Let Your ID Fly Freely
A friend of mine from grad school just posted a picture of a pickup truck with the following three things:
1. A bumper sticker that said “I didn’t vote for HIM”. I suppose this is fair enough. A famous bumper sticker from 1974 said “Don’t blame me, I’m from Massachusetts.”
2. A bumper sticker that said “PISS OFF A LIBERAL TODAY.”
3. A pair of trucknutz.
This is not the first time I’ve seen sentiments 2 and 3 expressed. There are also the lovely antiprius mobiles.
What is it about conservatives that they feel compelled to show their ID so freely? Now my liberal friends do notice all these things and comment on these things but in a #stayclassy kind of way. I suppose this is somewhat pissing off liberals but the feeling I have is more one of bewilderment.
Probably something very similar to what it is about liberals that makes them feel compelled to show their ID so freely.
And #3, which I hadn’t heard of until now (and now that I have heard of it, wish I hadn’t), is not necessarily a “conservative” thing.Report
Yeah, this pretty much sums up my thoughts.Report
Well, I don’t know that liberals are big into truck balls per se but one needn’t be particularly political at all to enjoy displaying them. And liberals have plenty of signals too.Report
Trust me here, truck nuts are a conservative thing.Report
It’s just a display of tribal identity in a tribe that values belligerence mostly. There were analogues to #1 as you note.Report
@greginak
I’d agree that it’s a “tribal identity” thing. Wow, didn’t I get crap on these pages when I said all human behavior was tribal based? 🙂
But I diagree that it’s a tribe that values belligerence. I think it’s a reaction to the constant leftish propaganda, nanny state, statist, in your business because it’s for your own good, mindset that’s taking over the coasts. As someone not of that “tribe”, but someone who leans Libertarian/Capitalist/Anarchist, I understand the reaction.Report
Damon,
you got poor pissed off people. They act alike, in the city or the country. Both are prone to breaking other people’s shit, because someone got something better than they got.
… I’m finding it harder and harder to drive a Prius into the wilderness these days.
http://dispatches-from-fayettenam.tumblr.com/ (skimming — burned down an apt. building because you were bored? Really?)Report
@kim
I’m not sure I’d ever want to drive a Prius in the wilderness. Doesn’t look like it’d do well in mud, snow, etc.Report
Damon,
I mean PA wilderness, where there are mountains and quiet, but paved roads to the trailhead, where I get out of the car and walk till I can’t walk anymore (20 miles is a good day).Report
About a decade ago, I owned an ’89 Chevy Blazer. I had crashed and totaled the ’95 Ford Escort I had inherited from my grandma and needed a car to get back and forth to campus and to my student-teaching locale. I got the Blazer for $900. Thing was a beast. It got *maybe* 12 miles to the gallon. But it suited my needs and what I lost on gas I saved in paying only $900 for the thing.
It is worth pointing out that this was during the second or third year of the Iraq war. “No blood for oil” was a common sentiment.
A group of liberals decided to take it upon themselves to write “tickets” for polluting the environment and affix them to SUVs. I remember thinking at the time that — despite skewing somewhat liberal at the time (I’ve since gone more leftward) and generally preferring good environmental policy to bad — that I would have been very inclined to punch someone in the face for putting shit like that on my car. They didn’t know my story or my context for owning the Blazer and, more importantly, it seemed clear to me that there actions were not mean to promote a healthy and constructive exchange but instead simply to piss people off. Assholes, they were. And every side has them.Report
I would have been very inclined to punch someone in the face for putting shit like that on my car.
Jocks, always resorting to violence.
Just blow up their car.Report
It is a crappy thing to do, but the sorts of people I know who might do such a thing would target a brand-new, shiny, completely tricked-out piece of conspicuous consumption, not a 15-year-old beater.Report
I’m a liberal in a small southern town. I don’t need to show my ID on my truck (yes, I drive a small truck) for the same reason that I don’t wear shirts with words or have tattoos. Tacky.
But also, for the same reason that I don’t display yard signs for democrats — fear. These bubbas will key your car and trash up your yard and mess up your shit for the wrong cultural ID.
I don’t see liberals doing that.Report
Move to the bay area…Report
I live in the Bay Area so…
That being said re Truck Nutz. My mind just can’t comprehend that.
1. Someone thought there was a market for a pair of fake balls on trucks.
2. There is a market for a pair of fake balls on trucks.
What message are trucknutz supposed to be sending? That the driver has none?Report
“I make fun of feminists, because they can’t take a joke about balls.”Report
There is also a market for big ol eyelashes to put on the top of car headlights..Report
2 does imply that the guy from 1 is smarter than we are.Report
“2 does imply that the guy from 1 is smarter than we are.”
Sometimes it takes a genius to actually see what is dangling in front of everyone else’s faces.Report
so i have this idea that i just want materialized but am unwilling to put in the work. people like truck nuts, right? so why not have a truck wang? you could hook it up to hydraulics or whatever and when you flip a switch it’d drag on the pavement and shoot sparks everywhere.
i mean, all questions of taste aside, that’d be pretty rad.Report
Plus if the ‘hydraulics’ also function as a ‘jack’, changing a ‘flat’ would be a ‘snap’.
