanderthal plodders - I should say that I hate the evangelical strain mostly because I think Colorado is a pretty damned cool state. People here are usually permissive and open - not because we have an axe to grind or because we have a battle to win, but because we're just nice like that. I know a lot of self-identifying conservatives who really don't mind if gay people want to get married; that's their own business, after all, and one may as well be friendly about the whole thing. I grew up in a tiny town of 6,000 on the western slope. Most of my friends had parents who were either aging hippies who just ended up there or old-school cattlemen; this made for an interesting mix, but everybody got along pretty well. You couldn't walk past the shops on the main thoroughfare for fifteen minutes without hearing the Grateful Dead at least once. The lead photographer for the local newspaper was a transsexual - everybody knew this, especially school kids, since his name was up there in black and white on the high school gym wall as holding the record in the women's 200m hurdles - but I can't remember hearing an unkind word from any of the adults I knew, all of whom were nothing but friendly and respectful toward him and tended to look none too kindly on us students whenever any of us pointed at the records board and snickered. I don't want to make it sound like a Shangri-La, but that formative experience is the real reason why I believe that small communities work better than large ones; in my little town, you could be a loud-mouthed jerk if you wanted to, but it probably wouldn't be two days before you ran into the person you were talking down on the street, so you had some incentive to be mature and to get along with people and treat them with respect.

Frankly, that's one of the biggest reasons why I can't stand the evangelical stuff emanating from C. Springs. Hateful agitprop isn't inborne, and left to their own devices people won't play that game. I remember knowing a bunch of Mexicans growing up, for example, and there was never a word about all this silly crap about illegals overrunning the country and all that nonsense. But now - especially with the tremendous boom in media ubiquity that was initiated by the rise of the internet ten years ago - I go back home and hear people I know ought to know better uttering some stuff that I know their parents and grandparents wouldn't want to hear them saying. And why? Not because they thought it up all by themselves, but because they heard a guy on the radio or read a guy on the internet who told them to think that.

If someone wanted to figure out what's happening with 'conservatism' today, a consideration of the candidacy of John McCain would map out an arc that significantly benefits such an understanding. The implosion that is Sarah Palin has obscured a good chunk of it, so we tend to forget this, but the very reason John McCain managed to pull down the nomination was because we was the man who nine years ago played a big gamble by wagering that the evangelical conservative establishment had a waning appeal to most voters, and that the limits of that appeal would be further strained by GWB. His biggest campaign mistake, I think, was his failure to realize that this was his draw to the common conservative voter: that he played the part of a principled man who refused to use religious or party affiliation as currency to buy votes. In fact, I think that a string of choices he made, culminating in his vp nod, made it blindingly clear to voters that he really was just as cold and calculating a politician as any; on that day in 2000 when he took the bold stance of dressing down Fred Phelps and speaking of the evangelical movement's "evil influence on American politics," he was betting that the evangelical-Republican power structure would lose enough of its adherents to give him the winning vote. In paying the lip service he found himself forced to pay, and in finally choosing Sarah Palin as his vp candidate, McCain demonstrated clearly that his relationship to the power structure was complex, to say the least, and that he wasn't, strictly speaking, a crusader for the common man against those who unduly wield influence. Sarah Palin is a simple, obvious Reagan-era choice for the party engineers; as always, when the voters sense that they're alienated from the party power structure, the unofficial American political rulebook clearly dictates that you preserve party power by playing the grassroots card. And John McCain should have known how obvious that would be to all of us; he's not a stupid man.

Not that even a play to the grassroots like Sarah Palin could preserve the evangelical-Republican power structure as it was. The days when either party had the right connections to grease the right palms to ensure that the religious element said the right things about them on Sundays are thankfully long gone; this was true before the convention last year. If there's turmoil at the moment amidst a segment of the populace apparently in the thrall of right-wing commentators, I think that's because of the sudden vacuum where the power structure used to be: no longer do republicans and preachers share an easy alliance which indicates to the party faithful exactly to whom they should be listening. It used to be that Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and even Dobson could feel that they had a basic agreement with politicians based on trading influence for endorsement, and the evangelical right therefore could flex its muscle directly. The rising cacophony of pundits which I think all of us fair-minded people now wonder at (the very interesting Friedman article which I think ericb linked above is a good statement of this) didn't start even just a few months ago; it started two years ago, when John McCain won the nomination and became the Republican candidate for president. For whatever reason, it was at that moment when Rush Limbaugh, James Dobson, and a host of other pundits did what they had never dreamed of doing before - they questioned a major party move. They'd always avoided doing that before because it mean signalling to the power structure that they weren't willing to play ball, and a thug that complains to the police about a mafia boss is not a very intelligent thug. The only thing they have to trade for influence, after all, is endorsement. But with the nomination of McCain, they realized, as many did, that the power structure had finally been uprooted; and now all these pundits find themselves outside the structure with no one to tell them what to say and no limits on what they can proclaim. When subverted personalities lose their authority figures, it's no wonder they all go a little insane. The trouble is that while in the past they were just cheerleaders pointing the average dolts toward the lauded politicians, now they're firing off wildly and at random, and the average dolts are becoming increasingly unhinged.
posted by koeselitz at 11:45 PM on November 22, 2009 [6 favorites]

