By Smaktakula

It’s a challenge to drive any distance these days without seeing the ubiquitous political bumper sticker, in which complex and deeply-nuanced issues are boiled down to a sloganized reduction so bereft of substance that it makes the average high-schooler’s Tweet seem Faulknerian by comparison.  From SMILE YOU WEREN’T ABORTED’s stealthy smugness to the charmingly pathetic earnestness of KERRY/EDWARDS 2004, political bumper stickers proclaim a myriad of simplistic political philosophies expressed in varying degrees of screechiness.

FREE TIBET saw its heyday as a cause célèbre in the heady days of the Post-Soviet 1990s, when anything seemed possible–even affecting global change through the power of an adhesive decal.  Even so, FREE TIBET still doggedly clamors for attention from the rear bumpers of those who refuse to forget.

But do they know what they remember?  After seeing a certain musician (whom we choose not to name, but who recently attempted a laughably anticlimactic run at the presidency of an impoverished, voodoo-loving, non-baseball playing nation in the Caribbean) fail spectacularly to comment coherently on the situation, we began to wonder how much Tibet’s defenders actually know about the tiny, oppressed nation.  So we devised a simple test.

Although Promethean Times lives and dies on Freedom of Expression, we believe also in the responsibility to voluntarily limit that freedom to those spheres of knowledge in which the speaker has at least a rudimentary grasp of the subject.  We do not question the right of any man, woman or child to speak out of his or her ass–Promethean Times is both a proponent of and adherent to the delicately-disciplined ballet that is ass-talking–but to trumpet one’s ignorance publicly from the back of a car is not only a blaring admission of that ignorance, but allows observers to match the stupid to a face.

Which is why Promethean Times endorses the Political Intelligence Standards Survey, a voluntary program whereby the owners of political bumper stickers would submit to a brief test of their knowledge on the subject about which they wish so stridently to opine.  Those freeway pundits able to pass the test would be able to tell the world not only that OBAMA IS A SOCIALIST!, but also to proudly proclaim that they have at least a half-formed idea of what a socialist is.

For the FREE TIBET crowd we recommend asking “On which continent will you find Tibet?”  In a perfect world the respondent would be able to name the country from which beleaguered Tibet seeks to gain its independence, but after much debate we decided that was probably asking for too much from today’s geographically-disinclined society.

The upshot is that the situation in Tibet is very serious, and threatens to spill over into neighboring Ivory Coast and Macedonia, with violence potentially spreading widely enough even to affect fake countries like Sri Lanka.  Until the Norwegian government sees fit to bring real freedom to the brave people of this tiny sub-Saharan nation, the Free World should never expect real peace in South America.

Given that the above is 100% true, we’re not exactly sure why our Irony Sense goes wild at the fact that until recently some FREE TIBET flags were made in China. ∞T.