That's Meade in the comments to the post where I said that a snortable product — in this case, cocoa — "brings out the prudes, anything that suggests that a drug-related mentality will accompany the use of the product. It's really a desire to regulate thoughts. Don't even think of getting high."
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79 comments:
I may be the dimmest of bulbs, but I don't understand the meaning of the bumper sticker.
Don't worry. Neither does Meade.
Wilbur,
I think it means everything that is not mandatory is forbidden. Welcome to Progressive Utopia.
Telling others people how to live their lives is the left's reward to itself. Whether directing us about the proper volume of sugary drink containers or on the usage of fireworks and cigarettes, instructing the foolish ignoble proles on how they must live their lives is the Left's self assigned purview. At one time it was the Churches' purview. It seems no matter what era you look at, there's a segment of humanity that is addicted to self righteous piety
Power doesn't corrupt.
Power attracts the prudes.
The 'Please' gives it the Schoolmarmish touch. You can almost smell the Birkenstocks.
Thanks for the explanation. This may then be relevant:
“It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from their sense of inadequacy and impotence. We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression.”
Eric Hoffer
"I think it means everything that is not mandatory is forbidden. Welcome to Progressive Utopia."
That's exactly how I read it.
That's Not Funny. Stop it.
Are those targets? I feel triggered....
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.
CS Lewis
Given the three bullseyes I thought it was a request to stop putting bullet holes in the bumper. Pretty reasonable, really. Bumper stickers are also great for covering up the flaws while providing a chiding message to hopefully avoid such faux pas in the future.
I'm sorry I still don't get it. The text, yes but what about the three bullseyes? I assume that is what they are. I didn't think the Proglords of Swissconsin allowed firearms. Unless they are made of cheese.
The targets threw me a curve, too.
Wilbur: If you look it up, I think you'll see that Hillary Clinton's "Deplorables" speech is actually very similar to your Eric Hoffer quote. The major difference being Hillary, even in her next-say apology for having revealed her authentic view, remained obtuse to the oppression of her generousity.
Madison is one of the elite finishing schools where Progressives go to perfect their oppressive prudery skills. It's like Hogwarts, but for liberals instead of wizards.
Progwarts.
Sometimes a target is just a set of concentric circles.
Meade commented:
"the oppression of her generousity"
I kind of like that phrase. It fits with what progressives accomplish versus what it is they say they are attempting to accomplish. It is quite a gap, usually.
Reminds me of that scene in "the Outlaw Josey Wales"
"Indians evolve to endeavor to persevere"
and
"When we had thought about it enough, we declared war on the United States"
"Blogger tcrosse said...
Sometimes a target is just a set of concentric circles."
I am appalled at your cisconcentric centricism!
Circles are for squares!
They defy intersectionalism because they never touch each other!
All should be whipped from the public square with a length of sheep's intestine!
Bumper sticker using "please" seems wrong.
"Cut that out, you fascist/racist/misogynist/homophobe/Islamophobe/bigot" seems more like it.
tcrosse said...
The 'Please' gives it the Schoolmarmish touch. You can almost smell the Birkenstocks.
7/10/17, 3:16 PM
I was raised that "please" is a request for indulgence. As in "Would you please turn that down." "Would you please give me a hand." So my response would be "No and would you please go away..."
They're mesmerizing. Listen and obey. You are part of the collective -- class, really -- dignity. Your life is worth the sum of its colorful clumps of cells and other lucrative parts. Resistance is futile. You have now entered the penumbra.
Madison, WI, population about 250,000. Sounds like a town that would support 3 Target store locations. What's not to understand?
Another bumper-sticker seen in Wisconsin (honest):
Racine to the Turn of the Crime
Don't the targets mean there will be a "clear and direct" connection between the person responsible for the bumper sticker and any future atrocity committed in its vicinity? Or would it be an "honest mistake" to assert such a connection?
I grew up in northern Alabama, surrounded by Southern Baptists, Church of Christ, all sorts of Fundamentalists & Pentecostals. My family belonged to the only Catholic parish in town, that while fairly conservative, sure didn't have no problems with likker.
I now live in uber-liberal Montgomery County, MD, a suburb of Washington, DC. This area is every bit as judgmental, nay, more so, than the Alabama of my youth. They're just judgemental about different things.
For example, I provide IT support to the auto mechanics I go to. At Christmas, they gave me as a joke a tiny (3" x 2") cheesecake calendar. with topless girls. I had a discussion with the manager that every body shop I got into growing up in Alabama had one of these on the wall, & no doubt, many a church biddie saw it hanging there. He said that if they hung one up here some Takoma Park feminist customer would pitch a conniption. It just wasn't worth the hassle.
The bumper sticker seems to be an intentional self parody.
I like it. It's pretty funny, in a wry sort of way.
I used to think that progressives were the new Puritans. Now I'm thinking they are the latest iteration of the Pharisees.
