Humorous Anti State Propaganda Ideas

[cademan]

I'm a hobbyist cartoonist/artist and would like to contribute in some way by creating some anti-state propaganda that can be used to discredit the system.

I just finished reading the article "Ending Tyranny without Violence" (http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard78.html) and was inspired by the paragraph:

The prime task of education, then, is not simply abstract insight into governmental "errors" in advancing the general welfare, but debamboozling the public on the entire nature and procedures of the despotic State. In that task, La Boétie also speaks to us in his stress on the importance of a perceptive, vanguard elite of libertarian and anti-statist intellectuals. The role of this "cadre" – to grasp the essence of statism and to desanctify the State in the eyes and minds of the rest of the population – is crucial to the potential success of any movement to bring about a free society. It becomes, therefore, a prime libertarian task to discover, coalesce, nurture, and advance its cadre – a task of which all too many libertarians remain completely ignorant. For no amount of oppression or misery will lead to a successful movement for freedom unless such a cadre exists and is able to educate and rally the intellectuals and the general public.

I'm interested in some cartooning ideas to discredit the State that I can make available to be used in any kind of campaign in the future. They can be simple one panel cartoon ideas or comic strip ideas featuring a cast of characters like an elephant, a donkey, and whatever other cast of characters.

I would also be interested in refining the ideas to make them more impactful through the collective mind of this forum.

Off the top of my head I was thinking of making a cartoon of an elephant and a donkey riding on the back of a taxpayer while arguing about how to spend his money. The elephant wants to spend it on invading iran and the donkey wants to spend it on saving the environment while the taxpayer murmurs, "Why do I support these guys". Something like that. Can it be improved?

Any ideas? Maybe this has been done already?

You can see some of my work at my DeviantArt page - http://gatorvenom.deviantart.com/gallery

 

[Romulus]

I looked at your page... nice work, I like that style and your idea. One image/panel cartoons seem to have the most impact IMO.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

not off my head, but the Onion political section has some brilliant stuff that you can turn into visual art.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

I had an idea just now-you could draw Bush in a comically oversized tank rolling over the map of Afghanistan and then Obama in another panel doing the same thing in a much bigger tank The Obama panel would say "Change" beneath it. lolz

 

[tremendoustie]

Here's some ideas for things characters characters could say, I put together for the "24 types of statist" cartoon they're working on, but they weren't used. Use anything you like.

Petulant: People only oppose big government because they're idiots who were brainwashed by corporations!

Pseudo Charitable (replacement for left wing): My programs aren't good enough for me to contribute to, but they're good enough for me to make you contribute!

Too much Krugman: People are too stupid to make their own financial decisions. We should force them to do what people with PhDs say.

The Busybody (replacement for the island): It only takes 20 hours a week to run my life, so I'll run yours in my spare time.

Creepy: If you've got nothing to hide, why do you mind if I read your e-mails?

Fiscally Nonsensical (replacement for selectively frugal): If we just go into lots of debt to buy lots of stuff from China, we'll be rich! Keynes said so!

Hegemonist (Replacement for Atlas): The leaders of Iraqistan might potentially be thinking about starting a war someday! For the sake of peace, we must blow them away!

Frightened (replacement for briefly tempting): What!? It's code Orange?! Quick, give all my money to Goldman Sachs and strip search me for contraband!

Hypocrite (replacement for stoned): Drug users who get caught are a scourge on society. Ones who don't get caught should be made president.

 

[tremendoustie]

I doodled one, one time (I have no drawing talent btw), that had two angry looking people, one wearing a blue shirt with "D" on it, and the other wearing a red shirt with "R" on it, each holding signs with arrows pointing to the other, saying "Hypocrite!"

The subtitle said: "Who says they both can't be right?"

Feel free to use this too, if you like it.

 

[Andrew-Austin]

Can you draw Lieberman as a sort of Darth Sidious type character. I would love that. The topic would be his internet kill switch bill.

