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My city is considering putting "Support our Troops" on all
city vehicles. It sparked quite a heated debate. My
idea
snuffs out all the fire out of this heated subject.
The whole problem is that "Support our Troops" is so
ambiguous ... support them in what exactly? Bringing
freedom
to oppressed people? Murdering everyone they
see until the population submits? I may want to support
them in one thing but not in another. How do I make
sure
I'm not inadvertently supporting something I'm actually
against?
Here are the fixed slogans, I'm sure one or more of them
will be suitable for your beliefs.
Support the Troops: Pull out now
Support the Troops: Send in more ammo
Support the Troops: Send them beer
Support the Troops: Send them hookers
Support the Troops: Increase their pay and pension
Support the Troops: Believe in their mission
Support the Troops: After they return
Support the Troops: Don't leak army information
Support the Troops: Expose the truth about their
mission
Support the Troops: Fuck the politicians who keep them
there
Support the Troops: Vote for the politicians who support
the troops
Support the Troops: By not supporting them you put their
lives in danger
Support the Troops: 100% of profits from the sale of this
sticker went to veterans association
Support the Troops: Let's get those new F-48's deployed
now
Support the Troops: Because now it's too late not to
Support the Troops: Send money to abc@def.com
Support the Troops: Let's nuke that shit hole from orbit
and be done with it
Support the Troops: (The enemy troops)
Support the Troops: Pray for them
Support the Troops: Pray for peace
Support the Troops: Join the army
Support the Troops: Educate yourself on the mission
Support the Troops: Organize peace rallies
Support the Troops: Kill them all to end their
suffering
Support the Troops: Even those who desert
Support the Troops: Anarchy will end all wars.
Support the Troops: Stricter home land laws and more
military power will end all wars.
Support the Troops: ___ fill in your own ____
See, without being more specific, the sticker is a blank
cheque .. how do I know what I'm supporting without
making it explicit?
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Support implies action. Even sticking that sticker on
your car is an action. What action should I take to
support? Because I really DO want to support, but
don't know how. What if I take the wrong action?
Wouldn't that suck for the troops? My improved
sticker focuses on the "how" part and clarifies what's
the right action to take. |
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// what's the right action to take // |
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We'll go with "Let's nuke that shit hole from orbit and be done with it" |
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Works for us. More than once. |
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[21]... so I looked at a dictionary and one of the
meanings of support is "to endure" or "to
tolerate" .. unlike what I said previously those
don't imply action at all. They
mean "just wait until it's over even no matter how
tough the things get".
Maybe that's the
meaning
you had in mind. But this makes things even
more complicated. In a dictatorship it would make
complete sense. I just endure and tolerate the
suffering of the troops until the war is either won
or lost. But in a democracy all citizens are indirect
commanders in chief (as their feedback to the
commander in chief is hard to ignore)
Therefore,
this non-action meaning of support is incompatible
with democracy. After all, as citizens we are
responsible for the well being of those soldiers.
They are our soldiers, risking their lives to do our
bidding. So by just sitting back, and not acting
you are putting their lives in jeopardy. Unless you
are saying:
Support our troops: have
faith in
the commander in chief to make the right decision
on your behalf
Support our troops: Sit back and leave it to the
professionals until it's done ...no matter how long
it takes
Support our troops: Temporarily suspend
democracy for the benefit of the war effort
Support our troops: Keep your democratic mouth
shut until DD/MM/YY (after that we will publicly
debate the best action one again)
...this may be a valid argument (or not)... but it
has to be spelled out, not hidden beneath layers
of different meanings of "support" |
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There is a pleasing ambiguity to the slogan, a far more satisfying degree than, say, "save the whales" but I do think that what we have here is a lawyer's point, a desire for definitional certainty where none is needed. It is worthwhile being clear though that it is not not needed for the reasons 21Q provides (this idea is sufficient to prove the ambiguity) but because bumper stickers are a curious form of communication, in that they communicate •to• the stickerer once and to the later reader almost never. |
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These slogans are not affixed to yr pickup because you want to engender support for troops but because the sticker chimed neatly with a thought you once had: the existence of the sticker confirms (erroneously) that enough people have had this thought as to make production of such a sticker economically viable, which in turn confirms that this idle notion of support that you once had is, in fact, wisdom. As such, the stickers are statements of pride in oneself: my thoughts are widely held, therefore my idlest thought is wise (check me, I'm smart). That this conclusion starts from a faulty premise and follows from flawed language is the true irony of the bumper sticker. |
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To be clearly clear, the support wur sodjers sticker is only one example. Comedy stickers are the same, mutatis mutandis. |
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//Support the Troops: Even those who desert// Especially those who desert or disobey orders. Apostacy and heresy is your moral duty. Your masters deserve no less from you. |
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// in that they communicate •to• the stickerer
once and to the later reader almost never.//
I have to disagree, stickers communicate quite a
lot of information:
- Beliefs of stickerer
- The fact that stickerer is not shy about putting
their beliefs "out there", and that they stand by
those beliefs.
