Every time I see a car with a War is not the answer bumper sticker, I try to catch up and ask the driver, “What’s the question?” Because if the question is, “How many feet in a mile?” then it’s true that the answer is not war. But what if the question is, “How do you stop a genocidal madman bent on destroying the world?”
Anodyne, nonsensical phrases seem to be the exclusive province of the left, which is no revelation given that leftist/statist philosophies are the triumph of wishful thinking over mathematical reality and physics.
Or so it seems to me. But to verify to the degree possible whether this is indeed the case or merely my biased perception, I googled “right-wing bumper stickers” and scrolled through a good hundred or so, searching for similar idealistic idiocy. True, there were several I’d consider unworthy of being associated with (like the birther stuff)—but none that struck me as childish as “Whenever there is a huge spill of solar energy, it’s just called a nice day,” which is the kind of thing found in abundance on left-wing sites.
Before shutting down my browser, though, I began wondering whether there were any liberal sites that evaluated conservative bumper stickers, and if so, whether their comments would be sufficiently insightful to merit a bit of rethinking.
Sure enough, I found a good site at Complex.com, where in November 2011 a Richard Boadu posted “The 25 Most Ridiculous Right Wing Bumper Stickers,” accompanied by photos of each followed, best of all, by his rejoinders that he no doubt intended as tart.
Working bottom to top, number 25 was, “If Obama is the Answer, it Must Be a Stupid Question,” which, pace Boadu, the evidence suggests is a completely defensible statement. His comeback, however, is either deliberately senseless or unwittingly ridiculous. What it’s not is useful:
And if Allen Iverson is “The Answer,” is the question also stupid?
Suffice to say, his retorts don’t get any sharper along the way, nor does his comprehension level. Take number 13, for example:
Now, to most politically aware people of even average intelligence, this is a left-wing, not a right-wing, bumper sticker: an antiwar parody built on what left wingers think of right-wing religious thinking. But since it comes with no owner’s manual, Boadu is left to comment:
Jesus would probably bomb the right-wing litmus test.
Yeah, that’s the right-wing litmus test, all right.
Eventually we get to the gem that Boadu brings in at number four:
And his comment?
“Does ‘DC come after ‘Iran’?”
Thus does he demonstrate the same pathetic misreading as on Who Would Jesus Bomb? Why he didn’t comprehend this is anyone’s guess, but if he had any doubts all he had to do was check the company named on the sticker, Northern Sun Merchandising—which distributes only liberal merchandise.
Anyway, what prompted this time-wasting foray into cyberspace was a tweet from (conservative) actor Adam Baldwin noting that someone named Laurie Saffian, identified as the director of something called Women Against Gun Violence, considers women to be “too stupid to have firearms.”
Baldwin links to an ABC News story about the growing number of women arming themselves and joining gun clubs, which the reporter counterpoints with input from Saffian:
Saffian believes that guns don’t make women any safer, but reasonable gun control laws will.”Let’s come together where we can around common sense solutions and laws that are really going to make a difference for women and are going to save their lives,” she said.
Kumbaya, lady.
It’s tempting to compare Saffian’s intelligence to that of a rock, her maturity to a preschooler’s, and her grasp of history to Neville Chamberlain’s. But that’s too easy. Instead, what comes to mind is the incessant drumbeat about the dangers of rape and domestic violence in America that the feminist left has for years tried to turn into conventional wisdom.
Here’s Soraya Chemaly, “Feminist, Writer, Satirist… not always in that order”, in a Huffington Post post titled 50 Actual Facts About Rape (I love the “actual”):
That I believe these numbers are inflated is irrelevant. What’s relevant is the danger level that feminists—including feminists like Women Against Gun Violence’s Laurie Saffian—believe America poses to women.
Which raises an obvious question: If rape is illegal but rapists commit it anyway, why on earth wouldn’t Saffian want every woman legally armed as a form of self-protection?
The answer, I’m sure, fits nicely on a bumper sticker. Come to think of it:
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