Puritanism has migrated from sexual matters to diet. There is very little sexual behavior which is beyond the pale - who are we to judge ? But eating Twinkies, Non-Organic produce, or Red Meat is a sign of Moral Degeneracy. Feeding that stuff to the kids is downright criminal.
When I was planning my retirement, an important question was, Where to live? A lot of friends expressed the opinion that the ideal retirement location was a "college town". The idea was that colleges and universities attract intelligent and well-educated people, and as a result they have lots of activities that the retirees would enjoy: Theatre, music, art, classes in various things you're interested in, and so forth. What nobody said was, But for God's sake take the Bush bumper sticker off your car! (a Volvo, by the way).
I don't think the ideological chasm was quite so wide in 2004 as its become. In fact it seems to me that the chasm was created in the second half of the Bush 43 administration, and in the Obama administration, and then reached critical mass as a result of the Trump election. I now live in a community with a good community college and a lot of fairly old people who like to play golf and tennis. Meade's bumper sticker joke is funny to me, because of my years in DC, but it would go over like a lead balloon where I now live. We wouldn't understand it. Gosh! I'm glad I didn't move to a college town!
Sums up my experiences in Madison. The road to hell may be paved with someone's allegedly good intentions.
#welcomenotwelome
Sometimes a target is just a set of concentric circles.
Didn't Sarah Palin shop at Target right before Giffords was shot?
Perhaps the NYT could use that in its defense.
Lo and behold I go to the Target website and discover that there are indeed exactly three Target locations in Madison; East, West, and Hilldale.
"The bumper sticker seems to be an intentional self parody. "
Yes. And if you live here in Madison and fail to get the satirical humor of it, you might want to run for City Council. You could even get elected Mayor.
It's what those "Co-exist" stickers really mean.
Yes. And if you live here in Madison and fail to get the satirical humor of it, you might want to run for City Council. You could even get elected Mayor.
I thought Soglin was Mayor-For-Life.
I don't think the ideological chasm was quite so wide in 2004 as its become.
It's been wider in Madison for far longer than that. In 1994 I was a 24 year old who was foolish enough to think that it would be OK for me to have a Jack Kemp bumper sticker on my car (being a College Republican at the UW wasn't enough, I needed to advertise). Parked on Willy Street, right underneath a banner that said "Willy Street, a Place for All People" or some such BS. Walking around the car, some hipster doofus points at my bumper sticker and says "you're not welcome here". That sums up the Madison left, smugly self-assured and completely lacking in self-awareness.
Ha1 Case in point. Did you give him the finger? I mean..point to the sign?
Take the old SNL Church Lady, dye her hair pink and purple, stick a pussy cat on her head - and you've got a Madison leftist at an anti-Trump rally.
I don't get it but that's ok because I don't get a lot of things. Don't bother explaining it, because I still won't get it. Ah, the joy of a life full of mysteries.
The definition of legalism: Everything is forbidden, but we make exceptions for our friends when it suits us to do so. That's the Law.
"I thought Soglin was Mayor-For-Life."
He's interested in running for governor.
It's all just ChurchLady 2.0
What Brian Lamar quoted. Bullseye.
Freedom and Puritanism, the siamese twins of American politics since 1607.
I now live in uber-liberal Montgomery County, MD, a suburb of Washington, DC. This area is every bit as judgmental, nay, more so, than the Alabama of my youth. They're just judgemental about different things.
My experience exactly but on the opposite coast. I grew up around small-town fundamentalism but nothing there can touch the righteousness of Bay Area progressives.
A pussy cat or pussy hat, exiled? ;-)
Au Courant question:. Will the Left suicide before it ruins the country? Unfortunately the rino moderates will collaborate in turning US into England.
Did you give him the finger? I mean..point to the sign?
Nah, just shook my head and laughed. I was on my way to grab a beer with a friend and didn't have time to waste debating the finer points of Kemp's inclusiveness with someone who was probably still bummed about the Berlin Wall falling five years earlier.
"I don't understand the meaning of the bumper sticker."
It might be an expression of the Madison Idea;, which is "we know better than you do."
Or it could be a satire of the Madison Ideal.
That's the beauty of it.
"what about the three bullseyes?"
Sometime a target is just a symbol. And sometimes a symbol is a target. Thus the confusion.
The bumper sticker seems to be an intentional self parody.
I kind of doubt that it is "self-parody," I haven't met the first lefty who was that self-aware.
"Whatever is not expressly allowed is forbidden" has been a joke righties have made about the left forever.
I don't know if this is off topic or not.
Tucker Carlson had a guy on to night who, as far as I could tell, said that Trump's speech in Poland was okay, but we have to "contextualize" this and realize that Trump is too ignorant to know the meaning of the words he spoke, and the guy who wrote speech, someone named Steve Williams, I think, knows another guy whose views really are quite unacceptable!
It is getting very hard to tell the parodies from the real "fake news" these days.
