[I just sat down to write a post about these dumbasses in their dumbass t-shirts but had a sense that I’d covered this ground before. Turns out, I have. Soooooo, here it is. When idiots get some new material, I’ll write some new material. Also, Dave Weigel? Journalism fail. Then again, folks figured out you were a hack when you posted dick pics to Twitter during WeinerMadness 2011. Is there no one left who take journalism seriously? Don’t look at me. I’m just a blogger. -ABLxx 7/5/11]
Stupid is as stupid does, asshats.
At a fourth of July celebration in Lexington Kentucky yesterday, white folks were wearing t-shirts that had “Yup, I’m a racist” emblazoned on the front. A reporter at the Louisville Independent Examiner interviewed some of these asshats, and wouldn’t you know, they’re all idiots.
Look, I understand that people have valid differences of opinion when it comes to government. Small versus big. Regulation vs. deregulation. Low taxes vs. high taxes. I GET IT.
But here’s what you need to understand: From what I can tell, a lot of these Tea Party people do not know what the hell they are talking about. They just don’t. These are the same people who were screaming about healthcare reform, and Obamacare out of one side of their mouths, while screaming “keep the government out of Medicare!” out of the other. These are not people who are using their noggins, is what I’m saying.
Ask your average Tea Partier what the hell it is they want, and you won’t get an answer. They just “want their country back,” or they “want their rights back,” or they “want the government to stop taking away their rights.” So what’s the deal? Did somebody steal America? Can you please give it back to these asshats so they will STFU.
As for the “we want our rights back” crap, just replace the word “rights” with “guns.” That’s what this is really about, isn’t it? What rights have been stolen from you? Oh, none.
The truth is, Obama isn’t taking away anybody’s rights. You may disagree with his spending policies, and you may disagree with his social policies, and you may disagree with his foreign policy. But you cannot say that he is taking your rights away. Taxes for everyone but the hella rich are lower under Obama than they were under Bush. And really… with the guns? For Biebs’ sake, you’re allowed to carry guns in national fucking parks! The Supreme Court just affirmed everyone’s right to keep guns in their houses and blow people’s heads off for practically no reason at all! “I don’t like your face! And neither does my AK-47! ::rat-a-tat-tat::”
So seriously? Shut the hell up about Obama wanting to take your rights away. You don’t know what you’e talking about. And you’re stupid “Yup, I’m a racist” t-shirt is going to end up on the back of some black hipster in Silverlake, and everyone will “ooh and aah” at the irony of it all. Your stupidity is only making the hipsters stronger. So just fucking quit it, won’t you?
Check out the video after the jump. At the 1:30 marker, the woman being interviewed, who doesn’t have a clue as to what she’s talking about– not one clue — because she is probably a member of Fox Nation, says that Pakistanis are coming across the border in Arizona.
Fucking Pakistanis. Crossing the border. Into Mexico.
Go ahead and marinate on that for a minute.
Happy Birthday to you, America. Aren’t you proud?
[cross-posted 7/5/10 at ABLC]
Zifnab
Why do you hate hipsters?
Seriously, though. If you’re going to be a flaming racist – ‘effing own it. At least then we don’t have to play the “I know you are but what am I” FOX News game.
lamh34
Wow! Just…wow! Clueless just doesn’t begin to cover how stupid these people are!
Davis X. Machina
Wins elections, though.
Any political party that is based on appealing to the worst in people begins each cycle half-a-lap ahead of the field.
Makes you realize just how much a perfect storm the ’08 election was.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
“Your stupidity is only making the hipsters stronger.”
A truer statement has never been made.
Maude
27% didn’t know who the colonies fought against in our War of Independence.
This is the group that gets so much media attention.
I can’t think of anything to write about the tee shirt.
Edit, yes I can. They got the wrong flag in the background of the words.
Valdivia
but Weigel says it’s all tongue in cheek! wink, wink.
also too–that font at the top almost broke my eyesight it’s so small :)
ETA–thanks for changing the font!
Cain
I had no idea we have a pakistani problem. Coming over from Mexico you say? Goddam.. I guess both India and U.S. have the same problem.. mother fucking pakistanis on the mother fucking border. Next thing you know they are driving our cabs.. shiiit.
Sorry I’m feeling EXTRA American today after last night :D
Davis X. Machina
When the hipster block vote can deliver a general election, they’ll stop. 2012 is a bit too soon for that, I suspect.
steve duncan
A minor quibble with this. I think there are some instances of U.S. citizens being put in jail and having to struggle mightily before getting anything even approaching the basic rights we all take for granted. Visitors, a phone call, an attorney, a trial before their peers. Hell, some have been jailed and the government refuses to even name specific crimes, bring charges, share evidence, etc. So yes, some people have had some of their rights taken away without due process or benefit of judicial proceedings. Just sayin’.
