So there have been some cases of tesla cars getting APMed as political symbol to all those who look on in horror that burning cars technically does qualify as violence. My intuitive response was to laugh. Not at the people arguing this is violent. At the cars burning. The obvious answer is that you kick a hornet’s nest and you get stung. You can’t expect a hornet to not be a hornet. Unless of course you can ASM it but you haven’t even tried that. You’ve gone around political process and installed yourself as dictator. Maybe it’s unfair to call you a dictator but if burning an empty car is terrorism J6 is an insurrection. APMs are not ASMs. This is the inherent flaw of the word violence. It conflates violence against things with violence against people. We know these are different. That’s why they’re different crimes in a court of law*.
*Unless you’re going to call a lynching property damage.
To begin to explain how a person can laugh at people breaking the law, because I’m just that square, I have to mention I just reread MLK Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. MLK will gladly breaks laws that are unjust. He will also pay the consequences. He will also APM the hell out of you for paying those consequences. [Insert Luigi Mangione] Is burning a tesla strictly a matter of justice? No, it’s also a symbol of political resistance. Who cares what the environment has to say about those poor little defenseless EVs. Their daddy is a dictator. I know! I’m being unfair. But the racists didn’t have guys this goofy doing all the hard work for them way back when. Elon makes the life of racists way too easy because he can’t even understand why he’s not on the side of MLK anymore. Burning cars absolutely can be funny.
As an America I am the burn victim laughing at my burns. You motherfuckers make me crazy. Why does “balancing the budget” have to be a political exercise in stuffing more cotton up your stuffy white asses. It’s almost like no one wants to pay for it so conservatives are going to make liberals pay for it because they’re in the seat of power and this is how it’s going to be for four more years so, yes, I’m going to laugh at burning cars because four years is a really long time. Imagine if MLK had four more years (something I will never wish for Donald J Trump). If MLK had four more years he wouldn’t have stopped at the bill of rights. He would have kept going in proving that the majority of Evangelicals, today, have regressed from the very brotherhood they once banked on. My brother, burning cars are funny.
If burning cars aren’t funny we’re in the business of treating money. Oh, that poor money. Oh, that irreplaceable job. Oh, that unimpeachable boss. Oh, that uncorrupted institution. Anything where the sign says ‘Now Open’. Do you think MLK believed that America was a business? That this land is your land. This land is my land. From the big blue mountains. To the bright blue seas. I don’t remember the lyrics. Because it’s hard to be patriotic. When you don’t really feel it. Because burning cars isn’t funny to you and me. No, now politics is dirty (as it ever was) so we have to go on fighting the same political battles as if we aren’t post MLK. The conservatives have to conserve. The liberals have to liberate. Do not look at the man standing behind the curtain. Do not get the hibbie-jeebies looking at the white man incarnate.
Trump isn’t anti-gay. Trump isn’t anti-black. Trump isn’t anything he’s not. He just stands there in their shoes and tap dances like a monkey. Remember folks—we’re post ironic. The racists understand what racists look like from the outside. They know how to act not racist because they’re not-racist. Look at me looking at you. I’m 2025 and I’m not-racist. All I wanna do when I wake up is suck the oxygen out of rooms. This is what MLK in his letter calls negative peace. White moderates would rather we ASM ourselves to bring down the temperature in the room instead of advocating for justice. Did somebody accidentally turn the temperature up? Was it the rhetoric or the burning car? Remember guys these people have already been shot at and they know it. What’s a burning car really to a couple of billionaires? It’s a joke to them too.
This passage ‘is not’ a call to violence. This passage is a call to mindfulness. As Trump would say, “It’s just locker room talk.” A locker room of a country club. Definitely not of a public high school. Public high schools are where people listen. Boys can’t really be boys if the socioeconomics are around. It’s just like burning cars is how they show love because of all the love that they have. They’re getting it from everywhere. They’re buried in it. They can’t dig themselves out of there. You’re right. This isn’t about politics. It’s a cry for attention. They cry for attention. It’s mental illness. We’re post ironic. Everybody knows that MLK got shot. How does Elon doing his job merit you burning his motherfucking cars? He loves black people. He’s saving the government to save their lives from the abyss they’re leaping into. They’re leaping.
In the grand scheme of life burning your cars is really being very incredibly nice. This is a personal message, Elon. You’re being hazed for being a square, Elon. You don’t get how take a joke, Elon. You might be a tad bit autistic, Elon. You are at no greater threat of being shot than a black man in his own neighborhood, Elon. You might want to hold back on that diss track, Elon. I’m being serious, Elon. Politics aren’t everything. You used to know that. You used to do things because you cared. Now you do things because they’re funny. Cutting the federal government is funny. Firing people from their jobs is necessary. Being the big kid on the block is natural for you. Passing your turds through journalism makes you that much cooler among the women. If you read this and catch everything I’m pitching you’re not autistic.
In closing ASMs are not APMs. This is foundational teachings of the Bad Buddhist Gang. Because ASMs are not APMs we are allowed to find burning cars funny. Even if say we lived in the Cars pixar universe where cars are people the burning tesla is still funny because that just makes the joke even more bad Buddhist. The last thing of import on a political list is money. That’s the canon fodder. That’s the ammunition. That’s the joke. Teslas cost a lot of money. Health insurance costs even more. If there’s anything that we agree on it’s that humans are the ones doing the assimilating and the anthropomorphizing. Not the money. Money doesn’t get to do that because it’s not conscious. You are being conscious. I am being conscious. Some people will see a burning car and laugh. Nobody will see a burning car and cry who doesn’t own it.