Subarus do have a reputation as a "lesbian" car. That reputation was crystallized by their infamous ad campaign from a few years ago (1998-99 time frame, if I recall) featuring pea-brained America-hater Martina Navratilova and a couple of other mannish-looking female professional athletes. I guess the plan was to market the brand as female-friendly, but ended up branding the brand as female-"too friendly," if you get my drift.

So here's the math:
Subaru = Lesbian car
Lesbian driver = Grampa-style driver
(I don't know why, but all the lesbians I know do drive like a Pennsylvania Grampa behind the wheel of his 10 year old Buick)
Thus ...
Subaru = Lesbian driving like Grampa in his 1988 Buick

Thanks, I didn't know about that.

I suspect that lesbian Subaru drivers for Bush might face more intolerance than heterosexual Mercedes drivers for Kerry.

"Surely, there must be Subarus for Bush!"

Yes, they are called Humvees. :)

"Surely, there must be Subarus for Bush!"

Yes, they are called Humvees. :)

FWIW, Subaru has been noted as being one of the first companies to actively target gays. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal in the early- to mid-1990s, if I remember correctly, that outlined their marketing strategy. From what I've seen, they have been handsomely rewarded.

One thing's for sure: Kerry should stay out of the joke business -- the Republicans pretty much have a lock on it. I mean, how will we ever top such prizes as "compassionate conservative," or "a uniter not a divider," or "major combat operations are over," or "heckuva job, Brownie," or my personal favorite, "we do not torture?"

(Of course, any of those lines would have been even funnier if Bush left his tongue sticking out of his mouth at the end of each one -- but he doesn't do that anymore.)

"Pea-brained America-hater Martina Navratilova and a couple of other mannish-looking female professional athletes?" What the hell are you talking about? Those athletes looked pretty feminine to me -- more so than Ann Coulter, not that that's saying a lot.

And since when was Navratilova an "America-hater?"

And you wonder why "conservatives" get ostracized by their friends...

From the Wikipedia entry on Martina:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martina_Navratilova

"perhaps her most consistent theme-aside from promoting the views of the gay and lesbian community-has been her unstinting opposition to Communism, and unrepentant opposition to the former Eastern Bloc power structure that she believes compelled her to flee her native Czechoslovakia."

Doesn't look anti-American to me, but I hadn't given it a thought until today.

Bee, I don't claim to be a conservative, and I had to hold my nose to vote for Bush. The statement that "you wonder why "conservatives" get ostracized by their friends?" makes no sense unless you believe that opinions are held collectively -- even by people who don't agree with them. It's about like saying that anyone who preferred Bush to Kerry not only likes everything about Bush, but also agrees with every far right member of the Republican Party.

I said that the personal vitriol (against conservatives and those accused of conservatism) I've seen on the left far exceeds anything I've seen on the right. I've spent a lot of time with people who disagree with me, and in general, conservatives are more polite -- and far less personal -- about it.

Admittedly, my libertarianish views are more compatible with conservatism than with modern liberalism, but I've seen that people on the left are more likely to see disagreements as personal attacks, while those on the right tend to see them as evidence that those who disagree are wrong and need convincing. Even the evangelists, while they might think my soul needs praying for, they haven't shouted me down. I realize your personal experience is different, but all I can do is discuss my own.

Around here in the Northwest, Subarus abound (I hear we have the largest Subaru sales of any region in the country. Given the all-wheel-drive and our tendency for lots of rain but little snow, down in the urban areas with lots of people, I suppose that's plausible).

Thus I don't especially associate them with completely stupid driving, as people might in areas where they're not so astoundingly common. (I do, however, associate Volvos with bad driving, unless they're old ones like 122s or P1800s.)

And the proper response to the WRX people complaining about people knocking Subaru is that the WRX (and especially the STi) is very much the exception to the Subaru product line and market.

But it's not like they're actually slow cars, in any case. To paraphrase what we say in the programming world, "error between seat and wheel".

