Bumper Stickers and the Raising of Rabid Dogs

A conservative friend of mine sent me an email full of typical anti-Obama bumper stickers today each more offensive than the last.  Ostensibly, these were supposed to make me laugh or serve to prod me as a 'silly liberal' in that condescending tone that conservatives find so amusing.  I don't know what the intention of sending them was.  Likely fun, and an innocent attempt at humor.

What's strange is the reaction these bumper stickers elicited in me and how viewing them made me appreciate how offensive Republicans must have found all the anti-Bush bumper stickers over the last decade.  I certainly am no Bush fan, but I never understood the compulsion to stick ‘Somewhere in Texas a village is missing its idiot’ on your bumper. I generally assume most people have heard the joke already if they are the types to find it funny and if they're not, the sticker is just going to be annoying at best and hurtful at worst.   These little nasty slights we sling at each other contribute the general growing level of mistrust and fractiousness that is shattering our ability to reach group consensus on anything.