Tread lightly on the things of earth

The General’s new bumper sticker, political satire though it is, appears to me to convey the almost-literal truth. Which makes the B/C yard signs popping up in my admittedly conservative, swing-state neighborhood all the more surreal.

Alert: The bumper sticker uses VP vocabulary, so don’t click through if you’re easily offended.

I wrote about this earlier saying the best thing the B/C team has going for them is their carefully cultivated image as berserkers. Not that I find that comforting, as I’ve always been a “Great country, less crazy” man myself.

2004-09-25 update:
Speaking of crazy, I’m encountering the yard-sign swing-state shuffle: someone’s stealing each Kerry/Edwards yard sign I put up. I see it’s happening to both parties’ signs in Tennessee and elsewhere. But in my immediate neighborhood, anyway, the B/C signs, like the one directly across the street, remain untouched.

Earlier in my life I’d have been irritated by this. Now I’m just motivated to keep putting up one damn sign after another, every day until Election Day if necessary.

2004-10-01 update:
I still think replacing the signs is the best solution for me, but here’s a creative alternative involving poison ivy. :-)

2004-10-05 update:
Today I find my Kerry/Edwards sign not only stolen but replaced with a B/C sign. I see they’ve gone from trespassing and theft to trespassing, theft, and littering.

As campaign strategy, this seems so, I don’t know, “wicked retaahded,” to use Jon Stewart’s term. Like I’m going to do anything but point out the following to everyone I know:

This nationwide political sign theft/vandalism problem is a symptom of the childishness and attitude of lawlessness trickling down from the top. Trickled-down lawlessness in this case of stealing yard signs has few consequences, but trickled-down lawlessness at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib — see Hersh’s Chain of Command — has consequences we’ve barely begun to realize.

Being a grownup who respects the rule of law is hard, it’s hard work. But it’s what we each of us must do to move forward. This apocalyptic playtime must end; it will be the death of us.