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Political Yard Sign Wars Wage as Election Nears
gollum123 writes "Yahoo has a story on how tension among bitterly divided voters is translating into a barrage of attacks on political targets that can't talk back - yard signs. Campaign signs depicting support for either President Bush (news - web sites) or Democratic challenger John Kerry (news - web sites) are being burned, chopped down, spray-painted and commonly, stolen away in the dark of night. Though sign shenanigans are common in election years, some Republican leaders are calling this year's activity unprecedented. Democratic leaders say attacks are so rampant that supporters should take their yard signs inside at night to protect them. Has anyone on /. had such an experience."
...are being burned, chopped down, spray-painted and commonly, stolen away in the dark of night
I can sympathize. This sounds like what happened to my pot crop this summer.... well, minus the spraypaint. I never thought to bring 'em inside though - those democrats are so pratical.
Yes. However without a lawn of my own, (appartment dweller, not basement dweller) I don't worry too much about bringing in signs. Perhaps I should pick up some of those bushes that have been sprouting up in the neighborhood. Then again, perhaps it is just too much to kerry.
-Rusty
p.s. Sorry about the puns, they just seemed to appropriate.
You never know...
As long as they are advertising by yard signs, and not spam, it's pretty good. No having to face emails every morning with titles like: EN:LARGE::TAXX:CUTS:VOTEBUSH and IN:CREASE:NATIONAL:PRESTEEJ:VOTEK3RRY
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Because, unlike you, they are informed of the fact that one of the two men will surely win. There are at least some differences between them, and anyone informed on the issues will prefer one of them over the other.
I have Bush stickers on my car, and my car has been vandalized when ever I take it out.
Actually, the differences are enormous in many important areas. In fact, about half the important areas. Your being only halfway informed explains why you can't see it.
"Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
To demonstrate my support for my preferred presidential candidate, I went by the local headquarters and made a donation and picked up a yard sign. I put it out with some trepidation, since I knew that mine was the only sign of its type in my neighborhood: there were about a dozen signs for the opposition in yards I pass on the last two miles of my trip from work to home, and not one like mine for at least five miles that I had spotted.
Happily, my sign has stood proudly in the yard, untouched by anyone else, as far as I can tell. During that time, more signs for the opposition have sprung up, and only one for the same candidate as mine.
On the other hand, the local news apparently carried a story about a local whose signs had been repeatedly stolen. So she put one up and hung a sign underneat it that said "Every time you steal my sign, I make a bigger donation to my candidate." That apparently stopped the rascals from stealing any more signs.
Finally, I have watched with interest the signs people put up in the median of the road, on what is clearly public land. It appears to me that people find it acceptable to put their own signs on that land, and also that others find it acceptable to take down a sign and put up their own opposing sign. I've never seen anyone taking one down, however, so perhaps it is the state authorities coming along and cleaning up their land.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
Man, there is going to be some wailing and gnashing of teeth this year if Bush wins again. No president has been hated more since Lincoln, it would seem.
A homeowner looked out and saw a man lying face down on his driveway. Going out to check, he found that the man was unconscious, so he went back in and called 911. When the rescue crew moved the man, they found him clutching Kerry (and other Democratic) signs under his body. His car was parked nearby, and they found more stolen Democratic signs in it. He was removing them, not placing them.
Apparently he'd been removing signs in this neighborhood, and was going to cross the driveway when he tripped over a chain the homeowner had there for some unknown, but presumably logical reason. Since he was clutching the signs, he couldn't quickly get his arms out front to break his fall, so he hit his head and knocked himself out.
The police charged him with numerous petty crimes. His wife said, "He's never done anything like this, before."
Given that this is the good old US of A, I'm surprised he hasn't sued the homeowner for having that chain there.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I have the opposite problem, people keep putting signs UP in my yard. It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact the candidate they are pushing I really don't like on a personal level. So far II have a stack of 3 in my garage and a new one pops up every 2 - 3 days.
There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
The relationship between a political party and its supporters is at time a troublesome one. I firmly believe that you should support a party only so long as you share idealogies with them. However some people support parties so wildly, and believe so strongly that the political party starts becoming part of their identity. As such an attack on that party, is viewed as a personal attack. We see this in soccer hooliganism in europe. Think about yourself, do you think of yourself as a "republican" or a "democrate" or do you merely support certain ideas of the that party. Of course, political parties encourage this sort of behaviour. It allows them to change their views and still remain supported.