@YoungHegelian, I lived in Montgomery County for about twenty years, until I couldn't take it anymore, so I know what you mean. And Takoma Psrk was terrible, even by Monkey County (not a typo) standards. So I moved across the Potomac to Fairfax County, where we lived for another twenty years until I retired, and in the last ten years Fairfax had gotten every bit as bad. Now I'm in Frederick County, in the Shenandoah Valley, and it's heaven. I actively discourage old colleagues from moving out here when they retire unless I know them to be the nonjudgmental, not-leftist sort of person.
Stephen Miller, not Williams.
These people really have gone around the bend.
Kind of of a piece with the U.S. district judges who said Trump's immigration order would have been constitutional if some other president had issued it, but not when by him.
Just saw some CNN, and couldn't help but think of Slim Pickens riding the nuke all the way down. YeeHaw.
I just quit a literary group devoted to a favorite writer, Some "Resist" type posted an anti_Trump comment and I suggested that politics was not appropriate for the group. Next another lefty who had looked at my facebook page said he was" nauseated by it ."
Time to leave. I never mentioned Trump.
They just can't help themselves.
If history repeats, the next generation will rebel against this awful generation of humorless busybodies.
Sample Commenter said...The bumper sticker seems to be an intentional self parody.
I kind of doubt that it is "self-parody," I haven't met the first lefty who was that self-aware.
--
Who says a Lefty put that on their car? Yes..it's self-parody. Rare..and a bit brave to do so publicly. Bet the print run of those was very, very small...maybe a one-off.
Madison is the best of places and the worst of places - home to Wisconsin state government and Governor Walker and home to University of Wisconsin - Madison progs; home to Ann and Meade, home to Mayor Soglin.
So I have not seen a COEXIST bumper sticker in weeks though I drive through Shorewood pretty often. I wonder if they are all gone? Any in Madison? Another Trump victory?
Meade said...
"I thought Soglin was Mayor-For-Life."
He's interested in running for governor.
Yes, but is Soglin liked and respected outside of Dane County? He needs to pose with a few dairy farmers or hunters Up North. Has he ever been on a farm? Held a rifle? He's the ultimate city slicker.
I can't imagine it wouldn't be bloodbath for him.
I just hope his campaign song is I am the Walrus.
A hard slog for Soglin.
"Time to leave."
I'm sure they were crushed.
Likewise CA hasn't recovered from your departure.
You're funny.
"He's the ultimate city slicker"
Ha. Madison the metropolis.
"So I have not seen a COEXIST bumper sticker in weeks though I drive through Shorewood pretty often. I wonder if they are all gone? Any in Madison? Another Trump victory?"
I live in Shorewood and it seems like the self-righteous bumper sticker count has gone down.
Although I saw a dude with gray hair down to his waist (to compensate for the baldness on top) walking down Oakland Avenue with a pink "Resist!" T-shirt on. Probably a member of the UWM faculty.
Play both sides of the aisle. Put a "Coexist With Trump" sticker on your car, if you dare.
(Successful) Lefties PREACH libertinism but they PRACTICE Republican virtues of self control. Drugs are a 'principle' to espouse, not a life destroying habit they actually indulge in except for minor amounts of weed. Same as alcoholism.
If the saloons of yesteryear were anything like the wine shops in India, it's no wonder that Prohibition took effect. It is pathetic.
AFTER one spends a week in a crack house, then they can tell me with a straight face that about their position for drug legalization, not before.
So when you or Meade decide to do a week of meth or heroin, then I think you have an actual argument. If the risk is too great for you, how is it different for anyone else?
FIDO said...
AFTER one spends a week in a crack house, then they can tell me with a straight face that about their position for drug legalization, not before.
When did you spend a week in a crack house? You know, because your admonition is meaningless if you haven't.
So when you or Meade decide to do a week of meth or heroin, then I think you have an actual argument. If the risk is too great for you, how is it different for anyone else?
Despite the lighthearted banter in this thread, I'm pretty sure that almost nobody who posts here, except myself and perhaps one or two others, actually thinks that people own their own bodies and should be left alone as long as they don't harm anyone else.
Has Althouse already blogged about this place in Madison?
Eggs Over Sleazy
Mifflin Street Block Party: This is something that makes Madison Madison. And a number of libertine behaviors are celebrated.
So (do I have this right?):
Drinking too much alcohol is ok, drinking too much soda is not okay.
Smoking marijuana is okay, smoking tobacco is not okay.
For a man, sex with an inebriated woman who does not later regret it is ok, sex .... who does later regret it is not okay.
Eating disorders that cause you to be too thin are ok, eating disorders that cause you to be too fat are not.
So "please stop doing that" is kind of confusing.
@jelly: He's actually a Chicago transplant. Native to the Midwest.
Soglin's Senselessness: https://davidblaska.com/2017/07/11/madison-mayor-soglin-offers-cash-for-plunkers/
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