Those Lazy Children

It will come as absolutely no surprise to longtime reader(s) of this humble “weblog” to discover that we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” disesteem bumper stickers. In fact, next to Hezbollah and posterior penmanship, we think that bumper stickers are amongst the great evils of the modern world.

Most of the time, however, the bumper stickers we spy are merely vapid and predictable. “Peace Is Possible”; “Hate Is Not a Family Value”; “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted Democrat”—these are amongst the vehicular eyesores we must read each day. It almost makes one pine for “Keep Your Rosaries Off My Ovaries”; heck, at least that one has a nice bit of internal rhyme.

A few days ago, however, one of the senior editors here at “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly”—let’s just call him “Chip”—happened upon a particularly curious bumper sticker. It read as follows:

Kids Can’t Vote. But You Can.

That’s it. That’s the whole message. “Kids Can’t Vote. But You Can.” Finis.

A bit odd, is it not? And, quite frankly, potentially very bigoted in regard to youths worldwide. After all, it isn’t very nice to advertise the shortcomings of any group, be they Hispanics, or Koreans, or rich white male lacrosse players at a prestigious southern University. But apparently to the genius behind this bumper sticker, it’s just fine and dandy to pick on kids.

We mean, come on: Why not rub it in a bit more? What else can’t kids do? How about a follow-up sticker reading “Kids Can’t Drink Copious Amounts of Alcohol. But You Can”? It really has a ring to it. That’ll show those tots.

And why pick on kids so much? After all, lots of other things can’t vote: Frogs, tollbooths, and, if leftists have their say, Arabs. Why single out the young ones?

Naturally, dear reader, the moron boasting this bumper sticker on his (her?) car wasn’t thinking about these matters. Rather, we have the sneaking suspicion that he had a far more self-righteous idea in mind.

It doesn’t take too much in the way of smarts to recognize that this is just another example of the tired left-wing bumper sticker, albeit one with much of its sanctimony unstated. If its sentiment were presented in full, we have the hunch it would read like this:

In the United States, Kids Can’t Vote. But You Can. Thus You Should Vote for Democrats, Because Evil Republicans Are Trying To Ruin the World.

Gosh: Just look at how many layers of moral preening must be filed in by the reader! And how pathetic: In part this bumper sticker rankles because it offers the common Whitney Houston Platitude: “I Believe that Children Are the Future.”

Well, duh. Chronologically speaking, you’re obviously right, Whitney. That’s why we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” believe that, since children are the future, Whitney’s decision to have children with Bobby Brown isn’t exactly ensuring a bright future.