I have never understood the Hummer. To me it's too big and really unattractive.

With that said, I wouldn't be offended. I would consider the source. The person who would make a statement like that is not someone whose opinion I would respect.

I drive a Japanese made car now and before that I only owned German made cars. I liked the looks better than any American car.

On the back window at eye level was a sticker with an American flag on it. Next to the flag, in big bold letters it read,

"Please do not put MY flag on your foreign car".

"His" flag is apparently already stuck to the back of his Hummer. Unless someone runs up real quick and peels it off and sticks it on their foreign car, he doesn't have a problem. The likelihood of that happening is pretty slim. He seems to be worrying about something that will never -- or can't -- happen any way. Or, there's the alternative that it's just a really stupid sticker.

:~D

If I knew where they lived I'd probably go out and buy a japanese stick on flag and cover the bumper sticker late at night just for grins and giggles, but would I be offended? No because some idiot driving a hummer is probably already offensive to me on many levels anyhoo (ever met a driver of a hummer you didn't think was an idiot????? I haven't).

My favorite hummer driver is a physician (plastic surgeon) who drank too much at a wine dinner at the petroleum club (named because it's a private club for umm petroleum related cmpanies). So sparky gets toasted and starts discussing his hatred of the evil oil industry and all the money they make. We drove home in our fuel efficient saab while he drove the gas guzzling hummer whining about the cost of fuel....

Thanks for the smiles. I appreciate it. I needed to find a different way to look at it and this helped. --Lukki

My very favorite "Hummer friend" is a physician who does NOT drink and is a wonderful father and husband to my very good friend. I have taken a few rides in it, and they are fun to ride in! I personally don't want one, but, personally I don't like red hair either, doesn't mean I don't dislike everyone with red hair.

I have nothing against foreign cars either, I've had a few. Talk about stereotyping!!

I meant to say "Hummer driver", although they are my friends, too.

It can be offensive on several levels, particularly since it's difficult to say these days what is or isn't a "foreign" car. So many of the foreign-owned companies make cars here, and employ U.S. workers, that the unemployment rate would be even more astronomical if everyone subscribed to the Hummer owner's attitude.

Actually I don't find it offensive at all. I see it as a oh boy does that person need to learn a thing or two about the parts that is used in his hummer (or other vehicle for that matter).

My favorite hummer driver is a co-worker who we were all surprised when he got one as he doesn't fit the profile, but we still like him anyways ;). We did give him lots of s**t when he first got it though.

I would chalk it up to a moron driving a Hummer. There are plenty of rednecks on the road, and I'd consider this person to just be another in their ranks.

Yesterday I passed a truck on the highway with the following bumper stickers:

- A confederate flag
- "Yes We Can . . . Secede"
- "Texas Independence"

There is no escaping idiots and their opinions.

I would find it both funny and scary that a person would think like that.

Would it not be irony if his bumper sticker was printed in China like so many are?

I'm guessing he only put it on to cover the former "I'm a Dumba$$ Redneck" bumper sticker --
not realizing they actually said the same thing...

I wouldn't be offended, but that's mostly because I don't think much about bumper stickers. The ones that I wish people wouldn't put up are the ones with questionable language or sexual topics. I mean, I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said, "touch your boobies." And breast cancer awareness is important, but all I could think was how much I would have wanted to kill my younger brothers, had they noticed such a bumper sticker when I was 13. Your pre-teen boy is not exactly the soul of restraint when the universe presents him with an opening like that.

"Would it not be irony if his bumper sticker was printed in China like so many are?"

And the gas in his car was made from oil that come from the Middle East?

I see bumper stickers like this as very useful for the rest of us folks. It helps us identify people like the driver of that Hummer.

It's a clear sign of ignorance and xenophobia. Yeah, it's offensive but whacha gonna do? I'm amazed at the number of people who still think that American branded cars are 100% American and that foreign branded cars are 100% foreign. And yes, "gas guzzling hummer", that's just what I was going to say... what gasoline is he putting in that vehicle that is 100% American? That product does not exist.

