Has this happened to anyone else? I find that in this day and age of ubiquitously accessible, never-ending political porn brought about by broadband internet and 24 hour cable TV, I've become hyper-sensitive to subliminal political messages embedded in everything. For example, my first thought when I heard about the Geena Davis Commander-in-Chief show was that it was a naked attempt to sell the country on the idea of a female president. That one's pretty obvious, but it has gotten worse. This morning, I was driven to writing an angry letter to the Columbus Dispatch in response to a single sentence in a front page puff piece.
The article in question concerned the BMV's censor board for personalized vanity plates and gave amusing examples of those deemed unacceptable, and some apparently borderline examples that were approved. It was this sentence that set me off:
"The panel occasionally fields a request for a political plate, such as BUSHLIEZ, which was allowed because it's unlikely to incite violence."
I sent the following letter in response:
In reference to James Nash's or Lisa Perry's
statement that a personal license plate using the phrase BUSHLIEZ was passed by
the BMV censor board because it "[was] unlikely to incite violence," I question
whether that is the appropriate standard for approval of this license
plate.
Among the other plates shown as examples of
unacceptable tags, I did not see any that were nearly as devisive or insensitive
as the BUSHLIEZ plate. 2,859,764 Ohioans voted for President Bush in a highly emotional
election in 2004, and the tacit blessing of a state bureau of such a negative
political statement is a direct affront to them. I find it far more offensive
than H8BLU, for example.
One should also
consider the feelings of the many Ohioans that have family members fighting
in the war. The ridiculous assertion that 16 words from a State of the Union
speech, whether you judge them to be lies or not, were the sole cause of this
war belittles the sacrifices being made by those that volunteer to defend our
country. The question of whether the military action in Iraq was the basis of
lies and deception on the part of the President or was an appropriate measure of
self defence is difficult one, far too diffcult to be distilled down to two
highly charged words on a license plate.
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