And by ‘snap’, I mean ‘penis’.Report
For as long as I can remember, rednecks have been hanging things (dice, e.g.) that were clearly meant to simulate dangling testicles from the back bumper or trailer hitch of trucks. It took a few decades for someone to realize, presumably after at least a case of High Life, that you could make the dangling things look like actual testicles.Report
to be fair, maybe they like the idea of a really smooth scrotum but are unwilling to put skin in the game, plus they appreciate the aesthetics (balance, symmetry, etc) and want others to appreciate it as well. perhaps it is not antagonism but rather a love letter to that most ignored of reproductive organs?Report
Oh, I don’t know about “ignored”, you’ll often find them hanging out pretty much everywhere.
Still, my advice to Saul is that maybe those people just think it’s funny, with no “conservative” political meaning beyond that. Perhaps he could just pay those bollocks no mind.Report
Saul, people thought there was a market for coffee beans that first went through the digestive track of a civet. That means that someone in Malaysia once thought “I like coffee but it would be so much better if it went through an animal’s digestive track and we got the beans by sorting through the feces first.” There is a market for lots of things that really shouldn’t exist in logical universe.Report
lee,
ROFL. you haven’t heard the REAL story of how civet cat coffee was created?
One chief was sitting down with a hated rival, for a “let’s talk it all out” discussion. Well, since he was hosting, he was going to serve coffee (they like it there). But, being a bit of a dick, he wanted to serve the most nasty-ass coffee he could come up with. It kinda tickled him pink to be serving coffee that had been poop just a few days ago. Thing was? The guests liked it. So the hosts tried some, and figured out that it was actually pretty good.Report
Kim,
The Historian Dr. Wiki Pedia, PhD., states that civet coffee originated in 19th century Dutch East Indies during the Cultivation System period. The proto-Indonesians were generally forbidden from taking coffee berries for their own use and redigested coffee beans was the only way they could enjoy a cup. This basically means that I’m right about how civet coffee came about.Report
Lee,
*sniff* my story’s Better!Report
But its not true and it isn’t better. The truth is a true testiment to human inventivness and foolishness.Report
Democratic president right now, so there’s not much as much impotent rage for liberals to express. But come on, you’ve got to remember “Texas called, they want their village idiot back”, right?
3. is just demographic overlap among truck owners.Report
That doesn’t have the right snap to it. I think it went “A village in Texas is missing its idiot.”Report
I’m sure there are no peace, coexist, and save the whales bumper sticker-covered cars in San Fran.Report
Yes but those are not directly saying
“Piss off a conservative today” in fact they are probably wishing the opposite.
Now those bumper stickers might in fact piss off conservatives but it is not announcing pissing off conservatives as a reason for existence. Kazzy’s example is somewhat more workable but not exactly because it was commenting on a real policy/plan/goal even if it expresses opposition in a not very nuanced way. Co-Exist and Save the Whales are at least expressing congizant if idealistic and naive policy goals and ideals. What is the policy goal of pissing off liberals?
The general desire to piss of liberals is perplexing and I’ve also seen it expressed on t-shirts. Though there is close trolling in the GOP=Nazi shirts but I think most liberals see those as Godwin’s Law.Report
It is my theory that pissing off liberals is the only thing conservatives actually agree on, so it’s important to the identity.
Seriously, I have a friend that goes onto conservative forums a lot. He says he can say anything he wants and be taken seriously, as long as he insults liberals first.Report
Every hermit is alike. Every social person signals in his or her own way.Report
How about Darwin Fish? Any of those?Report
My favorite was always the dead fish.
http://thumbs2.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/mCKq-FjSr4JinyHMlxkjJ_g.jpg
It says “I have heard of Nietzsche” or “I like pissing off Christians,” or both.Report
Also, that might be the equivalent of the “piss liberals off to reaffirm my conservatism”: New Atheists.Report
this is only fish sticker anyone should have:
http://smbc.myshopify.com/products/gulpo-decalReport
“Darwin fish eating Jesus fish” – or even just “Darwin fish” – is pretty close to “piss off a liberal today” in that the obvious intent is to aggravate people whom you disagree with.Report
Well, I don’t live in SF, but in the Bay Area and there’s a car I often see around my neighborhood that is covered with liberal bumper stickers. Mind you, my district went for Obama at about 70 percent, but there’s just the one car.
On the other hand, I have yet to see any truck nutz here. That just doesn’t make sense. My neighbor has a big red Titan, (he works construction), but no truck nutz on that vehicle, even though it seem, um, ideal.Report
My favorite is a car that has these two bumper stickers:
1. Berkeley Engineer;
2. Luddite.
The car is and old and partially rusted Beetle.Report
Saul,
I’m too much of a luddite to have a car (or a cellphone that is actually on).Report
Even worse than those stickers are the “Choose Civility” stickers. EVERY SINGLE vehicle I have seen with that sticker, and they are mainly SUVs, have been driven poorly. Lane weaving, speed well below the posted limit, excessive breaking, lingering at lights, not paying attention to driving.Report
Sissy-ass, pansy-ass people who think SUVs make them “safer” because they can see better. Not realizing that THEY’re the problem children on the roads.
