Florida Deploys Police To Stare At Crosswalks, Stop Them From Being Painted Rainbow Colors
Florida Deploys Police To Stare At Crosswalks, Stop Them From Being Painted Rainbow Colors
Paint different crosswalks. How many crosswalks are in the city? I bet there are more than they have police to stand and watch them.
What's that meme that was going around? Cities have enough police for one ten thousand person protest but ten one thousand person protests would cripple them? Take it a step futher with the crosswalks
Then when they put cameras and ED-209 killer robots on every crosswalk, start painting sidewalks. Then bike lanes. Then culverts. This should never end just because we know how much it pisses them off.
edit: ya'll are upvoting this shit but I double-dog DARE you to actually do this shit. You don't even have to do it in Florida, just get out and do SOMETHING you lazy fucks!
Imagine being so insecure that you have to stop people from having a harmless shrine to a bunch of people killed in a mass murder.
Anyways, there's a lot of crosswalks and there's no way they can even long term focus on this crosswalk. Wait for them to leave, do it again.
You bring up a good point here. There are a lot of crosswalks. So what happens if people just start doing this at random crosswalks around the city?
...a mass shooting that took place LESS THAN A DECADE AGO
What an incredibly efficient use of taxpayer-funded police forces! Should report it to DOGE, they definitely need to cut funding for that
Yep.
We cant give medicine/healthcare that those that need it, cause its to expensive.
We cant give food to those that need it, cause its too expensive.
We can't provide shelter to those that need it, cause its too expensive.
but somehow, magically, when it comes to the police state and fascism.. Theres always an endless waterfall of money.
I guess when one is in a gold-plated conference room with oligarch friends and you collectively have a couple trillion dollars in assets to "protect," peeling away a few billion to pay some of the poors to shoot the other poors before they take your shit (or your head) seems like a pretty reasonable business expense.
When you look at them as the protectors of capital rather than the protectors of the people, it makes a lot more sense.
There's no IRS, just stop paying taxes...
Florida has it own DOGE...
You never know when one of those cheeky crossings will turn gay on you.
I looked at the sky the other day after a bit of rain. Boom. Gay. Just like that. It could happen to any of us.
Damn, you caught the gay?
I'm so sorry bro. Want a BJ to cheer you up?
.... No homo.
There are over 70 confederate monuments in the state of Florida; none of which are yet painted in rainbow colors.
Pride and Prejudice.
I'll see myself out.
I looked at the map and was surprised to see 2 "confederate monuments" in the Bay Area in California. Turn out it's two buildings in Berkeley that have since been renamed. Whew!
Some confederate soldier statues in full drag kit and face would make quite a spectacle.
Quick! Paint somewhere else.
Paint everywhere else. Turn everything that's not guarded in to rainbows of defiance.
Civilian chalk artists now need armed civilan escorts to protect them from police.
Police are going to shoot someone for putting chalk on the pavement to remember the victums of a mass shooting.
This is America.
I've just been to east Germany and saw in a museum the Incredible pettiness of the surveillance state.
They collected smell samples of supposed activists, and you could be labeled an activist for writing something sarcastic on a poster or newspaper. Also if you were labeled as such they could 'unofficially ' ruin your life (as in thwart your ambitions and goals.
So much money and effort was spent on policing the hearts and minds of the populace. And the frail religious conservatives who run America would probably love the idea.
I’ve just been to eat Germany
I recommend chewable Tums for that.
Hah!
Well then lets hope the US Gov. also crumbles from the sheer amount of resources it takes to be that kind of a dick to its population. I mean they are on a fast track, spending billions they do not really have because of tax cuts to the rich.
Well then lets hope the US Gov. also crumbles from the sheer amount of resources it takes to be that kind of a dick to its population.
Why do you think republicans are so keen on AI? The stasi had to rely on slow humans who might give a shit about accuracy. Republicans don't care if they arrest the wrong person. Particularly since they know that AI trained on a racist system is going to behave like a racist system.
I recently went to Germany too and there's such an uncomfortably large number of cops everywhere. Do you happen to have more info on what you talked about? Id love to read up on it and potentially want friends who live there.
I was in Leipzig, the museum I was mainly taking about was museum der runde ecke but this museum Was also very informative
Earlier this week, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent letters to all 50 governors calling for the removal of Pride crosswalks.
