"Support Your Local EVERYTHING!"

So read a bumper sticker on a vehicle I was behind yesterday. Next to that sticker was one for the local university-affiliated public radio station. The car, not surprisingly, was headed toward that university, which is Ypsilanti, Michigan.

What immediately jumped out at me was that the car was a Honda Accord. Anyone familiar with Ypsilanti knows that in it or around it, GM and Ford both manufacture vehicles (or major parts of vehicles, like transmissions and such.) Ypsilanti is a short drive from the Motor City.

I'm not one to get to preachy. I don't admonish others to "buy American"; it's not my place to make that decision for people. Lots of true patriots buy cars with foreign name plates.

What I does get me, though, is that people that do not practice what they preach. In this case, this person's "local EVERYTHING" includes American manufactured domestic vehicles. Literally, there are vehicles that are "local," but she chose a car made in Tennessee or perhaps even Japan. Perhaps the bumper sticker should've said "Support Your Local (Almost) EVERYTHING" or "Support Your Local EVERYTHING (Except Major Purchase Items Like Vehicles").

I'm not sure what's more inconsistent, that bumper sticker on that car or the one I saw last year with a drawing of a cell phone that said "Hang Up and Drive." When I passed the driver of that car he was, you guessed it, talking on his cell phone.