Red and blue should *not* be political!

[nancylebov]

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

Comments

[nancylebov]

I accidentally did make a button with "Police Lies Matter" and sent it to Richard. He wants the play on "Blue Lives Matter".

[metahacker]

RMS and I disagree on many things.

That being said, people coming up and randomly hating on the button because they think they know what it means seems a bit excessive.

[nancylebov]

I don't know that anyone was hating on the button. Perhaps the people who thought it was about Democrats were happy to see something they agreed with.

[redbird]

Were they "hating on" the button, or were they arguing with it? If I thought someone's button was arguing that lies by Democrats were criminal, and lies by Republicans were either okay or nonexistent, I might well start by asking the wearer why they thought lying was okay when their side did it. (At that, he's lucky if people aren't doing the sort of pattern-matching that overlooks typos, and either agreeing with or arguing with him on the believe that his button says "Blue liVes matter.")

I think this is a case of RMS being a little too fond of his clever idea/phrasing, at the expense of communication.