I agree with all the remarks above, esp. the ones stating how many foreign parts are in all makes and models of cars. Does this guy (was it a guy, or are we all assuming this because of the macho bumper sticker?) know that GM sold the Hummer brand to Sichuan Tengzhouyf of China last October? The irony continues...

Back when I lived in an apartment complex there was a guy that had a hummer and he would park it sideways, taking up two full parking spots right next to our building, even though he lived in another building further down- it was so annoying, so one night my friend and I parked our cars the correct way on either side of him just for fun. I wish I could have seen the look on his face when he discovered his precious vehicle completely blocked in.

Parking like a [penis] is a sure-fire way to find the holy you-know-what keyed out of your vehicle's paint job. Not that I would ever do such a thing, mind you, but there are people out there who would have no qualms about it. I just can't understand why anyone would risk something that they're obviously trying to protect by p*ssing off everyone around them! Stupidity is an incredible thing ...

No matter WHAT flag it's attached to, mindless jingoism is highly offensive to me. Someone who was once dear to me went into a branch of the military which shall remain nameless a fairly sane young man with no overt hatreds toward anyone. He returned a jingoistic bigoted little moron whose whole attitude toward the outer world disgusts me. It's like they took out his brain and replaced it with "apple pie, guns, and the American flag". He once called me, to my face, a "Commie c***" and told me to get the hell out of "HIS country", I "wasn't good enough to live in the best country in the world", since I had the brass-plated b@lls to say that this country does have some major problems like poverty and illiteracy and some other stuff that would turn this into a Hot Topics type thread, and that it saddened me that we don't do more about it. (DH and I almost did emigrate - he was offered a job in Australia and if it hadn't been for my mother we'd have gone. Of course Oz has problems of its own, what country doesn't?)

Oh, and THIS redneck drives a Subaru. Made in Indiana, by American employees, from parts made all over the world. Same plant makes Toyota Camrys through a an arrangement with Toyota, and in the past has also made Isuzus and Hondas.

Well said, Mari. I cannot abide the mindset you described in your first paragraph. The whole "America, love it or leave it!" mentality is borne of ignorance, intolerance and an unwillingness to be open to alternate points of view. It is the antithesis of the very ideals this country was founded upon, and it sickens me.

Oh, and THIS redneck... Disparaging? Offensive?

The whole "America, love it or leave it!" mentality is borne of ignorance, intolerance and an unwillingness to be open to alternate points of view.

Jen, while I'd love to agree with you, sometimes I feel many of us take for granted the life we're able to live in this country. When you talk to some of the men & women who served our country in various wars through the decades it's a little easier to understand where that anger is coming from. Some of it's pure stupidity, but for others it's born of life experiences that we can't begin to imagine.

Perhaps. I realize (too late) that my statements veer into the dangerous "Hot Topics" territory, so I will refrain from making further comment.
:-)

Well thanks for "Getting it" folks. I really appreciate it. At the time I wrote the post and was talking about his or her disregard for our servicemen / women, I was thinking directly about Lynn's son and remembering the sad post she wrote about how she missed him. I remembered a story I read at the post office a few days ago about a fallen soldier from our area and flash backs from my own childhood as my father was away for months at a time fighting in Vietnam. I normally don't read stickers, but it's hard not to when it's stuck in your face the way that one was which is why I even mentioned the hummer. I loved some of the responses, the sticker made in China, how the hummer is now basically "foreign". If I ever see that sticker or car again, I just might leave a note on it's windshield to let them know...would sure love to see the look on their face then!

I do find that bumpersticker obnoxious.But I can understand the fear and vulnerablity that perhaps was behind it.

No one can deny that many American jobs have been outsourced to countries where the labor is available for so much cheaper than what is needed to maintain a reasonable standard of living here. I hear some econmists say that many of the jobs that have been lost in the past few years are not coming back. We have not only oursourced manufacturing at this point, but we are now outsourcing middle management as well, and starting to outsource professional services including accounting, legal, and medical services.

How can an economy survive if we only consume, and not produce anything? How long can it maintain a trade deficit of the magnitude that we have?

