Lady Liberty no longer wanted?

March 19, 2003 5:18 PM

Lady Liberty no longer wanted? Thanks to a backlash against the French for their refusal to back the US, one group wants to return the Statue of Liberty to France. Is it real or is it a joke?
posted by girlhacker (17 comments total)

Oh, god, someone took us seriously.
posted by WolfDaddy at 5:24 PM on March 19, 2003

Aren't all internet petitions a joke?
posted by 2sheets at 5:27 PM on March 19, 2003

We have to remember, none of these people have a sense of humour. Not one. What we think of as devistating irony they think of as a good start.
posted by Space Coyote at 5:27 PM on March 19, 2003

There's more than one... Is this ironic, or is irony deader than that horse over there?
posted by wendell at 5:30 PM on March 19, 2003

One of these days, I'm going to get my fifteen minutes of fame by whipping up one of these web pages.
posted by smackfu at 5:35 PM on March 19, 2003

I've also heard about another crackpot group that doesn't like the word "Franc" in "San Francisco". Who knows how far is too far, but I do like that Ronald Reagan statue on the SBL page.
posted by mathowie at 5:35 PM on March 19, 2003

Obviously done by people who eat nothing but Star Spangled Ice Cream.
posted by Neale at 5:43 PM on March 19, 2003

Given the actions of Mr. Ashcroft and his Merry Band, it probably is more appropriate than these yahoos realize.
posted by briank at 5:51 PM on March 19, 2003

That's completely excellent, and shocking similar to the proposal I was putting together, right down to the Ronald Reagan replacement statue.

A friend of mine registered sendbackthestatue.com, but we haven't put the content up yet, as we've been trying to figure out where to host a site that's likely to incite so many humorless reactions. For some odd reason, neither one of us wants to put it on servers (or in netblocks) that we control.

My favorite part of that site is the list of suggested replacements for various french and "french" terms. I wish I could legitimately claim that I thought of the 'yankee doodle'.
posted by mosch at 5:56 PM on March 19, 2003

Speaking of things that may or may not be real: Google getting hacked this morning because of something Michael Barrish wrote on his weblog. Is it real or photoshopped? Google employees might know.

that doesn't like the word "Franc" in "San Francisco"

How about the franc in Ani DeFranco? And what's Franco American going to do? And while we're at it, better get rid of the word frog!
posted by iconomy at 6:00 PM on March 19, 2003

thanks girlhacker...

i'm sending this on to all my contacts (most of whom are pretty much pissed at france and have no problem viewing them now as 'enemies') with the following message:

for those americans who feel that we've been betrayed
by France...

http://www.sendbackliberty.us/whoarewe.php

please forward this on to your friends and family so
that we (as freedom-loving, god-fearing citizens) can
*finally!* be rid of this dark stain on american soil.
thank you.

p.s. while we're at it, let us pray for the United
States of America and our brave soldiers who are
risking their lives to protect us.

if this kind of nonsense is actually taken seriously and the people of our country encourage it... i will know it's time to pack my bags.
posted by poopy at 6:10 PM on March 19, 2003

and by nonsense, i don't necessarily mean this particular site, because it does look like a sort of parody.
posted by poopy at 6:18 PM on March 19, 2003

Is there any money left in the American budget to afford the shipment or do we send it back collect?
posted by Postroad at 6:34 PM on March 19, 2003

I'd say clear parody, given their linking to the "San Freedomfrisco" site, also a clear parody. It might have been funny if I hadn't already heard the joke/idea on MeFi the Day the Fries Were Renamed. Sort of how the SNL joke about the House reps freedom-kissing each other seemed rather flat last Saturday.
posted by grrarrgh00 at 7:01 PM on March 19, 2003

For about 10 minutes my sweetie and I seriously considered seeing if a state political rep with minimal brains could front a bill for renaming French Lick, Indiana.

It is unfortunate that someone would take it seriously, the Wall Street Journal today had a short paragraph about a guy who made a big deal over the brie at his grandson's birthday party (the idea of brie at a kid's birthday party could only appear in Wall Street Journal or Martha Stewart's Living.) Granted the dad could have avoided conflict by using a much better domestic. But still, it seems like that this was just an excuse for latent Francophobia to come bubbling out with a vengence. The ammount of hostility towards a neutral is baffling.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 8:39 PM on March 19, 2003

how dare they stand in the way of our bloodlust. what do the french know about the horrors of war anyhow?

last night, while driving from the airport in kansas city to my parents' hometown in the middle of nowhere, i actually got my first chance to eat "freedom fries" at a shitty diner. mmmmmmm... platitude.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 10:26 PM on March 19, 2003

the longest asylum case I've ever heard of.
posted by johnnyboy at 11:08 AM on March 20, 2003