Red and blue should *not* be political!
Feb. 23rd, 2017 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Richard Stallman ordered a button from me-- the top half had blue writing on white which said BLUE LIES MATTER*, the bottom half had black writing on yellow "Prosecute Perjury", and the whole thing had a red ring around the edge to make it more eye-catching.
What could possibly go wrong?
He wore it to Boskone, and several people saw it as being about lies from Democrats.
I considered redoing it with "Prosecute Police Perjury". However, most police lies aren't in court and therefore aren't committing perjury.
Please discuss this at DW/LJ, not on Facebook.
*read it carefully, there's a gotcha
What could possibly go wrong?
He wore it to Boskone, and several people saw it as being about lies from Democrats.
I considered redoing it with "Prosecute Police Perjury". However, most police lies aren't in court and therefore aren't committing perjury.
Please discuss this at DW/LJ, not on Facebook.
*read it carefully, there's a gotcha
no subject
Date: 2017-02-23 04:22 pm (UTC)I agree that lies by police matter. But any shirt that needs this much disambiguation is unlikely to help people understand that.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-23 05:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-02-23 06:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-02-23 05:15 pm (UTC)Can't help but worry it also is in the mix with blue=police/red=fire (another rivalry).
I've seen "Police Lies Matter" which is close enough in format.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-23 05:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-02-23 05:45 pm (UTC)That being said, people coming up and randomly hating on the button because they think they know what it means seems a bit excessive.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-23 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-02-23 08:31 pm (UTC)I think this is a case of RMS being a little too fond of his clever idea/phrasing, at the expense of communication.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-23 07:12 pm (UTC)1) Add some clipart of a police badge in between the two text lines.
2) Change the second line to read "Prosecute Police Brutality". Because as you say, most of these cases don't make it into court, so "perjury" isn't really applicable.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-23 09:18 pm (UTC)Police are allowed to lie to suspects about the amount of evidence they have and the consequences of pleading guilty. This is both legal and (as far as I can tell) generally socially accepted.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-23 11:12 pm (UTC)1. Avoid false confessions (and thus punishing the wrong people).
And
2. Avoid our defenders hurting people who aren't guilty of any crimes.
If the police lie to a suspect who then gives a true (and verifiable) confession, the confession is valid even if a lie was made to obtain it. OTOH, if the police lie to a suspect in a fashion that results in them confessing to a crime they're not guilty of because they're convinced the consequences of not doing so are worse, well, that's simply not ok.
Back to the slogan, how about:
Or better, have the divider be diagonal so it puns on the usual "no" symbol.
Unlike "blue=police"; "thin blue line" is universally known to be about the cops.
(ETA: Oh, interesting! ON preview, a table border=1 tag didn't do anything, but on save it did. Styles always work, though.)
no subject
Date: 2017-02-24 12:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-02-23 08:16 pm (UTC)http://openmov.museumofvancouver.ca/object/h20024935/%5Bfield_acquisition_object_name-raw%5D
This has been an ongoing theme/joke/morale booster in Canadian progression politics: you could get a button with "_______" against Vander Zalm, then Harris, then Harper.
That's the only pic I can find offhand; they were/are ephemera.
The fun was in being ludicrously specific: I had Bisexual Carpenters against Harris and a friend had Vegetarian Lefthanded Goths against Harris.
There was never any one owner of the idea; if you could make buttons, you could make these buttons.
I pass the idea on for what it's worth.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-24 06:10 am (UTC)See http://openmov.museumofvancouver.ca/object/h20024935/%5Bfield_acquisition_object_name-raw%5D
The period shown for this artifact, "c. 1886-1991", was quite baffling till I realized that it should be 1986, not 1886:
H2002.49.35 - Actors Against Vander Zalm Button c. 1886-1991
no subject
Date: 2017-02-23 08:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-02-23 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-02-24 12:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-02-24 05:35 am (UTC)Massachusetts has been blue a very, very, very long time.
The fact that this present color coding, which was an artifact of happenstance when the names got stuck after years of the colors being flipped every election, assigned blue to my side, again, amuses this bluestocking no end.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-25 02:31 pm (UTC)I'd suggest "prosecute police lies", but then you'd have "lies" repeated, which is inelegant.