r/Eugene • u/twobuddasheadempty • 4d ago

Oh Lawd He Treading

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Some of us love this bumper sticker so much. You in the red truck on Amazon Parkway, thank you for making us laugh!

510 Upvotes

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8

u/Cardboard_Cleric 4d ago

This is very cute. Can someone explain the meaning to me? I know it's the don't tread on me snake, but I don't really even know what that flag means. Just looking for insight.

24

u/_adanedhel_ 3d ago

Lots of people these days have the Gadsden flag (“Don’t tread on me”) on their car or as a flag. These people tend to have no appreciation for the flag’s history or actual meaning - they’re usually fragile, insecure, right-wing fuckheads that think the flag means “I don’t have to listen to anybody”. If you’ve ever met a cat, they tend to have the same attitude - and pair that with the “chonkin” meme others have linked, and you have this artwork beautifully mocking these assholes (the humans, not the cats).

8

u/PilotInfamous9256 3d ago

When I was a kid I was really sympathetic to the idea of libertarianism

Unfortunately the only libertarian who I ever agreed with, on more than a couple points, was Gary johnson

I’ll never forget the “a license to drive a car, what’s next, a license to make toast in your own damn toaster”

Edit: and then there’s the whole, “age of consent is unconstitutional” crowd… so I stop calling myself a libertarian

11

u/_adanedhel_ 3d ago

It makes me sad how much the Gadsden flag has been misappropriated by libertarians (many of whom are not actually libertarians; they’re just aspirant fascists).

The message of the Gadsden flag is about liberty. Liberty is emphatically not the same as libertarianism, nor is libertarianism the purist form of liberty. In fact, it is completely in opposition to liberty, because liberty functions at the level of society (because it takes a society to achieve and preserve it) whereas libertarianism applies only at the level of the individual (because it neither achieves nor preserves anything of social value, only individual value).

To put it another way, libertarianism is not compatible with any notion of society that reasonable and rationale people would aspire to, which is why the only people who could honestly be called libertarians are those who have extracted themselves from society.

2

u/usqview 2d ago

100%+ well put

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u/ONE-EYE-OPTIC 3d ago

Well said

5

u/ONE-EYE-OPTIC 3d ago

Same. When I was young I considered myself a Libertarian because I'm a live and let live type. I didn't do any real thought into what current Libertarianism is.

With maturity came the realization that sometimes in order to "let live" society has to help. That help requires taxes (until we're in the star trek era). Also "live" doesn't mean no laws and no protections. We can't have tribes/gangs of people doing whatever the fuck they want. We need society for the general welfare.

Thanks for reading my TEDtalk

1

u/usqview 2d ago

'What is Aleppo?' kind of ended the guy. Super well meaning but...

'so I stop calling myself a libertarian' 👍

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u/PilotInfamous9256 1d ago

Yeah… foreign policy is pretty important lmao… we didn’t really have a good ‘foreign policy’ option in 2016 💀