Tag Archives: advertising

Call to Outlaw Porn Billboards (Reason I’m Not A Libertarian #738)

My wife and I were married at a beautiful bed and breakfast in the small and historic town of Micanopy, Florida, just a few miles south of Gainesville, where we met. Micanopy is a charming little town, the sort where you stop in to go antiquing on Saturdays, or where you might brunch before a little visit to Payne’s Prairie.

Alas that no one in Florida knows that Micanopy. Because what Micanopy really is is Cafe Risque. Like a pornographic South of the Border, I-75 for miles in either direction as one approaches Micanopy is dotted with billboards letting truckers and general citizens know that a world of greasy and tawdry delights awaits them at exit 374.

This is not Cafe Risque. This is where we were married…the Herlong Mansion. Are you being serious right now? “Herlong”? As in “I gave herlong pleasure”? Yes.

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Of the several grocery chains in our area, Bi-Lo is the shadiest, and you can see it in the check-out aisles. Few grocery stores in the area exercise what I think would be the common courtesy of covering up the Cosmo magazines at the check-out (it always seems like Cosmo is the worst), but Bi-Lo is the worst about shoving them right in your face.

The thought that my nine-year-old daughter might be consistently exposed to the sort of misogyny embodied in desperate headlines like “25 Orgasm Tricks That Couples Love” displeases me. I would love to see more grocery store chains adopt policies of covering up those magazines. Ideally, of course, they wouldn’t sell that type of sad pornography for women, but I realize that’s asking the moon.

It would only take enacting a policy. Whatever private company decided to be consistent about such a policy would likely become my new favorite grocery store.

And certainly no one would argue with a private business’ right to choose such a policy.

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I detest federal centralization. I’m all about local representation and a small federal government. I mean, come one, I’m Presbyterian. Even my church polity is about decentralization. The South was right on constitutional grounds…it was a War of Northern Aggression. Lincoln was The Great Centralizer, our Constitution is broken, and now the country’s poorer for it.

Have I established my rabid and crazed anti-federal and anti-centralization radical bona fides? I hope so, because I’m about to get all anti-libertarian on you.

I want city and county governments to make pornographic billboards illegal. GASP! Surely you don’t mean that! Those billboards are on private property!

How wonderful to live in a society with a (at least somewhat) representational government. And that government does not solely exist to keep people off each other and allow them go about their private business. A libertarian thinks that building codes are ridiculous; I think that federal building codes are ridiculous. It’s quite wise of a city or county to make sure no one comes in and starts building and selling really crappy houses to their people. At which point some libertarians say caveat emptor and I ask them to go read Rand by themselves in their selfish little corners.

I am not a libertarian because of Cafe Risque. Or, more appropriately for me now, because of Bedtyme Stories near Blacksburg, SC.

Cafe Risque is actually outside the city limits of Micanopy, which is why it can do what it does. Still, I would love to see the county take care of the problem (yes, I know it won’t because of moneymoneymoney).

The goal of our Constitution was to have minimal federal government.Nothing wrong with a more robust and virile government at town, county, and state levels. In fact, I think that would help in dealing with the federal government. Does this mean that I long for a piling on upon a piling on of laws? No. But I would like Christians to consider being less resentful of the only governments God has put over them that are immediately representational: local government. Of course, most never vote in local elections because they’re busy talking about the evils of Democrats and the Fed.

We have to many laws and too many codes at every level of government. That doesn’t mean we reject all government. The solution is not some principle that rejects the whole package. The solution is the hard work of doing it right. The State exists and is (“Alas”, we think to ourselves) ordained by God. If we have anything to say about the State, it is that it must not be the Leviathan it wishes to be, but that it has a place on the earth. We musn’t abstract government into some sub-category of a sacred meta-concept like Private Property or The Right to Trade.

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Am I suggesting that we legislate morality?

Of course. Is there something else a law is?

“Like Tanqueray,” He Said Firmly But Kindly

Today I “liked” Tanqueray on Facebook. Do you know why? Because Tanqueray told me to.

Look at this ad, just brimming with confidence. No spiel, no trickery, no desperation. Just the command, “Like Tanqueray”.

If there’s one way to manipulate me through marketing, it’s by exuding manly confidence. Sadly for Tanqueray, I will only be admiring their mojo abstractly. I remain a Bombay Sapphire man.

To The Sound of The (Guns) (Trouble) (Purple Penguins)

The United States Marines have launched a new recruiting/ad campaign, not as a replacement of their excellent and long-running “The Few. The Proud. The Marines”, but as a part of it.

The commercials are visually very stirring. Marines running toward a smoking town in full battle rattle as gunfire sounds nearby; assault helicopters banking in low; landing craft hitting the beach as the doors open and the Marines pour out; trucks and aircraft delivering humanitarian aid as they run a gauntlet of gunfire and dramatic music.

The Marines always have more martial recruiting campaigns. They don’t do the whole “learn seventeen job skills while you’re in the army” thing. They’re after dudes who want to be hard. Dudes who want to be issued a saber. So what’s the slogan for such a bad-ass series of commercials?

It’s Run to the sound of the guns. Practically a Marine Corps credo, as this search will reveal. That’s what Marines are there for. They exist to do battle. To close with the enemy. To finish the fight. Run to the sound of the guns. Sweet.

Actually…maybe that’s a little too aggressive. The Navy is now A global force for good. There were all those shots of humanitarian aid boxes in the commercials. And truth be told, the Marines are often involved in emergency humanitarian relief work for the same reasons they’re often first to the fight: they get there first. So maybe soften it up a little.

The slogan is really Run to the sound of trouble. Still conveys that close-with-the-enemy ethos, but also suggests that the Marines are willing to be not only a global force for good, but a global force for good on a white horse. Much better.

But the truth is…that’s not the slogan either. Actually, the slogan’s got a touch Generation Kill. It’s kind of video gamey…at best. At worst it’s a mess. The Marines, ladies and gentlemen, will henceforth be the first to Run to the sound of chaos.

"Run to the sound of chaos." That's not even a real thing.

Run to the sound of chaos.

“Sorry guys, it’s just such a mess here. We’re going to clean things up a bit, okay?”

I’m a big fan of the Marines. One of the reasons I’m a big fan is that they, out of all the American branches of service, seem to best resist the impersonal and bureaucratic impulses of our society. They’re the last to toe the line on this or that issue of political correctness. They’re saltier and more old school than the other branches. And they’re more personal.

It’s imprinted all over their ethos. Every Marine’s a rifleman first. The Marines never leave a man behind. Marine Corps tactical doctrine emphasizes that lives are often saved by closing with the enemy immediately, instead of standing back and pounding at him with the big guns.

That’s why this “run to the sound of chaos” thing bothers me. It’s such a bureaucratic slogan. “Listen, people whose country we’ve just placed highly trained infantrymen into, everything’s going to be fine. We’re not here to do any killing. Or at least, we’d rather avoid it. You see, we’re here to clean up the mess that’s been made. This is nothing personal. We’re not saying you made the mess. Just saying that it is a mess. And we’re Marines. We run to the mess. We’rethe global force for tidying up chaos.”

Pussyfooting is a sign of danger. It’s a sign of manipulation. It’s a sign of agenda. It’s a sign of empire. Let’s just say the Marines are a bad-ass war machine and leave it at that. I think we’d all feel much better about it. Well, all except the bureaucrats.