Also in this election has been billed as of the highest importance. The very course of human existence depends on the result in November. I am very concerned about the election result this year, but not at the extent of destroying private property, or otherwise resorting to violence. I may be underestimating the importance of this election, but if Bush wins, its only for four years.... This is a truism, regardless of whether you are the furtherest right conservative or the left enough to make Ghandi blush.
You know what? I'm really sick of ignorant people saying "both candidates suck, I shall weep".
I'm a fairly moderate Democrat, and you know what? Kerry doesn't suck. Neither did Al Gore. Neither did John McCain. I happen to really dislike George W Bush, but if I was a fairly hardcore right-wing conservative, I'd imagine I'd be pretty pissed to hear you say that he sucks.
Are they perfect, flawless, shining crystals of purity? No, they're mother-effing human beings who are probably trying to do what they feel is right, most of the time. (That is, when they aren't compromising to reach consensus. Yes, it happens. No, it's not bad.)
I'm sick of reading bitchy posts and hearing bitchy comments about how "oh, all the candidates are bad", and "I'm not going to vote". If you really feel the candidates are that bad, go to the polls anyway. Write in a vote for "NONE OF THE ABOVE", or maybe even the third party candidate of your choice. Badnarik, Nader, whoever--votes for those guys are how the parties realize they need to appeal to those platforms.
If we as young voters all pitch in and at least make an EFFORT to vote (even if they're throwaway votes for Nader or something), then our power as voters goes up. Then, maybe candidates will talk to the 18-28 demographic rather than blathering on about health care. (That sort of talk is all very well and good for Grandma but generally not too important to a 24-year-old.)
So go take a civics class or something and stop your complaining.
[insert witty sig here]
A couple of big 4x8 BC04 signs have been spray-painted with "LIARS" and "1000 DEAD" and they're now covering them with plastic wrap hoping the spray painters will be foiled (sorry) and the signs protected.
More commonly, Kerry signs are seen to metamorphose into BC signs overnight.
--
Tom Barringer
Candidate for State Representative in Derry, NH
www.ThatTallGuy.net
Any of my friends that put a Bush bumper sticker on their car has had the car keyed multiple times.
When I was in middle school, I used to hear kids bragging to each other all the time about how many signs they had trashed/stolen (I lived in Texas at the time, so they happened to be trashing Clinton/Gore or Dukakis/Benson signs).
Now we have SMS, IM and email to make things more organized, so it's happening more frequently. Big whoop. I really doubt that some local party boss is ordering his foot soldiers to go out and round up opposition signs. I'm sure they've got better things to do.
How about just getting opposite parties in Presidency and Congress. History sez that the nation generally (not always, but generally) does better when the Presidency and Congress are NOT from the same party.
I'll make no attempts to comment on any merit past that one point, in an effort to keep this short.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Power to you if you think voting for the lesser evil is actually reversing the downward spiral tho.
I wonder if you could get rich by printing up a bunch of "Neener, neener!" or <Nelson>Ha, ha!</Nelson> signs for one side or the other to put up the day after the election.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Robert Heinlein had it right - you can tell a society is on the skids when basic politeness is viewed as weakness, and rudeness is viewed as strength. /me looks around pointedly at the /trolls
It never ceases to dismay me how people can scream about how *their* right of "free speach!" is being infringed, and then turn right around and infringe upon the free speech of others.
Supporting the speech of those with whom you agree is NOT supporting free speech. Supporting the right of speech of those with whom you vehemetly disagree IS supporting free speech.
You may feel that Candidate Epsilon-1 is perfection incarnate, and that Candidate Epsilon-2 is distilled evil - if you go around taking down signs for Epsilon-2 you are NOT supporting democracy.
www.eFax.com are spammers
In my neighborhood, a wealthy neighborhood of Austin TX, the Kerry signs such as the one in my yard are the targets. It's been knocked over twice, but I just put it back up. The Bush signs aren't touched here.
Apparently in other parts of Austin, it's not as safe to have a Bush sign in your yard.
