Whedonesque : Comments on 15910 : For a strong, vampire-free, America.

I bought that bumper sticker last November... I have been waiting for winter to be over here in WI to slap it on the back of my car.... SHOW YOUR SUPPORT!

Big Damn Flan | March 28, 12:34 CET

Oo that's awesome. I have one of those 'Joss Whedon is my master now' tshirts (or I did). It's cool because only certain people say 'oh wow I want that shirt!' -And I say 'Ah hello comrade' :D

alexa | March 28, 12:52 CET

Great bumper sticker but unless I'm mistaken, the political chasm runs somewhere in the neighborhood of a "Obama/McCain" ticket.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong. (I would so love to be wrong).

Shey | March 28, 12:59 CET

I don't think their America would be vampire-free. I suspect their real policy would be amnesty for vampires with souls.

Sunfire | March 28, 13:06 CET

Not just amnesty, but they would be providing government-issued souls for any vampire who wants amnesty.

MissKittysMom | March 28, 13:15 CET

See, I don't think we can trust Whedon to secure our Hellmouth border.

Shey, you're not wrong -- pretty sure they are pretty far apart, politically speaking.

There's also the question about whether or not if Minear was on the ticket, Fox might cancel the executive branch.

[ edited by KingofCretins on 2008-03-28 13:28 ]

[ edited by KingofCretins on 2008-03-28 13:28 ]

KingofCretins | March 28, 13:26 CET

Maybe it means we won't have to pay for our vampires?

zz9 | March 28, 13:35 CET

Or at least not at the point of use anyway (as we all know, sooner or later you always end up paying for your vampires, it's just a fact of life).

Saje | March 28, 13:40 CET

IF only Joss would run. I'd actually vote for him. Besides his foreign policy would rock, he could out maneuver any members of the axis of evil, plus I'm pretty sure he'd allow females in the special forces. Perhaps even making the 1st all female special forces brigade. hrrrmmm Then he could call a strategic air strike on FOX network offices due to suspected terroist activity. And for once we'd have a President who could write his own speeches. ~Sigh~ But tis a dream...a nice dream...but a dream none the less.

GothicJossMinion | March 28, 13:43 CET

Perhaps even making the 1st all female special forces brigade.

Yeah, but they'd all be teenagers, half of them would be mentally unstable and made via a weird government experiment, the rest would be mystically empowered by a witch doing some mojo on a scythe ;) And, really, that would be a little creepy. Jed Bartlet for president!

zeitgeist | March 28, 13:48 CET

Unfortunately Joss' name gets left off the ballot paper.

Simon | March 28, 13:50 CET

And/or large numbers of geeks (identified through their Amazon purchasing records) are mysteriously left off the voting register thus crippling his chances.

It would raise the question though: "Why Joss, why did you create such strong female special forces soldiers ?".

Saje | March 28, 13:54 CET

I think that question is the Buffy fandom's equivalent of the legendary SuperBowl question to Doug Williams, "how long have you been a black quarterback?"

KingofCretins | March 28, 13:56 CET

IF only Joss would run. I'd actually vote for him.

And at least he would be guaranteed a five year run. But the "GrrrArrg" at the end of every State Of The Union might confuse some people. And come to think of it he'd just appoint his team and then kill one of them off after his first week just to mess with us.

zz9 | March 28, 14:02 CET

And the Department of Defence would merge with the Department of Agriculture and, even though they never seemed that way inclined before, it'd still make perfect sense in retrospect and everyone would come to love the merger. Until the Department of Agriculture was brutally disbanded.

Saje | March 28, 14:09 CET

I don't know about the rest you guys but I have been around special forces guys most of them are about as stable as teenagers or people like River, except they have actual explosives to make you go BOOM instead of just picturing it vividly in their minds. Love them, they keep us all safe but usually all off their rockers one way or the other. ~sigh~ Not to mention Joss would begin orchestrating the Anglo-Sino Alliance in preparation for the future.

GothicJossMinion | March 28, 14:09 CET

Instead of tax reform, Joss would declare that the IRS is now a bureaucracy with a soul. Joss would then make Sarah Michelle Gellar Secretary of the Treasury, so whenever people started complaining about our tax scheme, she would hold a press conference to say "it's different -- the IRS has a soul now" :)

KingofCretins | March 28, 14:15 CET

Everyone's saying how unlikely a Whedon/Minear ticket would be, given their political differences, but I think that's one of the points here. The party system is massively messed up and not working, and one of the radical ways to fix it would be to put together a ticket that makes SO much sense on a completely different axis, like a vampire one, that for the first time we'd have a truly bipartisan executive branch. Working out their policies together would be like a mini version of the compromises that happen every day in the legislative branch, or like what happens in the writers' room, or like what happens when the Scoobies get together to try to figure out what to do about The First Evil.