Just this part alone is super fucked up.
Transportation Secretary
Sounds woke 🤔
Why do they have the resources to do this and not watch for cars almost hitting pedestrians at the same crosswalks.
simple, pedestrians aren't people
If they wanted to live, they should have gotten a car.
/s
And they could be black and or gay.
Russia: Rainbow Flag Illegal
USA: Rainbow Flag Illegal
So what's the difference anymore.
Russia has a capable (if thoroughly evil) leader?
It’s the same leader
Mmm, I'd say Ukraine makes that not the case. The capable part, not the evil part.
The US also has a very capable leader. As you can see with President Putin's implementation of his controversial policies in the US.
Oh you mentioned some orange old man hanging out in DC? Oh that's just the court jester.
Just wait em out? You're in a seige now, and hopefully the seiging army goes home. Then, you go out and make it a rainbow again.
Instead of defund the police, it’s now “run out the police budget”
Is it a crime to buy a vinyl decal for a car that says “rainbow painting” and drive around a city, occasionally stopping near crosswalks to check your phone? I don’t think so.
Go and stand there with buckets of paint and a roller and wait them out. Even better if it's one can labeled "rainbow" paint.
Actual rainbow police.
Literal crossing guards.
Quick, someone send the Army.
Seems like a good use of their time. Police jobs are basically welfare for the mediocre low iq dipshits from high school.
Police jobs are basically welfare for the mediocre low iq dipshits from high school.
Soon to be replaced with lower-paying ICE jobs for the schmos who don't even qualify to be cops. I personally wouldn't even be surprised if it turns out ICE is hiring undocumented immigrants, for the same reason everybody else does.
It pays way better than welfare.
Has anyone heard of Toynbee Tiles? These are interesting by themselves but the relevant point is how they are made.
You make a mosaic out of vinyl flooring chunks on a backing of paper and roofing tar as mastic.
You place them paper side up on asphalt pavement in hot weather. As cars drive over them, the paper and tar wear off revealing the vinyl mosaic.
Just a thought that a group of people could quickly make a rainbow crosswalk that can’t be painted over.
I've never seen one, but have read about them.
Really interesting from a guerilla art perspective. Also, the durability is innovative.
Yeah, it’s intriguing.
I have given it some thought and they could be made even more durable by using vinyl flooring adhesive to adhere the mosaic pieces to a backing of wire mesh.
The usual method uses only asphalt crack filler, which is still necessary, but it also requires one to assemble the design backwards. Adhering to metal mesh first would allow one to assemble it front the viewer’s perspective and reduce shifting of the pieces over time for more durability.
Not to mention that a basic CNC machine could cut the vinyl very precisely and in elaborate shapes. One could really take the quality and durability of the designs up a notch or two using the old noggin and modern Maker tools.
So now I am going to have to think of a place locally to do this….
I was expecting the onion... Wtf
It has to be hard to be an onion writer right now. How can you come up with a story more absurd than our current reality?
Bully the policists and paint other crosswalks.
Cause you know, that will stop all the horrible crime the GOP is talking about... You know how dangerous crosswalks are!
Fascists using government sponsored violence to protect their desecration of a memorial for a major mass shooting because they side with the shooter
Such are Republicans
Paint police instead? /silly
I know what you meant, but arguably this does make them the Paint Police.
You only need one color of paint (yellow, in case anyone wonders).
Speaking as a foreigner, this shit is so profoundly pathetic, United States. Get your fucking shit together. Not only should you all be well past shitting all over the queer community, but dispatching cops to guard crosswalks in any capacity other than ensuring school kids using them safely after school should embarrass everyone on both sides of the aisle.
Edit: *safely
sigh
Believe me a lot of us are fully aware of how stupid this shit is. A lot of us are fully accepting of the LGBT community and welcome them with open arms. It's incredibly exhausting watching floroda (and all other deep red states and the fed) doing stupid shit like this because the theater of doing it wins them brownie points with their voters.
I do not envy you that situation, it's what all the cool kids are calling "sub optimal".
Sorry. Our nation is a trash pile full of racists, religious sycophants, and the extremely ignorant.
It's only going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.
I didn't like Florida that much when I lived there in the 80s and 90s. It sounds like it's gotten worse.