Drive assertively, people will thank you.Report
@kim
try not to use trans- related terms as insults.
Motorcycles and cab drivers are the problems on the roads. I rarely get shit from SUVs or MPVs.Report
Murali,
Where the hell are you now? (thought you were in Singapore…)
I expect Damon’s right for the general Midwestern area (being Stupid Nice is a trademark there).
In Las Vegas, I feared basically anything on the road, because they were all high, and generally in bulletproof vehicles, doing 80mph or worse. Maniacs are bad enough (LA traffic comes to mind), but maniacs on drugs? Bad news.
Italy had crazy motorcyclists, we have mostly safe ones around here (even when they take their feet off the pedals).Report
I am in Singapore.Report
@kim
No, a lot of what most people would call “assertive” driving my state calls “aggressive” driving.Report
@kim
I’m not in the mid west. I’m in the mid atlantic.Report
Damon,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_states
I musta been confused.
Pittsburgh used to be Midwest (more traffic up the Ohio than over the mountains), but is becoming more Midatlantic, via immigration from Boswash.Report
Presumably these are for sale because they actually sell.Report
Not to be pedantic* but isn’t it supposed to be Id instead of ID. ID refers to identity** while Id refers to the baser impulses.
*Who am I kidding I love being pedantic
**as in “do not reveal your user ID or password over the internet”Report
Well you are identifying what group you are a part of, or against, so I don’t think it’s wrong.Report
There’s this older guy that lives in my neighborhood somewhere. I don’t really know him at all, he just walks by my house with his dog now and then.
Back in ’09, right after Obama was elected, my SIL came to stay with us a couple days. She’s a bit of a “signaler” I guess, and had an Obama bumper sticker on her car. So I come home to find her out in the front yard, getting something out of her car, and this old dude was standing there yelling at her because of the bumper sticker.
Seriously, there’s something about the whole Tea Party thing that has seemed to give some people the idea that they have a certain kind of license to be assholes to strangers in public.Report
But the Tea Party didn’t develop until 2010 🙂Report
There have been several well publicized instances of political campaign signs being destroyed or removed in my area. Most of my state is heavily liberal, so all the “work” has been by liberals directed to the few Republicans. Of course, in the few Republican stronghold counties, the reverse is the case. It’s either civilians or political operatives.
All that being said, I’ve thought better of putting a bumper sticker on my car, of any type. It flags you either to the locals, the cops, or anyone else. Never thought that was a good idea.
I was told by a friend that a survey of drivers a few years back listed the two top “asshole” drivers as BMW drivers and Prius drivers. I can support that assertion. My area is infected with all three of these drivers: BMWs, Pricuses, and assholes. 🙂Report
Well, but you see, that’s just a few crazy bad apples who should in no way be considered representative of the general strain of Democrat thought, and in fact shame on you, sir, for suggesting that they are.
On the other hand, some guy with a “NOBAMA” bumper sticker? We can tell without further investigation that he’s mainstream Republican and that anyone who votes R would back that guy to the hilt.Report
Your views on this comment will depend highly on whether you think the Republicans are a minority party, or a marginalized minority party.Report
all joking aside, you lived in yupster blue brooklyn for years and didn’t see any of the i didn’t vote for him/not my president/just say no to the bush agenda/shave bush/save the earth – stop a republican etc etc bumper stickers? ever? really?Report
WV has arguments via bumperstickers. I swear to god, they do.
http://crystalgood.net/tag/friends-of-coal/Report
the most arcane bumper sticker i ever saw was in astoria, ny (a historically greek neighborhood, though not exclusively so). there was a local repair service van with the sticker “alexander the great is, was, and always shall be a greek macedonian”.
that’s the arguing over minor league baseball teams of ethnic strife.Report
Saul, I’ll grant you that “anti” bumper stickers tend to be more inflammatory than “pro”, but I have to wonder about your sample size, or where you live, to explain why you see so many in one direction. Where I am, the voting runs about 65/35 Democratic, and the bumper stickers maybe 80/20 Democratic. An hour and a half up the road, you’ll find the ratios reversed. It is creepy how a small majority in voting brings out a big majority in bumper stickering; there’s a territorial instinct about it.Report
@pinky “It is creepy how a small majority in voting brings out a big majority in bumper stickering; there’s a territorial instinct about it.”
I’ve never thought about this before, but now that you say it I think you are spot on.
Fascinating…Report
People in giant majorities never think about it, and people in tiny minorities are often uncomfortable about it. When people are dead even, there can be a cooperation or at least etiquette. It’s when people are just in the lead or barely out of power that there’s more contention. I could be building a cosmology around bumper sticker counts, but I think there’s some truth to it.Report
Awesome site you have here but I was wondering if you knew of any discussion boards that
cover the same topics discussed here? I’d really love to be a part of community where I can get feedback from other knowledgeable people that share the same
interest. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.
Many thanks!Report