Come on people, fucking grow up. Kicking over a sign is just fucking stupid.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
In Portland, Oregon, a friend mentioned that, before the last election, there were no signs in the yards in the wealthy area where he lives. Now there are seven Kerry/Edwards signs in the yards around his. There are no Bush signs.
I began looking for Bush signs as I drive around my area. I've seen none. There is at least one Kerry sign on each block, usually more.
I've heard that there are plenty of Bush signs in the rural areas of the state.
Many people in the U.S. know very, very little about the activities in their government. There are many very angry people. The ignorant and the angry are easily manipulated. To them, for example, bombing for democracy makes sense.
During the Clinton years, I read the books that were published about him. They said he was having sex with slutty women. They tried to find something wrong with his small losing investment called Whitewater. They said he may have, at some time during his being governor of Arkansas, associated with people who later turned out to be involved in questionable activities. I found the books interesting, but a little lame.
Now I've read the books about Bush. It's amazing. The information about Bush is about severe corruption of government.
The negative information about George W. Bush seems endless. Just when I think I know 10% of the corruption, I find more detail that shows I know less than 1% of it. For example, George W. Bush's brother was shown in a lawsuit deposition on 20/20 casually talking about his prostitutes and his use of government influence to make money. This is Neil Bush talking about himself.
George H.W. Bush was involved in the weapons business with a brother of Osama bin Laden. See House of Bush, House of Saud: The secret relationship between the world's two most powerful dynasties by Craig Unger, 2004, Scribner, New York, New York, USA. Reviews: Powell's Barnes & Noble Amazon
Most media exists to make money. Advertisers are understandably careful not to alienate anyone. It is not possible to develop an accurate opinion of government activities only by listening to the carefully crafted phrases from media employees who would lose their jobs if they seemed to indicate a preference for one policy over another. It's necessary to read books.
George Soros says, "President Bush is endangering our safety, hurting our vital interests, and undermining American values." If Dole had been elected instead of Clinton, the U.S. would have had sensible leadership. This election is different. It is not a matter of which candidate you like. If you vote for Bush, you are poorly informed. This is not a claim that Kerry and Edwards are perfect. They represent, at minimum, a needed change.
--
Government data compares Democrat and Republican economics.
And on the same token he will continue to wage war on the constitution by not only crap like the Patriot act, but pushing for EVEN MORE with Patriot II. He will continue to suppress findings and reports that the CIA assembled regarding 9/11. His speaking skills will continue to degenerate to where he cannot express himself at all.
Look anything good you can say about Bush can be easily countered with all the bad crap he has pulled. I voted for him once, as the lesser of two evils. Also because I mistakenly believed he was a conservative, but his irresponsible deficit spending cured me of that misconception.
And of course for many of the reasons you outlined, Kerry is no better. Since I do not feel strongly enough that either of these two should be president, I will vote for the 3rd party candidate who I most agree with.
Finkployd
During the 2000 election, I had something a bit different occur.
My parents house (was living with them at the time) is on a farm, with a pretty heavily traveled road through it. We had the problem of the other side putting signs up on our property. We would take them down, to find more in their place a couple of days later. I lost count of how many signs we removed, as they kept on replacing them.
It was not public land, they had no right to put them there, and we had every right to remove them.
They were Gore/Lieberman signs.
In front of my house, my roommates and I have both Bush/Cheney and Kerry/Edwards signs on our lawn, as well as signs from local and state campaigns. (A house divided, so to speak)
All of them get trashed. the Bush/Cheney more often (4 signs down so far). But we live in a college town so such things are expected on Friday nights. Luckily, the Republicans here don't charge for signs, while the Democratic's charged $3 for the Kerry/Edwards signs, which get stolen/trampled/set on fire much less often.
I figure if I call up the local RNC/DNC offices and tell them of my tails of woe, they'll hook me up with some really huge, gaudy signs. With huge defense lasers and remote-controlled carpet bombing capabilities. That'll stop'm.
--- Kicking the Cheat since late 2002
Axactly!
After my Kerry sign was vandalized three nights in a row and then finally stolen, I decided to do something about protecting its replacement. Enter the Scarecrow.
It's a motion-activated sprinkler. Anyone who comes near my sign now gets blasted with water. It's hilarious.