Good use of tax money. They should also help usher kids to factories while at it.
Id ask what's stopping people from standing in the vicinity with a big box of chalk but thats probably a great way to get chalk made illegal.
I mean... They outlawed unmarried women from parachuting on Sundays, and fishing while driving across bridges....
Why not chalk too?
Last guy, we're gonna keep coming back. 👍
Hold the cops down and paint them then
In my town, they said the rainbow colors are not the state description of crosswalks, might actually, effectively, erase the legal crosswalk, are confusing to drivers, and would increase pedestrian deaths. There's always some bullshit rationalization for being the worst possible person.
Marking the first time they probably have ever given a shit about a pedestrian death
Goddammit, I thought this was going to be an Onion type article. It wasn't.
We already live in clown world. We are beyond parody.
What a fucking great use of taxpayer money... NOT!
i understand this crosswalk has meaning, but until it is unguarded, let all unguarded crosswalks be rainbows! : D
be safe out there <3
Paint the Police cars!
Paint all the crosswalks.
Lgbt are framed and put into jail in Florida
Thats stupid
These would be state police, wouldn't they? They shouldn't have jurisdiction on city streets. Time for that mayor to grow a spine and use local cops to chase them and the toadies who keep painting it black off.
These comments are wild smh
This ends when we ban orginized religion
No. If Stalin's Soviet era showed us anything, it's that the dogma of religion can be replaced with the dogma of state. Getting rid of organized religion just kicks the can down the road. Education is paramount.
Pretending like the Soviet Union wasn't mostly Christian is some real Revisionist history.
Religon fights education in the modern world.
While I'm 110% supportive of LGBT+, I don't think people painting crosswalks anyway they like is OK. They are safety features, recognizable from a distance, and it's not far fetched to think that casualties may occur. Painting official building's walls could be an alternative, for example. Both are technically vandalism, but these walls would not be a hazard.
Vertical faces of entrance steps? that'd be cool!
Have you never actually seen a crosswalk before? Because I'm having trouble figuring out which part of these rainbow flag colored crosswalks makes them look any less like a crosswalk or makes them less visible or recognizable in any way. Literally the only other pavement marking that comes anywhere near looking like or being placed in the same way on a road is a stop bar. And guess what, car drivers routinely mistake the plain crosswalks for stop bars, thereby blocking the crosswalk. Making the claim that painting a pedestrian crosswalk in bright colors somehow makes them less visible or recognizable has got to be the dumbest argument I've heard this week.
I dont understand why you all are getting on this persons case. They brought up a pretty reasonable point, traffic markings are better when they are standardized. There are avenues where having a memorial doesnt detract from that standardization. They gave reasonable alternatives in addition. They arent sitting here praising the motivations behind the enforcement yet you all are acting like thats the commenters motivation.
Literally the only other pavement marking that comes anywhere near looking like or being placed in the same way on a road is a stop bar. And guess what, car drivers routinely mistake the plain crosswalks for stop bars, thereby blocking the crosswalk
So because people already have issues with standardization we should allow less of it? This doesnt improve the argument you are trying to make. Stop being reactionary because of the subject matter here and take a step back first.
Making the claim that painting a pedestrian crosswalk in bright colors somehow makes them less visible or recognizable has got to be the dumbest argument I've heard this week.
Its honestly pretty sane in this context when you step back instead of getting reactionary. Is the paint being used reflective? Is it causing the crosswalks to be less reflective in low light conditions? Its not like all the painting being done is standardized. Not all places in the world have cross walks painted out and in night conditions where we constantly have headlights blinding people and some that arent bright enough to compensate for those differences those painted crosswalks could have an impact on safety if the decrease visibility of them in low light conditions.
In the case of the original crosswalk memorial that got defaced by the fascists I am assuming there was reflective paint used, so if people are using something with the same reflective properties as regular road paint I dont see an issue at all with a colorful crosswalk. But when you have people without that style of paint covering up crosswalks it can become a safety issue in night conditions and you arent going to see stats/studies for this as there is not enough sample data to even make that case. Not every rule or standard needs to be written in blood sometimes we can use common sense before allowing people to get injured enough to make a study and dataset to back a point.
