A few homemade billboard signs in Hanson, Mass., have generated considerable controversy for their inflammatory anti-Obama messages.

Sitting on the property of motorcycle accessories distributor Sullivans Inc., one large sign shows President Barack Obama with a caption that reads: “Somewhere in Kenya, a village is missing its idiot.”

“Obama One Big Ass Mistake America, Vote Mitt Romney for 2012!” it reads below the main headline. The communist symbolic images of the hammer and sickle are on the president’s shirt collar.

Several feet away, another sign shows a pouting young girl giving the middle-finger to the president. “Thanks, Obama,” begins the caption in bold red letters, and then continues in child-like penmanship: “You’ve spent my lunch money, my allowance, my inheritance, 35 years of future paychecks and my retirement. You jerk.”

One young father told the Patriot-Ledger that he frequently drives by the signs, and has to shield his 6-year-old daughter from seeing the image of another little girl flipping the bird. “If she saw that, she’d say ‘Why is that little girl doing that? What does that mean?’” he said. “How do I explain that?” Several stickers have been placed over the girl’s middle finger as an attempt to quell the offensiveness of the image.

Hanson is a small town of about 10,000 located in Plymouth County, roughly 18 miles southeast of Boston. The area is largely Democratic, but many have supported the signs’ existence, citing free speech. “People are sensitive nowadays anyway,” said one local retired Navy vet. “Those days are past, so I’m not too worried about it.”

Others say the signs go too far. “That type of statement is real real redneck,” one resident said. “It’s regressive and not progressive.”

Local bureaucrats have tried to get the signs down, claiming business owner Robert Sullivan did not get the necessary permit to place them. The local zoning official said: “It is a sign that … is in violation of general bylaws. It also doesn’t meet any of the zoning bylaw criteria for the signs to exist as they are.”

Hanson police have reportedly received dozens of calls in recent weeks from people complaining mostly about the content of the signs, but some believe they pose a dangerous distraction for traffic.

[h/t Patriot-Ledger]

[Photo credit: Marc Vasconcellos/The Enterprise]

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