I am of the opinion that if we all just ignored Fox News and their ilk they would just go away. Their audience is fed not by what they are watching but by the outrage felt by liberals.

Living in the state of Georgia, and having rolled my eyes at practically every restaurant TV set I have ever seen since Fox News opened for business, I can personally vouch that what you say is absolutely incorrect.
posted by JHarris at 1:07 AM on November 23, 2009 [6 favorites]

What's that old political adage - never get into a fight with a pig, you'll both get dirty but the pig likes it - it's been around as long as dirt yet who ever heeds its wisdom?

These pigs have guns and seem to be happy about using them to hurt and kill people they don't like.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:11 AM on November 23, 2009

I do believe we are doomed to failure, however. It's a fairly simple equation:

1. We're not allowed to euthanize the stupid.
2. The stupid breed more.

If democracy is to have any hope, one of these statements needs to change.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 3:49 AM on November 23, 2009

The owner sounds like a jackass in wolf's clothing.
posted by MuffinMan at 4:59 AM on November 23, 2009

If the West Wing taught me nothing else, it taught me that the man is known as POTUS.

It also taught me that there was a president who once left a big block of cheese in the White House.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 5:48 AM on November 23, 2009

I am an Out Of Home Advertising Creative professional. This billboard sucks.
posted by Scoo at 6:07 AM on November 23, 2009

If the West Wing taught me nothing else, it taught me that the man is known as POTUS.

POTUS -- the President of the United States of America.
PUSA -- the Presidents of the United States of America.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:28 AM on November 23, 2009

If he doesn't see any point in talking about it, why on Earth did he put his phone number on the sign?

That'd be because he wants to sell you a gas-guzzling piece of crap. It's shrewd. The man knows his audience.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:33 AM on November 23, 2009

I truly believe that the only thing that is propping up these propaganda machines is that liberals pay them heed - self loathing progressives are probably 30% of the audience.

If nothing else, what your assertion lacks in plausibility, it more than makes up for in originality. I've seen lefties/liberals blamed for lots of the world's problems, but I've never seen them blamed for their own opposition before.

I can't tell if you believe your own argument, AMD, because assertions like "liberal outrage is more important to liberals than actual progress" smell suspiciously like pie concern trollery, but if you do, then I think you're making three mistakes: you are vastly overestimating the effect "liberals" have on the right-wing media; you are vastly underestimating the appetite, or at least tolerance, a significant fraction of Americans have for right-wing nonsense of all kinds; and you are being woefully naïve about how simple it is to change all of this.

You aren't totally wrong; ignoring yahoos is a good way to minimize personal conflict (oddly, in the past you suggested just the opposite in a situation where I'd have thought that argument was pointless) and it's true that it isn't profitable to directly engage disingenuous arguments, but as a political strategy, a strategy for trying to change circumstances and people, just closing your eyes and trying to wish your opponents into the corn field isn't likely to be very effective (unless you're that little boy from The Twilight Zone).
posted by octobersurprise at 6:47 AM on November 23, 2009 [3 favorites]

octobersurprise - go on and continue tilting at windmills - fight the endless continuum of faux battles presented by Roger Ailes and his ilk and see where that gets us as a society. I've been involved at a pretty deep level and have bashed my head time and again at the foolishness and wasted energy on the liberal side of the coin. I've become convinced that this country is not divided by liberals and conservatives or Democrats and Republicans but by those who want total corporate control and those that want mostly corporate control - and that's the straw man debate that Fox News has constructed - the idea that corporations are the problem doesn't even come into the conversation. You think I'm arguing that the idiots with the guns will go away if we ignore Fox News and I really could care less about them - it's the corporations that I want silenced. But it amazes me is how comfortable liberals are at chasing pawns around the chess board thinking it will get them somewhere.
posted by any major dude at 7:19 AM on November 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

1. We're not allowed to euthanize the stupid.
2. The stupid breed more.

If democracy is to have any hope, one of these statements needs to change.

