John McCain and his love for the government nanny state has struck once again. Now because Mr. McCain and many other politicians are not capable of exhibiting self control your bumper sticker might land you a letter of admonishment or worse from Big Daddy government. Why are you laughing? Oh ye of little faith in our power hungry bureaucrats! Do you not know the lengths to which our politicians will go to shred the Constitution and our basic rights as Americans?
Kirk Shelmerdine, formerly one of NASCAR's greatest crew chiefs and since turned struggling driver, has already been attacked by government bureaucrats empowered by Mr. McCain. You see, Mr. Shelmerdine is not exactly a driver who has sponsors falling over themselves to plaster their brand name on his racecar. He is perpetually at the back of the pack in any race he manages to qualify for and about the only time the cameras or the crowd even look at him is when he is getting lapped by the race leader.
Overall he is not what we would call a "good investment" if you know what I mean.
So during the 2004 race season and during the last Presidential election he decided to slap a Bush/Cheney 2004 bumper sticker on his race car to fill up some of the empty space. Well that was simply too much for one Sydnor Thompson! Comrade Thompson, as he shall now be known, simply could not deal with someone else practicing their free speech. So he filed a complaint which basically boiled down to how dare Mr. Shelmerdine be allowed to do use the first amendment.
The FEC graciously spared Mr. Shelmerdine a fine. But they did admonish him. How nice. Maybe our government masters can be even more gracious and let him have an extra log for the fire too?
Where do we go from here? Companies pay thousands of dollars for billboards and other outdoor advertising after all. So your back bumper must have some value and it just might exceed an arbitrary limit and trigger a violation of campaign finance laws.
The answer is as obvious as ugly is on Helen Thomas. We need a new government bureaucracy! We'll call it the Bureau for the Establishment of Noticing Deficiency with Obedience to Vehicle Election Regulations or BEND OVER for short.
BEND OVER will set up government stations where you will be required to report to each month during a presidential campaign. To keep costs down however we will only have one per state. You'll just have to deal with driving several hours to get to your state's facility.
Once there and after inching your way up through the line a government bureaucrat not even capable of asking "would like fries with that" and holding down a real job will inspect your vehicle. He or she (or possibly it?) will take a mandatory two hours to check every inch of your vehicle with a high powered magnifying glass for political advertisements and endorsements. Luckily these only cost the taxpayers $500,000 each due to a bulk discount.
If your car is deemed not have such things you will be free to go; after paying a $500 inspection fee of course. However if you do have a bumper sticker or other form of political endorsement anywhere on your vehicle it will be duly noted in triplicate. At this point its exact size will be measured by three other government bureaucrats.
They will then retire into committee to discuss the exact size of said political advertisement while consulting thousands of pages of guidelines. Some of the regulations will obviously contradict each other so only those regulations that will maximize your potential violations will be used while all others are discarded.
If these bureaucrats are unable to agree upon the actual size, your vehicle will be impounded for up to six months while lesser qualified but higher ranking bureaucrats are consulted. Where do you think you are going? You will not be allowed to leave the facility. Instead you will be placed under arrest for the potential violation of campaign finance laws. At the end of those six months if there is still no agreement your car may be impounded for another six months repeating this cycle until consensus is achieved.
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