Hatred passed on, passed on and passed on

This is going to be a little different (and late, considering the SCOTUS rulings were last week), but does anyone else get really disheartened when you see nasty, politically themed bumper stickers or plates? Specifically, I'm talking about these types:

Helloooo, crazy.

The other day I saw a guy with stickers on his car: "My dog bites Democrats," and "My cat is smarter than the President." Come on, dude, don't drag your poor animals into this!

And then, of course, there's this license plate, which really bothers me, because I'm relatively sure Ben Franklin did NOT envision the rattlesnake to be a symbol of ass-backwards-ness:

To be perfectly honest, the Tea Party frightens me. Even though Wikipedia defines them as a group that "advocates protection of the work of the founding fathers of the United States, reducing U.S. government spending and taxes, and reducing the U.S. national debt and federal budget deficit," I feel they certainly don't portray that message. All I hear is the garbage and hatred spewed by the likes of Michelle Bachman and Rush Limbaugh and the "they're gonna terk our guns!" crazies. I feel like since the radical anti-government, bigoted nutjobs have a socially acceptable, common ground with the TP (small government and conservative social values), they feel it's OK for them to express their prejudice publicly in the name of a political party:

"Tea Party members are not necessarily any more racist than typical white Americans, but that the movement's supporters are more likely to be, leading the researchers to conclude that, 'what the Tea Party means to its members and what it represents to the large public may, in fact, not be the same thing.' The study of survey data compiled in 2010 found that people who viewed the Tea Party favorably more often agreed with negative sentiments about African-Americans, than did the general population."

I know I'm supposed to be tolerant, that expressing dislike doesn't make me any better than them. I know everyone is entitled to their opinion and political views. But when these opinions and views are narrow-minded, homophobic, and fucking downright racist, it makes me furious. I get it: there are Tea Party members who aren't racist assholes. Yet not enough TP members are stepping up to refute the overt bigotry and prejudice, and it certainly doesn't help that those same people are against gay rights and think it's OK to make ridiculous laws to control women's bodies, so you know they're not very tolerant to begin with. ;)

I think what's triggering this semi-rant is 1) DOMA and Prop 8 being struck down (thank you, lawd!), 2) the Voting Rights being repealed (boo), and 3) when I was out biking on Saturday, I got angry honked at by a guy with a "Don't Tread on Me" sticker. For what reason, I don't know – it was a rural country road with low traffic, I was so far over to the right side of the road that I was practically in the gravel, and I had my blinky light on, so it's not like I riding at night and invisible. Maybe he was pissed because I was a woman and exercising instead of cooking dinner and doing laundry at home, where I obviously belonged! Ha.

Anyway. I suck at writing political opinion stuff, so sorry if it's hard to read. :)





Post title song reference: Rage Against the Machine - Settle for Nothing