I just found this this morning, en route to finding my old post, which I am simply reposting below. Note the date on this new tag.

This is the most recent outgrowth of the Powell Memo, a hardline ultra-conservative memo from which the bulk of what we call the Culture War has sprung.

The Right does have intentions to harm liberals.

It's inarguable. It is only a matter of time. If I and others are wrong about this then GOOD! But I think not.

Forces are in motion.

The sort of people who WOULD put something like this on their vehicle are the talk radio/freeper sorts and they are being driven into a hate-filled frenzy by talk radio, the Sean Hannity's, the O'Reillys, the Savages and other rightwing talk radio propagandists. Their job is to magnify and perpetuate the bitter divisions in America.

Part of it is clearly hate-mongering, the other part is what I will call the "massaging on self-righteousness", a huge part of what makes Bush supporters so impervious to reality. They are constantly being told that God favors them and the US, that "we" - meaning "muricans" are doing God's work (as if somehow puny little humans could actually do such work).

They are d-e-l-us-i-o-n-a-l.

Although ostensibly a "parody" the sticker is both referring to an official "license" as well as being designed to "look official", like a hunting or fishing license. The stab at authenticity magnifies the delusional quality.

That said, it is a bit too much of a leap to suggest that wingnuts who put this sticker on their vehicles (usually american-made fullsize trucks and SUV's) think it actually allows them to kill people.

But it is one more "brick in the wall, one more bit of delusion-reinforcing paraphernalia that says "gays, unions, democrats, hangun controllers, news media, and hollywod types are bad, are against "murica" and show, beyong any doubt they buy the "Powell memo and GOP/Corporate propaganda" (for it is all the same exact thing) hook, line, and sinker. The "May be used under the influence of alcohol" adds to the "targeting of a particular demographic" for the sales of such quaint little items.

I remember seeing a version of these deep in red-state Georgia...on a big ol' Ford pickup truck, dirty and beat-up, with a gun rack in it. I think this is called "an accurate stereotype". It is a stereotype but it has it's basis in reality. Not all people with such pickup trucks and gunracks are dangerous, mean-spirited folk - that's a nutty assertion, but there are a lot who are. I have met them, had bad interactions with them.

The scariest and most irresponsible part of this is the unrelenting intention and effort to equate "liberals" with "terrorists" and to, as the NAZI's did with the Jews" make this equation so unquestionable that people accept that killing them really is OK. The purpose of this - and most rightwing propaganda - is to "turn of" thinking and reasoning, to make it comfortable for people to simply accept such thinking, and for it to make them feel good about themselves.

Bush's speech at Fort Bragg was, in part, about this effect.

It is reassuring that it fell so flat, (in technical vernacular, it produced no "bounce") but we know there are still an unpleasant number of people fist-pumping and saying "hell yeah!" because they no longer question what they hear on the TV or from their precious talk radio.

For all the GOP blather about "the liberal media" it is they who have by far the lion's share of media access and control and this has been the case since at least Reagan's day. The basic game is to complain about "liberal bias" and use this as a way to elbow into more repetition of the same conservative message inherently found in said liberal media.

Just try telling that to people who still support Team Bush. They believe tv and bumperstickers over verifiable reality.

And that is what is so scary.