Nevertheless, Joss, like Mal, would still be captain. That is, this only makes sense as a Whedon/Minear ticket, not a Minear/Whedon one ;-) so sue me. The balance of power still has to make some sense.

chickenbird | March 28, 14:37 CET

This reminds me of the old "class president" thing: "Vote for Willow Rosenberg... and hope for the best."

KingofCretins, my keyboard is very lucky that I swallowed just before I read your comment.

ManEnoughToAdmitIt | March 28, 14:41 CET

See, I don't think we can trust Whedon to secure our Hellmouth border.

Yeah, their answer would be to put a seal over it. Of all the dumb ideas. All it takes is someone who knows the right spell and is willing to kill a pig or two. Sheesh.

Sunfire | March 28, 15:00 CET

Now I have images of Alexis Denisof as press secretary, and I likey.

TiffintheOK | March 28, 15:07 CET

Does this site have to be so politically biased? The Lonely Ones mean us no harm. They who walk with the night are not interested in hurting anyone, it's all propaganda.

Leaf | March 28, 15:27 CET

They're demons, Leaf. Their values that are not good for America. And they're always sniffing people. It's unsettling.

Sunfire | March 28, 15:32 CET

I think the AUA (Alliance of Undead-Americans) would have something to say about this ticket.

barboo | March 28, 15:53 CET

It's cute, but the English major within would never allow me to buy it. "For a Strong, Vampire Free, America" just ain't right. Now if it said, "For a Strong, Vampire-Free America," then I might dig out my wallet. ;-)

karosurly | March 28, 15:55 CET

And the Department of Defence would merge with the Department of Agriculture and, even though they never seemed that way inclined before, it'd still make perfect sense in retrospect and everyone would come to love the merger. Until the Department of Agriculture was brutally disbanded.

That's OK; a couple of years later, President Whedon would solve that by declaring that the Department of Agriculture was never actually disbanded at all.

beergood | March 28, 16:17 CET

Meh, I don't like the slogan. The point of BtVS, and even more so of AtS, never was to get rid of vampires or demons once and for all; it was always to find the right way to deal with the unavoidable presence of all kinds of demons.
Anyway, I seriously believe it's much more important that Whedon keeps providing quality storytelling for a world that's in dire need of it. Pretty much everyone can do the job of being the politically most powerful person in the world (and I still believe that there are people out there who could even do the job in a sensible way); but few others could have given us BtVS and Firefly.

Jakob Schmidt | March 28, 16:39 CET

alexa, I have the "Joss Whedon Is My Master Now" shirt too, and whenever I wear it, someone stops me on the street at starts talking to me. It's amazing!

I like this sticker too. I'm not even American, but I could die happy if Joss ran for president! Imagine what the world would look like! ...Alright, that's a potentially dangerous thought, but in such a good way! :-D

In all honesty though, I don't think there has ever been, or will be a person fully equipped to run a government. Everyone will fail at something. That's just the way society works.

Valentyn | March 28, 16:46 CET

I like the sticker. It would go up next to my "Republicans for Voldemort" one.

Joss for president would be...interesting. And awesome. Far better than this administration. I would definitely start watching State of the Union addresses. I also think that he would probably bring home the troops, take the money that's pouring into Iraq, and spend it on education, projects such as CARE, and outlawing reality tv.
I still think, in my heart of hearts, that Geena Davis' character in "Commander in Chief" (a show that suffered a fate similar to Firefly's) or Harrison Ford's in "Air Force One" would be the best president.

Or me. Then again, I don't know if I would be able to pass my first executive order: James Marsters must go shirtless at all times.

BandofBuggered | March 28, 17:30 CET

karosurly has me thinking, maybe the slogan is okay the way it is. The sticker promotes strength, and vampires roaming free to cause wacky mahem. They would have to be opposed by the Party for Wimpy America, with Vampires Incarcerated.

OneTeV | March 28, 17:42 CET

I'm going to buy one of these. I don't know where I'll put it, since I don't have a car, but I'll find a use for it.

randomfire | March 28, 17:48 CET

Bizarrely this has ended up on a Time Magazine blog.

Simon | March 28, 18:19 CET

Wish it was available in a Men's T-shirt.

'Cause if I get the bumper sticker, I'm gonna look at the raggedy thing on the back of my car in five years and go, "What the hell was I thinking?"

[ edited by QuanticoMVP on 2008-03-28 18:20 ]

QuanticoMVP | March 28, 18:20 CET

Hmm. I should get this, and put it next to my "I'm Lost - Please Return Me to Anthony Stewart Head" and "Having Issues Much?" bumperstickers. That is, if I put bumperstickers on my car. Which I don't. And the ASH one is actually a window cling.

Hmm. President Whedon. Has a nice ring. "President Whedon! Mister President, sir!" But...that'd make Kai the First...Lady.

