Tulsa's Bumper Sticker Genocide

We spotted a black SUV driving along Tulsa's Sheridan Road this morning festooned with bumper stickers, one of which read "Nuke 'Em and Seize Their Assets." The American flag waved proudly beside this message.

We're in favor of free speech. We're also in favor of the flag and the liberties it represents. But we have serious doubts about the "Nuke 'Em" message.

For starters, it seems to suggest that we should kill all our enemies. While that might be a satisfying rhetorical position, it also appears to be an endorsement of genocide, defined in our Webster's as "actions intended to destroy a whole national or ethnic group."

Is that really what some Tulsans want? Do we really have to destroy an entire national or ethnic (or religious) group to get even with the Sept. 11 terrorists and their allies? Will massive retribution and the death of thousands of innocent men, women, and children, really make the world a better place? We can't see the logic here.

Sure, it feels good to "grandstand" on a bumper sticker. But it makes more sense to think seriously about what you're saying and what it might mean a world filled with far too much hate, violence, and intolerance.