Having a memorial that is off the road one would be more visible and also take away the hiding of motivation when the fascists try to deface it by acting like its just a safety thing. Which they recommended, paint walls, the faces of steps etc.
Like I get this is a sore topic due to the state of shit right now but we need to stop fighting with those who are trying to be helpful or offer other valid viewpoints. If we want to fight back against the rising fascism around the world we need more unity which comes from being open to dialog not just being reactionary. All being reactionary is going to do is push people away and make us more fractured and disorganized.
You could have stopped at dumbest. I believe I'm making a civil and reasonable comment.
Also, a black and white contrast is objectively more un-equivocal than a flurry of colors. For example, my mother, in her 80's is a surprisingly safe driver for her age, but her visual acuity is just not the same as before, and at night she may have trouble with a rainbow.
You do actually know why they're doing this, right? Because there was already a rainbow crosswalk to commemorate the Pulse Nightclub victims. It's so weird that there were no casualties in that one! The fascists painted it over because they're homophobic knuckleheads, and so now protesters are painting it and others back. You know, it takes zero effort not to be a pedantic but also ignorant ass just for the sake of it.
So long as conservatives continue to exert exceptional effort to try and erase LGBT identity, people should attack Christian identity in equal measure. Tear down billboards with gospel on them. Deface publicly displayed crucifixes. Burn bibles in public.
Don't forget to remove churches from your communities..
I believe in proportionality. So long as their current actions stay in damaging inanimate symbols that's where it should stay. If they were to Remove places significant to LGBT+, then I'd consider it. If they were to start straight up shooting LGBT+ people, well...
That is what they want.
Right wing shitheads have been trying to paint themselves as the victims for decades. "The War On Christmas" being one of the best examples. And as much fun as it would be to burn down a church (but not Korean Jesus, that dude is okay), all it will do is provide them the evidence they have been trying to manufacture all this time.
Because news media won't be reporting "As retaliation for the murder of a trans person, a bible was ceremonially burned". It will be "The fucking gays are burning your bibles, go get them"
They've been riding their train of manufactured victimhood and rage for decades and found great success, they don't strictly need a reason to abuse people.
Staying your hand because your enemy might get angry and retaliate is the mindset of the battered housewife. People should stand up for themselves even if that means violence in the end.
I mean, they’re going to claim it’s happening even if it isn’t. May as well try in that case.
Ok. Time to make them actual victims.
This isn't fun and games anymore. They've ramped up their oppression. They've made it clear they are our enemies and won't stop until their boot is firmly on our necks, indefinitely.
If you don't end up fighting the schoolyard bully, they bully you forever.
I see that shit a lot too. And i live somewhere, where i don't even know anyone who is a real Christian who believes all that crap. No clue for whom it's for and how anyone looks at these and think: good thing they don't pay taxes so they have enough money to advertise to no one and hide their kiddy fuckers.
In the Scandinavian countries there are some folks burning down churches. Food for thought. 🤷♂️
Considering the nature of the Pulse shooting being a hate crime grounded on religious principles, and this is a memorial to that hate crime… it wouldn’t be too surprising if a proportionate response were to occur.
There's a significant number of LGBTQ+ friendly churches in Orlando. Presumably some of the dead could have been members of those churches. A religious-freedom argument could be made to sue for reinstatement of the memorial. I remember the time UCC and Unitarian churches sued for the right to perform gay marriages in a red state before it became legal nationwide.
The problem is that they already use this as scare to affect people who would otherwise be neutral that days, trans, atheists are after them.
The people who are responsible for this don't truly believe in God, they are using God to control other people.
They successfully painted trump as some kind of Christian savior, while he is embodiment of the 7 deadly sins and is much closer to be an antichrist.
I don't understand how people aren't killing each other out right to be honest.
But like, other people right? You wouldn't want to end up in jail yourself.
I would never advocate or incite for imminent lawless action. I would advocate for a change in public policy that included things currently held to be illegal.
As long as it makes a difference, the first amendment protects your right to advocate for changes to law and policy. You just can't tell people to right now go and break a specific law if you have reason to believe they might.
"People should shoot maga fascists dead in the street and hang them from lampposts" is protected because it's saying what society should do, not actively calling for people to go do this.
You got me, officer. I'm a coward who's all talk, I would never do anything I described.