Maybe you could depict Senator Ted Stevens (moron in video below) explaining his "acute knowledge" (read: something laughably ignorant) of the perils of the internet, and in reply Lieberman would be like "oh my gawd thats horrible, if only there were some type of kill switch for the internet".

YouTube - Series of Tubes Music Video

 

[tremendoustie]

I had an idea just now-you could draw Bush in a comically oversized tank rolling over the map of Afghanistan and then Obama in another panel doing the same thing in a much bigger tank The Obama panel would say "Change" beneath it. lolz

I like it!

 

[cademan]

Both Right?

I liked tremendoustie's idea with the "no difference between them"

Here is what I came up with. Let me know if you want it in high resolution and I will post that somewhere. Also posting these on my deviantart page.

Any more ideas?

 

[cademan]

I had the idea of two kids looking at a fish bowl with the capital building in it upside down. One says to the other, "I guess we flush it down the toilet".

I like the idea of "dead government" and "it's not working so we need to flush it" but not sure of what imagery to use. Any ideas?

 

[tremendoustie]

I liked tremendoustie's idea with the "no difference between them"

Here is what I came up with. Let me know if you want it in high resolution and I will post that somewhere. Also posting these on my deviantart page.

Any more ideas?

Love it!! Did you draw this by hand? If so, you're really good.

 

[cademan]

I drew a couple sketches to figure out how I wanted them posed and then drew it directly on the computer in photoshop to save time rather than inking over the sketch and then scanning it.

 

[tremendoustie]

I drew a couple sketches to figure out how I wanted them posed and then drew it directly on the computer in photoshop to save time rather than inking over the sketch and then scanning it.

Awesome . Yeah, I just meant, you didn't copy the pics from some canned clip art thing.

Hey, random idea -- there's a "keene free press" paper in NH looking for content. Do you mind if I submit this?

 

[cademan]

Go for it. That's what they are for. I'm not at my home computer at the moment, but when I get home I will post a high resolution picture so it can be printed.

It would be cool if I could make a whole bunch of Anti State Cartoons and maybe I can put up a site for them.

 

[libertybrewcity]

cool stuff!

 

[morran]

That's an amazing picture. You are very talented!

You might want to look through this mises.org thread for inspiration: http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/8551.aspx.

Thanks for doing this! If you make more of these, please save them on your deviant page or somewhere else online so we can grab them when we need them.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

I had the idea of two kids looking at a fish bowl with the capital building in it upside down. One says to the other, "I guess we flush it down the toilet".

I like the idea of "dead government" and "it's not working so we need to flush it" but not sure of what imagery to use. Any ideas?

A common metaphor in classical libertarian lit is "the dead hand of government". Perhaps an image of a regular person interacting with his environment in one panel, and in the next panel a government official kills everything he touches.

 

[cademan]

Here is a link to a high resolution picture for printing of the above cartoon.

http://www.cadeh.com/fightback/both-right_hires.jpg

Heavenlyboy, I like the general idea of government destroying things but it might be better to have a more concrete example of something that government has destroyed and somehow making that clear to the general public. I'm not sure what that could be. Possibly education or healthcare but with a specific example how how that is being done. Some people might look at the cartoon and simple say, "Well that's just not true." I guess they could do that with any cartoon though. I like the concept, but hope someone can come up with a specific example how government has ruined something. I'm sure there are many, but nothing specific comes to my mind at the moment.

 

[djdellisanti4]

I had the idea of two kids looking at a fish bowl with the capital building in it upside down. One says to the other, "I guess we flush it down the toilet".

I like the idea of "dead government" and "it's not working so we need to flush it" but not sure of what imagery to use. Any ideas?

I absolutely love that idea.

 

[cademan]

Change?

I had an idea just now-you could draw Bush in a comically oversized tank rolling over the map of Afghanistan and then Obama in another panel doing the same thing in a much bigger tank The Obama panel would say "Change" beneath it. lolz

Here ya go man. I didn't change the tank size to save time, but I think the point is still made. Obama is continuing the war he said he would end.

High resolution image for printing it here. Also posted this on my deviantart page.