autoDogmatic Store

A week ago today, Ryan Bird was detained for almost thirty minutes by TSA agents. Was he carrying forbidden items or acting in a suspicious manner? Was he doing anything illegal, scary or otherwise?

No.

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As you might recall, I posted awhile back on a new idea making bumpers and T-shirts across America. It was the idea of "Peace the Old Fashioned Way", which shows a bomber, B-52 or some other fighter plane silhouetting a peace sign over a stylized American flag.

I pointed out that the incoherence of peace through domination. Peace can only be the product of voluntary human interaction. It's not that using violence is never appropriate (i.e. pacifism is the answer): defending and protecting property, which includes protecting our own existence, requires us to act -- and act violently at times.

But domination does not create peace. If it did, then any number of oppressed and subdued individuals of past and present times were actually living in peace -- was this good?

I wanted to create a graphical answer (And question) to these "Peace the Old Fashioned Way" stickers and T-shirts. I wanted the graphic to point out the bizarre juxtaposition of domination, which ultimately, is the threat of deathly violence, with the concept of peace. The following graphic was born:

It's also worth noting that the concepts of death and peace have met before -- on tombstones in the caption R.I.P. or "Rest in Peace". Is this really the kind of peace we want?

And finally,I'm posting this in the autoDogmtic store since I've thrown this graphic on a number of t-shirts in different colors and a couple variations on the design as well as a button. If you find the graphic provoking and wish to sport a contrarian view on the merits (or rather, the lack thereof) of "Peace the Old Fashioned Way" by posing a question to the world, you can get these items at autodogmatic.spreadshirt.com

All feedback is welcome. If you would like the shirt in a different color, let me know.

As part of the growing process here at autoDogmatic and my own need to attempt creativity in an artistic manner, I've created a virtual store with the help of spreadshirt.com. The idea behind this store is to create contrarian, subversive, or otherwise (I hope) interesting clothing to be worn by likeminded folks who may happen to stumble upon our neck of the internet and also want a t-shirt. Don't laugh! It could happen! Between Aaron and me, I think we can come up with some interesting ideas. And if you have any ideas you'd like to see made, please let me know and I will see if I can't pen them into reality.

We're also planning to create some contrarian bumper stickers. Custom one-off stickers are trickier to get going (CafePress has certain annoying restrictions we may have to work around), but we'll figure something out in time.

For now, check out two T's sporting the autoDogmatic logo. More to come in the days and weeks ahead!