Do people forward you as much political “humor” as they send to me? Since I started publishing this site, I get even more of it.
Just this week, different people sent me the two graphics here. One person sent a batch of anti-Republican stickers asking if I could use them. And then I got a batch of anti-Democratic graphics from another friend, with a note saying, “I didn’t know if you could use any of these graphics on your website or not. Very good bumper stickers.”
I appreciate my friends’ good intentions. I really do. (In fact, a few of you send me things that do turn into article ideas. You know who you are. Thanks.) But politics is already vacuous enough without dumbing it down even further. This isn’t what I want to be about. I don’t want to be “room noise” or “elevator music,” to steal a couple of phrases from an obscure old song.
Simplistic sloganeering such as what you see here doesn’t help anyone. Honestly, I don’t even find it funny. I will gladly take something I disagree with and write about why I think someone is wrong. I realize that some people don’t appreciate that — as was discussed in the comments of that article — but it’s a balance I try to strike between ideas, on the one hand, and attracting new readers, on the other. But most of what I see offered as political discourse today strikes me as the equivalent of children on a playground shouting insults at one another.
What kind of hypocrite gives advice but won’t practice what he preaches?
Learning to be an emotional man helped me to overcome numb past
Without the state, who would plow roads? We and our neighbors will
Now that his wife is gone for good, man is left with memories and love
One college senior explains financial facts to the Wall Street protesters
When we don’t feel understood, we feel lonely even in a crowd
Patterns that made old mistakes keep us making same old errors
Why do we put off changes that might give meaning to our lives?
Wait, was she flirting with me? My history shows I’m clueless