I never mentioned a 'neocon conspiracy'. There never has been a conspiracy. The neocons have been completely above board about their agenda, and it has been fully reported on the news.
Clinton answered the Sudan point. At the time, the offer did not appear credible, or at least sufficiently credible to pay whatever price the Sudanese were asking. BTW, Clinton said that the cruise missile attack on Afghanistan was the most he felt he could get away with, at the time. Even so, he was accused of wagging the dog.
As for sources for my facts, I made nothing up.
a: NPR interview with CIA people.
b: OK, this is my opinion, but the secrecy of the current administration is well reported in the news.
c: Another NPR interview.
d: Partly logical extraction, partly current news about generals' estimates of required troop strength, partly pre-war comments by a friend in the Guard about required troop strength AND duration estimates.
I'm sorry that I use NPR and BBC as my primary news sources. But I don't plan on changing to Fox News. From what I see and hear, in the news and on sites like Slashdot, the Left in the US might well be slightly right of Center in the rest of the world. I see no need to add further Rightward bias to my sources.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I think there are a couple of reasons this is happening. One is that people feel denied their right to dissent. This is what happens when you create "free speech zones" miles out of the way, suppress dissenting opinions and information as unpatriotic, and kick people out of Presidential events for wearing T-shirts you don't agree with. Another is that George W. Bush has polarized the nation to a degree that has rarely been seen before. He claims to do God's work, but it seems to me that all he's managed to do is spread hate: the Democrats hate the Republicans, the Republicans hate the Democrats, the Sunnis, Shiites, and Al Qaeda members in Iraq hate the American occupiers, America hates France, the whole world hates America... listen, I'm not religious in the least, but if I understand things right, Jesus and God are supposed to be about love. All this fear and hatred that Bush incites- if he's getting his directions from somebody, it ain't the guy upstairs, that's for sure. There's a line in the Bible that sums this up pretty well: "and ye shall know them by the fruit they bear". Seems to me Bush has given us a bitter harvest.
My favorite:
Yup, anonymously attack his own client, so that people assume the opponents are doing it, making them look bad. This actually happens.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
This happens every time. Each election becomes "the most important/critical of our lifetime!" This way the parties whip us into an incoherent frenzy, creating a bitter partisan rivalry (between two sides that are really not all that much different) so that they can entrench their power that much more. Drive home that identity, so that it becomes more important than actually thinking about issues. "Damn the issues, my team must win no matter what it takes!"
Meanwhile, third parties like Libertarians, Greens, and Constitutionalists peacefully and thoughtfully debate real issues with very little rancor between them. Where else do you see a candidate defer to another who is probably the most ideologically removed from him to explain a point?
Independently thinking Americans are anathema to the Duopoly - a threat to their power. Why do you think they try to marginalize third parties through ballot access restrictions, debate exclusions, not addressing the voting system shortcomings? The Duopoly likes voters who blindly believe whatever they're told. Do yourself, and America, a favor on Nov 2 - vote third party.
Constitutionally Correct
someone keeps putting an elder sign around my 'vote Cthulhu' yardsign.
between the greater and lesser infinities sleep the dreams undreamt
I want it to accelerate- so that we get to the actual collapse and give my generation a chance to rule before we retire.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
How about we get a bunch of bush fans and kerry fans with yard signs and have them duke it out to decide who should take office. Can you imagine the 50 year old women going tactical on each other with bush or kerry signs? THAT would be entertaining...
My girlfriend had a Kerry sign in her front yard. It kept disappearing and she kept putting it up. One evening when she was driving home she saw a van plastered with pro-life bumper stickers driving around the neighborhood. The van would stop in front of some house with a democratic yard sign, out would pop a little girl from the passenger seat, she'd pull the sign up and toss it in the back of the van. My girlfriend watched in horror as the driver of this van, presumably the child's mother, had her kid go through the neighborhood picking up these signs. She started to follow them and they got wise they were being followed and sped off. My GF went to the police to report it and they said it wasn't worth reporting because probably no action would be taken even though she got the license number of the van.
It's pretty despicable when people engage their kids in such activities. Unfortunately, you see a lot of this activity among the rabid pro-life crowd: they bring their kids out front of abortion clinics holding up signs with pictures of dead fetuses. There seems to a recurring theme of partisians using children as political tools.