Eric: how can you call yourself "libertarian" or even "libertarianish" when you admit voting for a President, and a party, that shamelessly supports such clearly un-libertarian actions as:

Ignoring the Geneva conventions on the treatment of POWs;

Invading a country that had done us no direct harm and posed no immediate threat;

Overextending our military in said war to the point where we can't deal with REAL WMD threats like Iran and North Korea, neither of whom now take us seriously;

Running up enormous deficits and national debt, to the point where China now controls a significant portion of our debt;

Offering multi-billion-dollar no-bid contracts to their friends at Halliburton without even pretending to invite competition;

Enforcing religious doctrines in public schools, sometimes disguised as science;

Denying birth-control to ADULT women in refugee camps;

Enforcing inadequate or dishonest sex-ed policies in public schools and school systems receiving Federal money;

Using ever-more-draconian tactics to enforce ever-more-tyrannical laws against old, sick, terminally-ill people who smoke pot to reduce pain and nausea;

Openly pandering to a faux-Christian right who blame gays for just about every evil known to Man, want to deny gays the most basic liberties, and, while they're at it, want to replace our republic with a theocracy;

Passing and signing a law giving the President the right to abrogate the Constitutional rights of US citizens, based solely on his word that said citizens might be terrorists;

Refusing to allow a pentacle to be inscribed on a Pagan soldier's plaque at Arlington Cemetary;

Interfering with the work and publications of NASA scientists working on global climate issues;

Trying to ban abortion one state at a time;

Interfering in the personal medical end-of-life decisions of private citizens, based on lies and outright slander knowingly spread by their own elected officials...

There's more examples that I don't remember offhand, but I'm sure you get my point. What about any of these policies can be called "libertarian" by any stretch of anyone's imagination?

You "libertarians" have been clinging to the Republicans since 1980, pathologically terrified of "liberals," whom some of you can't seem to distinguish from Stalin; and all you've accomplished for your cause is to make yourselves into ideological crack-whores and bum-boys for the Republicans' use and enjoyment. Haven't you bent over for them enough? They didn't respect you in any morning in the past, and they won't respect you tomorrow morning either.

Alone among ideologues in the US, Libertarians have shown amazing ability to reason, question, and see past the sloganeering BS and hysteria of both parties. This is what makes their chronic crack-whoredom so much more disappointing. Communists have always been idiots; we expected a LOT more from libertarians.

lol "Subaru eliminationist rhetoric" nice

Bee. And vote for a party that does just as many or more anti-libertarian things?

Or, vote for someone who won't win.

Those are your choices as a libertarian. The solution? Do what conservatives did starting 40 years ago.

You're foolish to think that Libertarians are the 'bum-boys' of the Republicans. Mostly, they are just waiting for their chance to replace the dems as the other party.

One step at a time.

Bee, if I held my nose and voted Democrat, someone could just as easily provide a laundry list of un-libertarian characteristics of Democrats. So what? The main reason I became sick of the Democratic Party is that I grew tired of relentless socialism, identity politics, and multiculturalism, and while the Republicans aren't much better, I see no change in the Democrats.

Even though they don't consider me one of their own, I find it easier to disagree with conservatives. In general, they don't take opinions as personally.

R. Bee

Your litany of Rethug evils starts with two falsehoods.

And any reasonable person is to take you seriously after that?

This is why I won't vote Dem and put a foolish female like Nancy Pelosi in the Speaker's seat.

Y'all are unserious and, at this point, dangerous to the health of the United States.

If you like European values...MOVE TO EUROPE.

Hey, I like Subarus... and I'm an independent who voted for Bush. But I don't own a Subaru. I was thinking I would buy one after I moved out one of the mountain states. But I went off-road with some Michael Moore-loving liberals one time shortly after moving here, and we got to a rock we couldn't get over and got stuck, while all the other folks in our group were able to keep on going towards the trailhead. So when I decided to buy a vehicle with 4WD, I started by looking mainly at makes other than Subarus. I ended up getting a Toyota SUV. I heard last night that more Republicans drive Toyotas. Go figure.

Very interesting articles...not a big fan of Subarus. But then again - not a big fan of Bush..never really put those two together though!

Yes, Subarus do have that Lesbarus reputation and with some good reason. But darn it, I may have to get both a sex change and a sexual orientation change, then! They make an enormous amount of sense for winter driving around here--all wheel drive without massive amounts of weight or the high center of gravity of most SUVs.

Sigivald writes:

You "libertarians" have been clinging to the Republicans since 1980, pathologically terrified of "liberals," whom some of you can't seem to distinguish from Stalin;

Perhaps because so much of the hard left end of the Democratic Party can't seem to distinguish itself from Stalin, and much of the rest demonstrates that it differs from social conservatives only in what it disapproves of--not in the methods it will use.

Once upon a time, there were laws telling homosexuals that they couldn't have sex--because that was immoral and corrosive to the society. Liberals say that's wrong. Instead, they have laws prohibiting businesses from refusing to print gay wedding announcements (as happened in Seattle), because discrimination is immoral corrosive to the society.

Libertarians that cling to the Republican Party do so because the social conservatives, for the most part, don't control the courts, and thus aren't much of a threat. Liberals control the courts (Romer v. Evans, Lawrence v. Texas, Free Speech Coalition v. Ashcroft), and their antilibertarian tendencies are therefore a lot more dangerous.