- The message of the sticker itself
- Prevalence of the sticker (is it on every car? or is
it rare to see?)
- How recently this belief was held (dusty, partly
peeled off sticker may not be accurate of current
beliefs)
- .... and probably much more
Stickers classic form of communication. (before
stickers there were cave wall paintings). When a
city faces the decision of whether or not to
communicate a message to millions of residents
(through a sticker) or otherwise, that message
needs clarity. What are they trying to
communicate? Is the message going to do harm?
Or is it going to do good? (and to who) |
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//communicate quite a lot of information// |
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I would be impressed if serving members (and National Guard while in uniform) rode free on the transit. Or got a property tax break. |
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However the message this conveys is more likely "if you argue about your water utility bill, the cops will show up at your door and beat you up". |
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//Support the Troops: Nuke that shit hole from orbit and be done with it// |
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[calum] //There is a pleasing ambiguity to the slogan, a far more satisfying degree than, say, "save the whales"// - I always interpreted "save" to have the meaning it has in "save your pocket money" - i.e. that all the whales should be collected together and put somewhere safe, preferably under lock and key. |
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[calum] From your argument I sense that there must therefore must be a kind of Ur-bumper sticker of which all others are the logical children - something like "My opinions are sufficiently widely held for it to be economically viable for them to be printed as a bumper sticker" - only shorter. Maybe just "My opinions are better than your opinions". |
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Support the Troops: or they'll fall over. |
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What about a bra advert, for the less athletic female? (this is where I reveal my time spent engaged in ad agency work) "Support Our Droops" |
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In Communist Russia, troops support you! |
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I'd consider having a bumper sticker that said, in full: "My opinions are sufficiently widely held for it to be economically viable for them to be printed as a bumper sticker" |
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But we're not sufficiently bumper-stickerish around these parts, so much of the message would be lost. |
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If I lived in the US though, where it's possible to perform most daily functions without ever having to leave your car, and where the cars are large enough to still allow reasonably large print on such a verbose sticker, I would definitely get one of those. |
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Support the Troops: Send them more violant video games and some heavy metal music. |
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[+] Support the troops (even if they are dead because they won't know.) |
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Some pork the troops. Lost fingat! |
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good point about "not a new idea" ... didn't realize
this existed until I saw those links. I guess nothing is
a new idea these days.
P.S. ... yes I did come up with all those on my own. |
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OK then, how about an advert for bras for women troops!! |
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Support the Troops: Raise your taxes and stop borrowing money you damn hell ass morons. |
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[rcarty], you're wasting your time. "Borrowing" has three
syllables; you're going way over their heads. |
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You might do better with drawing a picture. |
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[rcarty], Schrödinger's bumper sticker? |
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More of a trunk/boot sticker we think ... you don't know if it's there or what it says until you open the lid and collapse the wave function. |
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[-]. I hate bumper stickers. |
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//Support the Troops: Let's nuke that shit hole from orbit and be done with it// |
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Damn your pacifist leanings.... |
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I thought it was just wanting more R&D wonga for exoskeletons? which would in version 1, support the troops, and in the upgrade actually go do the fighting on their own. |
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"....we would never leave a man behind"..."maybe that why we lost?" Would just end up replacing "man" with intelligent exoskeleton.. |
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How about a "my other bumper sticker is a bumper sticker"? |
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[DrBob] good idea, but it's been done. |
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"Support our troops: more funding for prosthetic leg
research." |
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