I wonder how long it'd take for the press to get Tim's name right, though? "Vice President Min-er...Mine-ear...Miner...the guy not the President." VP Tim?

But, yeah - this one's a grammatical mess. Do they mean a strong America free of vampires? An America with strong vampires that don't cost anything? Or maybe they're saying they don't want the star of "Ugly Betty" to get vampired.

Eats, shoots, and leaves.

ShadowQuest | March 28, 18:32 CET

Time have "Vampire-free", not "Vampire free".

zz9 | March 28, 19:09 CET

Huh. Does the hyphen change the meaning? One version might mean an America where vampires are free to roam.

Sunfire | March 28, 19:13 CET

Yeah, I do not support the lack of hyphen!

Polter-Cow | March 28, 19:18 CET

Great bizarre link, Simon.

Whedonesque linked to a Time/CNN blog discussing subsidies for American corn farmers. There is is also quite a bit of Firefly and BSG pimping in the comments. My world is topsy-turvy today and I kind of like it.

TamaraC | March 28, 19:38 CET

The hyphen means lack of vampires ;) You can quote me on that. Or something.

zeitgeist | March 28, 19:41 CET

Right, but the version without the hyphen is a little awkward.

Sunfire | March 28, 19:43 CET

'S what I mean :)

zeitgeist | March 28, 19:51 CET

Yes!!! Thanks, Simon! When Wondersheep mentioned this on LJ I was dying to see where I could find one. I don't own a car, but this would look great on my laptop, especially after the election when I'll get rid of the Obama sticker that's already featured there.

I might even get a couple more for some friends.

And to throw my cents in, I think the Whedon/Minear motto would be: "Vampires are people too."

electricspacegirl | March 28, 20:28 CET

"...but only if they have souls."

zeitgeist | March 28, 20:31 CET

"...until they go *poof*."

Sunfire | March 28, 20:33 CET

I wonder how long it'd take for the press to get Tim's name right, though? "Vice President Min-er...Mine-ear...Miner...the guy not the President." VP Tim?

You forgot the part where everyone will be calling Joss "President Josh Whedon". Or maybe this would be his chance to never be called Josh again, since everyone will know who he is.

electricspacegirl | March 28, 20:39 CET

O-flippin'-kay, SMG as Secretary of t he Treasury. What the heck would the US Governemnt do with a multi-billion dollar shoe budget? Of course, judging from the photo layouts they'd be worn very rarely so they might have resale value.

DaddyCatALSO | March 28, 20:40 CET

Nick Brendan is the White House Press Secretary. First time the press corps gets him backed into a corner, out comes the snoopy dance.

KingofCretins | March 28, 20:48 CET

Since the Secret Service is under the Treasury Department, one assumes that President Joe Sweden would have some ass-kicking protection.

What the heck would the US Governemnt do with a multi-billion dollar shoe budget?

I assume that Secretary Summers would choose stylish-yet-affordable boots.

MissKittysMom | March 28, 20:53 CET

Oooh, then President Whedon could rename the Oval Office "Joss Actual" and get one of those spiffy BSG phones.

Zannadoo | March 28, 21:19 CET

Heck, I might just register to vote so I can write him in on the ballot this fall.

I can just see them counting the ballots...pausing..."Who the heck is this Jose Weed guy?"

How come no one's mentioned the Secret Service? 'cause...Summer. Hello. "She may be tiny, but she's mighty." And we already know she looks good in dark sunglasses. Adam Baldwin's also a no-brainer - he's got that no-nonsense stoic look down pat.

And of course Tony would be the Foreign Affairs Minister.

ShadowQuest | March 28, 21:59 CET

Witty people all of you. Reading the comments I thought we were headed toward a Chuck Norris 'truisms' phenomenon, as in: if Joss Whedon were President... Once something like that starts it's hard to stop. Not that we'd want it to. :)

onthedrift | March 28, 23:44 CET

onthedrift You mean like:

If Joss Whedon were President...His cabinet would have none but beautiful people on it.

If Joss Whedon were President...No one would get a happy ending.

If Joss Whedon were President...Space would not only be fully explored, but also populated...with beautiful people.

If Joss Whedon were President...A lot of stuff would happen at night.

ShadowQuest | March 28, 23:55 CET

can Joss be president of my country too?

shpedoinkel | March 29, 01:01 CET

On political blogs my name is Southern Bell and I squealed when I saw that Ana Marie Cox linked this on Swampland at time.com.

Reddygirl | March 29, 03:05 CET

That is amazing. I need to have it.

UnpluggedCrazy | March 29, 08:48 CET

Reddygirl; Interesting, albeit that's how most people are. For soem reason I try to use the same alias, or similar ones, in as many places as possible. (I think I'm daddykat48 on Monster.com)

DaddyCatALSO | March 29, 19:47 CET

March 28 2008