CC, thanks for coming. The new comment template feature is a bit confusing, and it might have looked as if Bee's comment came from Sigivald, but the name is at the bottom.

Regarding the assertion that homosexual sex was "immoral and corrosive to the society," was that referring to private sex acts? Because most of the social conservatives these days are a lot more worried about what goes on in public, and I think most would be a lot more worried about homosexuals holding hands in public than screwing in private. (While "sodomy" laws prohibited the latter and not the former, they also failed to prohibit numerous sex acts common between homosexuals, while prohibited many acts common between heterosexuals. So even if the purpose was to stop things that were deemed "immoral and corrosive," I think there are problems with overinclusiveness and underinclusiveness. And of course I don't think government should police consensual sex acts of adults.)

As to the Subarus, I didn't mean to attack the cars, only the stereotype. The last time I was held up by a slow Subaru, it occurred to me that my car (a 1995 Toyota Tercel) probably had a smaller engine, and that if I were driving the Subaru I'd probably have no problem keeping up with traffic. Subarus certainly seem to have a long life and do well in cold climates. I'm almost tempted to buy one and drive it as a parody of some sort, but I'm afraid I'm getting too old for that sort of thing.

And vote for a party that does just as many or more anti-libertarian things?

"Just as many or more" my ass. When did the Democrats invade Iraq, openly pander to (sometimes violent) anti-gay bigotry, lie about women's health issues, deny contraception to adults, force phony sex-ed and phony science on public schools, or dumb down national-security debates to "you're either with us or with the terrorists?"

You're foolish to think that Libertarians are the 'bum-boys' of the Republicans. Mostly, they are just waiting for their chance to replace the dems as the other party.

And waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and looking no more credible or relevant than they did in 1980.

The only time libertarians sound at all sensible on any specific serious issue is when they're attacking the War on Drugs, and even that is mitigated by their support for the party that gave us that War and made it so deranged.

Perhaps because so much of the hard left end of the Democratic Party can't seem to distinguish itself from Stalin...

The democrats were at the height of their power in the late '70s, when they controlled the White House, BOTH houses of Congress, AND the majority of state lagislatures; the Supreme Court was kinda liberal too, and the Republicans were discredited by Vietnam and Watergate, and Ted "Mr. Health" Kennedy was considered a viable candidate to succeed Carter. If the "hard left" wanted to enact any "Stalinist" policies, that would have been the time to do it. So, what "Stalinist" policies DID they enact then? (And who, in the actual Democratic leadership, was "hard left?")

...and much of the rest demonstrates that it differs from social conservatives only in what it disapproves of--not in the methods it will use.

When did the Democrats use overt appeals to sectarian ignorance and bigotry to achieve their objectives? Questioning the patriotism of their critics? Pretending gay marriage was a more important issue than the hostages in Tehran? "Rendering" suspected criminals or terrorists to foreign prisons to be interrogated by questionable means? (Where is the Democrats' Abu Ghraib?) Channelling "faith-based initiative" money to their chosen churches? Covering up the sexual harassment of pages? Taking money from "Christians" who overtly praised terrorists?

And any reasonable person is to take you seriously after that?

Well, if you won't address any of the other points that you admit are NOT "falsehoods," then why should I take YOU seriously?

Y'all are unserious and, at this point, dangerous to the health of the United States.

Care to specifiy exactly HOW I'm "dangerous?" You know, like a reference to a specific action?

If you like European values...MOVE TO EUROPE.

If you don't like American values like mutual respect, equal justice under law, sensible public dialogue about important issues...MOVE TO IRAN.

PS: It may interest you to know that many libertarians are indeed defecting from the GOP. Guess the "liberal = socialist = communist = fascist" Kool-aid was getting kinda stale for them...

The solution? Do what conservatives did starting 40 years ago.

Conservatives started sucking up to people of opposite ideologies, who didn't respect them, 40 years ago? I musta missed that episode.

I am a Republican who owns a Subaru. I just bought my Forester a couple of months ago. It's a good car and I like it. But you will never see me with a Bush or whatever Republican bumper sticker on my car because I think bumper stickers are stupid, and always have thought so.

FYI: you can get any Subaru with the turbocharged V4, which is very, very fast.

If you're stuck behind a Subaru, it's an Outback or a Forester. A Legacy GT (my car) or a WRX will be passing you. I voted for Bush, and totaled my last Legacy GT in my own driveway. Stodgy driver, indeed.

Suddenly I'm glad I'm driving an Infiniti. (There aren't enough of them around to warrant any kind of generalization.)