You are assuming that stupid breeds stupid. This isn't always the case. Many Gay-loving, pro-choice, flaming liberal atheists come from Fundamentalist homes and many, many more people who are "meh" on politics are from die-hard GOP parents. PLUS-- and this is the really good news-- we have outsiders bringing in the freshness! Kenyan-Hawaiians for the win.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 7:49 AM on November 23, 2009 [2 favorites]

Octobersurprise - how do you consider my solution to being spammed is the exact opposite of what I am suggesting? My solution is to embarrass Fox News and those that patronize them by showing them they are not worthy of being intellectually engaged. I think you and many others here are guilty of stereotyping my argument as some parent who advises their child to ignore a bully - quite the contrary - my solution is to openly mock the bully.
posted by any major dude at 7:50 AM on November 23, 2009

it's the corporations that I want silenced. But it amazes me is how comfortable liberals are at chasing pawns around the chess board thinking it will get them somewhere.

So, is Wake up, sheeple! a wildly inaccurate summary of the argument you are making here?
posted by octobersurprise at 7:57 AM on November 23, 2009

My solution is to embarrass Fox News and those that patronize them by showing them they are not worthy of being intellectually engaged. I think you and many others here are guilty of stereotyping my argument as some parent who advises their child to ignore a bully-- any major dude at 10:50 AM on November 23

I am of the opinion that if we all just ignored Fox News and their ilk they would just go away--any major dude at 4:56 PM on November 22

Ok. Now I'm totally confused. I have no idea what you are trying to say.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:05 AM on November 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

I think people are very awake in this country, they just feel helpless because they spend all their time an energy fighting cheerleaders instead of staying focused on the game.
posted by any major dude at 8:07 AM on November 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

octobersurprise wrote:

Ok. Now I'm totally confused. I have no idea what you are trying to say.

_______

simple - going back to the pig analogy I made upthread - instead of wrestling with him you stand on the side of the pen and say - you are a pig, a dirty disgusting smelly pig. It's interesting that you can talk, but I would never consider taking advice from a pig on how to run my farm.
posted by any major dude at 8:12 AM on November 23, 2009

Riptor: “PUSA? I thought POTUS was bad enough”

grapefruitmoon: “If the West Wing taught me nothing else, it taught me that the man is known as POTUS.”

Personally, I can't stand POTUS, either; somehow it seems so odd to be putting honorifics into acronyms. But then, of course, apparently neither the practice of acronym-izing honorifics nor the annoyance some of us feel about the weird laziness it seems to indicate is anything new; just ask any Muslim who's PBUHed when other people thought they should be SAAWing.

Though I like "president" just fine and don't feel the need to save four characters by shortening to POTUS, which I find sort of awkward and try to avoid, a propos of nothing my personal in-my-head stylebook makes an exception for the acronym SCOTUS, which I like because it gives me an excuse to think about Doctor Subtilis.
posted by koeselitz at 8:15 AM on November 23, 2009

Civil_Disobedient: “I do believe we are doomed to failure, however. It's a fairly simple equation: We're not allowed to euthanize the stupid. The stupid breed more. If democracy is to have any hope, one of these statements needs to change.”

Secret Life of Gravy: “You are assuming that stupid breeds stupid. This isn't always the case. Many Gay-loving, pro-choice, flaming liberal atheists come from Fundamentalist homes and many, many more people who are "meh" on politics are from die-hard GOP parents. PLUS-- and this is the really good news-- we have outsiders bringing in the freshness! Kenyan-Hawaiians for the win.”

I disagree, at least to an extent – while it may or may not be fair to say that stupid breeds stupid, that's not really the essential false assumption in Civil_Disobedient's equation. The essential false assumption made is that stupid people are always evil. The hope of democracy is that most people, who are generally stupid, always have been stupid, and always will be stupid, still even so might sometimes be good all the same. Or maybe it would be more complete to say: the hope of democracy is that people in general are just stupid enough to focus dimly on being comfortable and mildly content, causing a massive social force not so much for good but at least for stability and generally acceptable living conditions – but not nearly so stupid (or organized) that they'll manage to join together and do anything truly evil.

