Bumper Sticker Philosophy

I adore bumper stickers. Reading them is an affective way to release road rage and quietly comment on society’s proclivity to pontificate. Additionally, it is the poor mans billboard and a right of passage for our licensed youth. Also, we develop a sense of the person behind the wheel and gently place them into our stereotypes. Whether these profiles are left, right, center, or crazy, stickers are the window to a person’s inebriated psyche.

Currently, there are many political stickers roaming the landscape. From the Neo-classical “W” to the more Warhol inspired ribbons of countless colors and messages, ranging from “Support the Troops” and "MIA/POW" to my personal favorite “Just pretend its all okay”. However, I have always been partial to the standard rectangle bumper sticker with two-tone colors, clear sentences and poetic euphemisms, which brighten any traffic jammed day.

One of the most telling such stickers was the analogy of Col. Sanders. Paraphrasing: “If you’re a taxpayer and vote Democratic it is like chickens voting for Col. Sanders.” What a great piece of advice. Voting for the Democratic Party will ultimately kill you through a guillotine of taxes and social welfare programs. Furthermore, the appearance of the sticker was unblemished by the torrid sun, so I concluded that this sticker was relatively new to the bumper of a 2005 F350 Dually Pick-up truck.

Apparently, this sticker was placed on the truck well before the ultimate passing of the 2005 Republican sponsored energy bill. In which, some of the following sections might be of some interest to Col. Sanders:

• The Ultra-Deepwater Slush fund: this provision, added in the 11^th hour to the House bill, would (creates) up to $2 billion in Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) revenues to a new fund designed to benefit the Texas Energy Center in Sugar Land (Tom Delay’s district)
• Royalty holidays for oil and gas producers in the Gulf of Mexico
• Sec. 219. Sugar cane ethanol program. This provision authorizes $36 million to try and make sugar cane a viable source for ethanol. (With CAFTA this is a windfall for all of Central America!)
• Sec. 316 Alaska offshore royalty suspension. This provision extends royalty breaks to oil and gas producers drilling in the OCS off of Alaska. (I guess corporate welfare is much better for America’s national interests then social welfare – let them eat cake!)
• Sec. 1002 Cost sharing. This provision requires the government to pay for 20% of non-federal energy R&D projects and 50% of demonstration and commercial projects.
• Title XIV. Incentives for Innovative Technologies. This recent addition to the energy bill authorizes unlimited taxpayer-backed loan guarantees for energy projects.

I understand that votes on the floor consist of Democrats and Republican however this was a bill pushed by both the President and the GOP majority. I guess Col. Sanders doesn’t discriminate when it comes to chickens, hens, Democrats, Republicans or more importantly the American people.