Just stop right there. Bush isn't responsible for 9/11. Nobody is responsible for the wicked acts of others. True, our intelligence systems failed us, but much of the failures were due to policies established under previous administrations--including your man Clinton. I refer you to the Toracelli principle if you doubt me.
When Clinton was president he had a meeting about terrorism and Al Qaida at least once a week, sometimes everyday. Bush didn't have one meeting about terrorism in 7 months before 9/11. He appointed Cheney to head an anti-terrorism task-force, it never met once.
Hindsight is 20/20. Were strategic mistakes made? Of course. Analysts are human. Military officials are human. George W. Bush is human. Hence, mistakes were made.
Many of the problems were predicted in a report by the state department. It warned against allowing looting and disbanding the military. The Bush administration ignored it. The civilian administration in Iraq is being run by 20 year old kids who had applied to be interns at the Heritage Foundation.
Some of these criticisms even fall out of the president's scope at times such as: the flu vaccine shortage or the Abu Graive prision abuse.
Bush had Whitehouse lawyers write papers on how he could legally allow prisoners to be tortured.
The government of Iran just endorsed Bush, probably because he took care of their main enemy.
Bush is using 9/11 for his own political advantage, he acts like its the best thing that happend to him. It was an inteligence failure that happend on his watch. Roosevelt never used Perl Harber in his campaign for reelection, it was a failure. Roosevelt had investigations into Perl Harber, Bush tried repetedly to block the 9/11 commision. Now the Bush administration is preventing a CIA report on 9/11 from being released untill after the election.
Yesterday, walking home from the store, I noticed that my neighbor's political sign had been driven over. My neighbor is elderly, so I decided to fix the sign. What the sign said was irrelevant- I was irritated at the attempt to squash this man's first ammendment rights to his political free speech.
This was the type of sign that required a post to be pounded into the ground. The person that drove over it bent the small metal stake, so I returned shortly with some string and a large hammer to fix it. As I was finishing up this very quick work, a Toyota pickup stopped on the other side of the road. I thought it might be my neighbor asking what I was doing to his sign. The man very rudely and abruptly blurted out "what are you doing?". I explained that it appeared someone had run the sign over, and I was fixing it. He then told me it was in the "right of way" and said "take it down".
LOL
I did have a hard time containing myself. At this point he whips out his business card, showing he is a town official. He told me that "local zoning" prevents anything placed in the public right of way (you know, that twelve feet of grass that the town/state owns on the side of the road). I told him that he was messing with First Amendment rights here, that political free speech was expecially protected by our courts, and that if the local Selectmen wanted to take on the First Amendment, then God bless 'em. I also pointed out that there are about 1000 signs in this stuck-up little village I live in, that are all, without exception, in the so-called "right of way", that I was only standing up a broken sign, not erecting it, yet none of this mattered to the town official.
It became plain to him fairly quickly that I was telling him to go pound sand, so he left in a huff, headed straight for the town offices like a crying kid running to mama. I decided to phone the town manager.
The town manager explained that "complaints were coming in" and that some of these signs were not "acceptable". The town manager told me it was in fact a state law, not local zoning, that was in play here. I told him that the Constitution was a federal deal that trumps whatever attempt a state might make to squash free political speech, and that in any event, he was not applying the law equally, as it was ONLY ME and the sign I was fixing that was getting their attention.
This is not over. There will be a selectmens meeting "after the election", according to the town manager, where the issue of "unwanted" and "illegal" signs will be brought up. I plan to be there, and I plan to point out that these are temporary signs, not unlike real estate broker signs, "sandwichboard" signs that advertise town happenings of all types, yard sale signs, etc. etc. etc. that are all, pretty much without exception, in this so-called "right of way" grass on the side of the road.
This is not supposed to happen in New Hampshire, where we live by the motto "Live Free of Die". It's even on our license plates. Now, I do live in a snobbby, affluent town, and I can appreciate that they want the town to be as quaint and as attractive as possible, but this incident completely crosses the line. My nest has been stirred, and the town officials will probably live to regret it, as I am now VERY much going to be paying attention to a lot of what they do.