That's why any real environmentalism, for example, is sort of a lost cause in the face of pure democracy – because the chances of building a critical mass of consensus necessary for change rapidly approach nil when you start talking about a largely unseen threat that doesn't at this moment affect people's ordinary lives in any noticeable way. The desire of average stupid people to be comfortable is a force easily harnessed in overcoming problems like disease, famine, poverty, and anything else that represented a daily inconvenience for most people; if they won't work to stop it, they'll at least pay something to get rid of it, and if there's money in it somebody will always figure it out. The trouble with a problem like the environmental disaster is that by the time it's a real daily inconvenience for anybody it's far too late. And so most of the real advances that have been made have always had to come from the less-democratic elements of societies – their contemporary habit of electing leaders and giving them a bunch of power, for example, leaders who go off to foreign conferences, agree to stop spewing so much smoke, and then have to go home and convince a grumbling populace to do something that they don't have any blindingly obvious reason to do, given that it doesn't seem to impact their momentary comfort.
posted by koeselitz at 8:37 AM on November 23, 2009

I would never consider taking advice from a pig on how to run my farm

are you a pot farmer?
posted by pyramid termite at 9:01 AM on November 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

Since "shallow graves" seems to be a politically incorrect way of dealing with people like this, I suggest that whenever it's encountered in the wild, it should be met with open derision. Ideally, this should be public, and if at all possible, broadcast so that others can see it.

*holds microphone into mans face*

"You don't believe the president was born in the US? Jesus, did you suffer some kind of head injury at some point? Seriously, how much more evidence do you need? I mean, you don't still believe in Santa or the Easter Bunny do you? Because you are giving off a that-kind-of-stupid vibe here.

Anyhow, this is Jennifer Williams reporting live from Wheat Ridge, Colorado. Home to at least one of the most gullible bastards I've ever met. Back to you Rich..."
posted by quin at 10:17 AM on November 23, 2009 [2 favorites]

Personally, I can't stand POTUS...

William Safire on the origin and use of the term POTUS. It was first used in 1879 by a telegraph operator for the United Press Association as short-hand code. In the 1950s the Secret Service and White House staffers adopted the term.
posted by ericb at 11:28 AM on November 23, 2009

Yeah, I know it's been around since the 50's, though it's interesting to hear that it was coined so long ago. I don't use it, but other people can use whatever words they want; it doesn't make much sense to try to tell everybody how they should language, and that they should all be languaging just like me. (Especially since the way I language is pretty weird.)

It's odd, though; I've only seen it in print, never actually heard it. Do people pronounce it, or just the letters? I mean, do people actually say "Poh-tuss?"
posted by koeselitz at 11:41 AM on November 23, 2009

It's odd, though; I've only seen it in print, never actually heard it. Do people pronounce it, or just the letters? I mean, do people actually say "Poh-tuss?"

They do on The West Wing, so I'm assuming yeah, some people do.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 12:59 PM on November 23, 2009

My brain has been struggling, the past five minutes, to come up with a way to make a hippopotaPOTUS joke. Trying and failing.

Maybe I'll have better luck with PlatyPOTUS?
posted by JHarris at 1:24 PM on November 23, 2009

Before Obama became POTUS, I did wonder about the birth certificate issue. But he is POTUS now, so get over it. Whining about that now seems odd and yes perhaps racist when there are legitimate complaints to focus on. There's a majority of dems in House, Senate, and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue -- why exactly can't they get anything done without giving away the store?
posted by bravelittletoaster at 2:43 PM on November 23, 2009

Because while Democrats are a majority, progressives are a minority. Democrats can't get anything done without kissing the ass of Blue Dogs who would kill a bill just to flex their muscle as swing-voters on the floor.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 3:51 PM on November 23, 2009

Whomever hung that census worker is really close to the treason line...

Just announced this afternoon: Ketuckly census worker killed himself, police say.
posted by ericb at 11:16 AM on November 24, 2009

"Ketuckly"?
posted by Sys Rq at 1:01 PM on November 24, 2009 [1 favorite]

Just announced this afternoon: Ketuckly census worker killed himself, police say.

Look Eric you're either with us or your with the terrahists. Let's not let nonsense like facts stop us from having a good treason trial.
posted by tkchrist at 1:45 PM on November 24, 2009

Ketuckly

It's a 'roll of the dice' after all!
posted by ericb at 6:00 PM on November 24, 2009