Familiar Topic Redux

This is an essay on the same subject as the one in the previous post. This one takes a more deliberate tack:

 

A Pamphlet That May or May Not Be Left
on the Windshield of a Patriotic Pickup

By Bill Ackerbauer      Sept. 20, 2005

   Howdy, neighbor. If you can spare a moment, I'd like to discuss the messages on the back of your vehicle. I understand you might get a chuckle out of that "Terrorist Hunting Permit" bumper-sticker, and your "Support Our Troops" magnet fills your heart with pride and purpose. But perhaps it hasn't occurred to you that these messages have an entirely different effect on many of the people who will see them as you drive around town. 

  I must concede the "Terrorist Hunting Permit," with its handgun logo, official-looking typography and semisubtle reference to the 9/11 attacks, is somewhat funny. The first time I saw it, I smiled at its cleverness before I realized the full range of its possible implications. Humor can hurt. "The secret source of Humor itself is not joy but sorrow," Mark Twain once wrote. I wouldn't put such a sticker on my car for the same reason I wouldn't tell a joke that plays off crude ethnic or sexual stereotypes. You might argue that the butt of your sticker's joke is some nameless, faceless jihadist, or perhaps Osama bin Laden himself, but other people — people who are not deserving of insult or disrespect —  will see your sticker and feel the painful twinge of alienation. 

   I'm reminded of a local Palestinian-American businessman who shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, was the victim of a brutal rumor that he had voiced sympathy with the perpetrators of the terrible attacks of that day. The xenophobic idiot who started that rumor, and nearly launched a boycott of the man's business before the word got out that the allegation was false, no doubt thought of himself on some level as a "terrorist hunter."   

   There is also the matter of your bumper sticker's indirect insult to the real terrorist hunters, the military personnel and other government operatives who have risked and lost their lives in the caves of Afghanistan and the streets of Iraq.

   Whether or not we agree theirmissions are righteous, we must acknowledge that thousands of Americans have killed and died motivated by the belief that they are defending your right to say whatever you believe, on the bumper of your pickup truck or anywhere else.

   This brings me to the subject of supporting our troops. The overwhelming majority of Americans do indeed support and respect the efforts and sacrifices of our soldiers, sailors and airmen, myself included. Although I share the basic sentiment, "Support Our Troops," I do not emblazon my car with the yellow ribbon because I do not agree with its subtext. For many people, the assumed tacit meaning of "Support Our Troops" is "Support the War in Iraq" or "Support Our President's Foreign Policy." Funny, you don't see those slogans on many people's cars and trucks.

   What does it say about our society that so many nowadays are expressing their fervent patriotism in the form of temporary magnets? Are motorists more concerned about their cars' trade-in values than voicing their own moral and cultural values? Are magnets preferred in case one has to make a quick change  in the event of a shift in general public opinion? With stickers, at least, one makes a minor commitment.

   As a progressive Democrat and an objector to the Iraq war, I feel like an outsider, and I feel marginalized by the slogans on your car. And I'm lucky. People can't tell where I come from or what I think just by looking at me or hearing my last name. I can't imagine how much more deeply the sting is felt by a person whose appearance or last name makes him stand out in this jingoistic crowd as a person who might harbor dissenting opinions. 

   Don't dismiss me as a member of some phantom liberal elite. I didn't swoop into your conservative-majority community from some far-away socialist republic like Vermont. I am proud to be a liberal; I am a progressive, tolerant, socially conscious, open-minded individual who thinks wars should not be waged for political or economic exploitation. My views put me slightly to the left of the country's mainstream on many issues, but I'm not a stranger. You and I live on the same street, we buy our groceries at the same store, and our kids attend the same schools.

   Sorry to take up so much of your time with this bit of commentary. My ideology cannot be summarized on a bumper sticker.