OPINION: The defense of really bad art
With every election come the sign thieves, miserable miscreants who likely have graduated from petty shoplifting. But today, there's a new type of threat to the political sign and it's more menacing than the lout who grabs a yard sign and runs off. The modern form of the aspiring sign thief is more akin to a white-collar crook. Instead of grab and run, this thief attempts to use the city's outrageous sign ordinance to steal freedom of expression from business owners who've attached political posters to their buildings.
In question are the posters featuring a work of art known as "Abraham Obama," which morphs the face of President Abraham Lincoln with the face of Sen. Barack Obama.
They can be seen on a number of businesses around town. Don Goede, a Colorado Springs native who's a friend of the artist who created "Abraham Obama," wants to make this predominantly Republican city the place that displays the most "Abraham Obama" posters on private property.
Comparing Obama to Lincoln, of course, is an outrageous idea. Lincoln is a symbol of individual freedom; Obama's a symbol of redistributionist promises he can't possibly (hopefully) keep. Most credit Lincoln with freeing slaves; Obama, by contrast, stands to establish what some might consider wards of the state, or a dependent class that lives off money taken by taxation from others.
Consider the observation of 8-year-old Brandon Garcia, the Westminster third-grader who succeeded Joe the Plumber in the glow of the national spotlight by stumping Sarah Palin with a question: "What does the vice president do?" Brandon likes McCain and Palin, but says he supports Obama for this reason: "He will help pay the rent of our house," as quoted by the Rocky Mountain News.
From the mouths of babes. Obama has sold freedom as some kind of an easy lifestyle that government can provide; Lincoln enabled freedom by setting people free - free to succeed or fail on their own.
So the "Abraham Obama" poster is shoddy art. To some it may seem grotesque. The First Amendment, however, was written to protect controversial and unpopular expression, not the stuff we all agree on.
Some people consider a Jackson Pollock painting a source of ingenious inspiration; others consider it a mess of splattered paint. Beauty is entirely in the eye of the beholder.
What's the difference between pornography and art? We know it when we see it, to paraphrase the late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart.
What's the difference between art and bad attempts at art? That's unanswerable. And what's the difference between political speech and political art? Again, no one can give an honest, defensible answer to the question.
Yet the "Abraham Obama" posters have created a dilemma for city officials who received complaints. If the art is considered a mural, which by city code can't promote a specific cause, then there's no problem. If they're considered a political endorsement, they come under an assortment of sign restrictions and even permits. Sue Matz, revocable permits coordinator for the city, said she's confused as to whether the "Abraham Obama" posters are murals or political statements.
Stop being confused, Ms. Matz. It's a ridiculous issue that city officials shouldn't waste another moment on. The next person who calls to complain should be told that it's an issue the city won't involve itself in, because private property owners are free to display art or political statements on the exteriors of their buildings, period.
The city's sign ordinance has already deprived citizens of the freedoms of religious and political expression they were born with, in a country that protects such freedoms with the first article in its Bill of Rights.
Is it art? Is it politics? Who cares? It's expression. It's protected by federal law.
There's no better time than now for the city to scrap or severely revise this unlawful sign ordinance, which is too often enforced at the cost of true freedom.