I do try to buy American products if I can find them. I do it not out of blind nationalism, but out of fear of what our children's future is going to be in an America that doesn't produce much of anything, and can no longer afford to borrow to pay for what it needs.

I do find that bumpersticker obnoxious.But I can understand the fear and vulnerablity that perhaps was behind it.
I do agree with that and dh has seen it first hand effecting people he "did" work with as a part of his company was moved to Mexico.

Auntjen,

I haven't responded to this thread for a reason. I respect the company I keep. However if we were to meet on other grounds, we might have lots in common.

That said, I own a manufacturing business. I do think we should level the playing field. Outsourcing work is cheaper than hiring workers in the USA. I know because we directly compete with other countries.

USA should eliminate the tax write offs, at least. We have lost business because of the perks (tax wise) of outsourcing. On the plus side, we are lean and mean. And not overly in debt.

I don't think people are objecting to the idea of making it economically favorable to move manufacturing and other jobs back to the US. I think people are objecting to the idea that if you drive a Honda (which IS manufactured here in the US), you are not worthy of being American.

Natal,

I find it very interesting that you call ME out for use of a word in reference to MYSELF instead of one of the several other people in this thread who have used the same word to describe other people in a more negative fashion. Yes, I do call myself a redneck, in the same sense as comedian Jeff Foxworthy's "You Might Be A Redneck If..." (which fits most of my family to a T, and me too, to a level that many of you would find rather surprising). There's a great deal of his material on YouTube too, just put "Foxworthy" in the search box. For many years I was very ashamed of my background and lower-class family - who do quite gleefully refer to themselves as "rednecks" - until I decided to accept them and join others in reclaiming the word with humor and affection. (Contrary to popular belief, rednecks are not confined to the Southern US.) Many ethnic groups are now using normally-pejorative slurs as humorous in-group terms - see Carlos Mencia's use of the word "beaner" to refer to his Mexican heritage, but a non-Mexican person calling a Mexican a "beaner" would be considered very insulting. That's the point of in-group slang.

Several times now you have interpreted tongue-in-cheek comments of mine as being serious ones (and often being rather snotty to me in the process). I shouldn't have to put smileys on everything I say, so perhaps you should just skip my posts.

JM, I give you more credit than that. I'll just chalk this up to you having a bad day.

Actually, I WAS having a pretty good day... Note past tense. Yeesh.

johnmari, cheer up-your post did make me laugh when I read the part about the name (c-word) that your former friend called you combined with his (I presume) objection to your brass-plated...He's a little mixed up, isn't he-can't be both!!! Teehee. Should I add a smiley?

I didn't mean I was amused by what you were called, JM, just by the juxtaposition of the two terms which seemed to confirm the stupidity of the xenophobic bigot. Worried I was not clear.

About the parts in cars thing. My Ford Fiesta- 1978 Orange with black and orange checkered interior- turned out to be one that was actually made in Germany. And our Ford Ranger engine was acually a Mazda engine.

Kinda OT but my dh just got a letter from Jeep. They thanked him for being a jeep loyal customer and to thank him they sent him a bumper sticker that reads "I live, I ride, I am, Jeep". They sure spent a lot of money to send out a bumper sticker. Funny thing is that jeep owners don't need to put that kind of sticker on their jeep. Jeep owners don't need to advertise who they are. They know who they are and why. That is why they do put on stickers and such that say "It's a jeep thing, you wouldn't understand". Wish they had sent that one instead. Think we will cut off the I live, I ride and just put the "I am, Jeep" in our scrapbook.

Not wanting to cause any issues but my dad is a pretty basic kind of guy. A little unsavvy maybe. My bro has become so snobby. He will riducule my dad to his friends right in front of my dad. And what he says behind my dad's back is a whole other story. What is funny is that no matter how materialistic and snobby my bro is, he is his father's son and there was a time when he was proud to be. Sad that he lost it. Sweet that my dad is his funny, unsavvy self. I wouldn't have it any other way.

cyn427, "brass-plated b@lls" is slang up here (northern New England) for nerve or chutzpah no matter what one's gender is. I didn't even realize the juxtaposition until you pointed it out. :-)