Dave
PEOPLE IN T-SHIRTS, ZOMG
ABL
it really was ridiculously small. i made it bigger.
i love that racism is so passe that idiots like weigel can deem it “ironic.” it might be ironic if these fuckers weren’t actually racist.
TFinSF
Well, I would, but I can’t seem to find any who even are bright enough to be considered “average”.
ABL
i shouldn’t make a big deal of it. they’re just idiots in t-shirts! no harm no foul! focus on the real problem, man! plus, the formatting sucks, you’re a shitty blogger, and WHARGARBBBLE.
(nailed it!)
Tuttle
The truth is, Obama isn’t taking away anybody’s rights.
It’s kind of interesting watching someone lob missiles from one fantasy world to another, but then again it is also rather fucking pathetic.
not a gator
Well, they called themselves snakes, so I suppose that’s appropriate.
arguingwithsignposts
Dave Weigel always has been a conservative hack:
ETA: Just another tip, but the change of the font color makes it a bit unclear that “Dave Weigel” is supposed to be a link to his “irony” bullshit defense.
not a gator
OT, but this gave me a larf this morning:
Michele Bachmann – the best candidate for gays?
http://bighomocon.blogspot.com/2011/06/michele-bachmann-best-candidate-for-gay_29.html
Zyla
The most distressing thing about that shirt is that the south is completely cutoff the rest of the map of the us.
not a gator
They got the wrong flag in the background of the words.
Ooo, good call.
Oh yeah, and hipsters don’t vote. I’ve been told it’s a “protest” against the “system”.
Which just goes to show that the “average hipster” is pretty stupid, too.
Morbo
If you’re just sarcastic enough about being racist, you can be as racist as you want to be. Hence Michelle Malkin’s refrain of “RAAAAAAAAAAAACIST.”
DBrown
I don’t see any issue with the shirt – I mean, isn’t the basic aspect of being a true amerikan totally based on being a WASP and all others are just second class to be used, abused and exploited ? Isn’t the whole point of amerika based on being racist? I mean Amerika was built on hate of anyone who isn’t a WASP and those ‘others’ really aren’t human, after all (I remember reading somewhere that the ‘others’ are just 3/5 human clause – uh, somewhere offical that founded the laws of this country … .) Just look at who really owns/runs amerika: wallstreet, bankers and all big Corps and all are uniformly WASP’s. That teabagger statement should be on all our flags as required by truth in advertising … .
Citizen_X
Fixted.
I’ll believe that this is “ironic” the day that wingnuts display the slightest acknowledgement or understanding of irony. Case in point: the guy selling “YUP-I’m a Racist” t-shirts while wearing a FUBU shirt.
Citizen Alan
I am very frequently both frightened and saddened by how much hatred I have in my heart for the Tea Party movement and everyone associated with it. Intellectually, I know it is immoral and un-American to view anyone as being “sub-human.” But when I see these creatures, with their worship — literal, honest-to-god worship — of ignorance as being preferable to knowledge, I find it very difficult to view them as being of the same species as me. They’re like hostile alien invaders, only instead of death rays, they unleash deadly waves of naked stupidity with the potential to destroy our entire planet.
Linda Featheringill
Pakistanis?
Does Mexico know about this?
arguingwithsignposts
@Citizen Alan and others – I highly encourage everyone to listen to the American Radioworks documentary about the Great Textbook War in 1974.
Sadly, anti-intellectualism is nothing new.
Stillwater
FWIW, I’m willing to concede to Weigel that the deranged whackaloons who made and bought these t-shirts thought they were being ironic. But doesn’t that just prove that they’re deranged whackaloons?
And racists too, of course.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I also had the feeling that the FUBU shirt, it was without irony, because he has no clue. ZOMG these people are clueless and terrified (of exactly what they are not sure, but it’s not like them).
Zandar
Folks, when I say there are counties here in Kentucky where I significantly affect the demographic percentages by entering them, I’m not kidding. Across the river from Cincy, not so bad. 30 miles south or especially southeast of here? If I tried to walk a mile down a road in some of these places, I wouldn’t make it without having to dodge bullets.
Also, wasn’t this from last year?
Han's Solo
What nobody is talking about here is that the T Shirt was a great sale. In addition to the “I’m a racist, inbred, trailer denizen,” T Shirt it also included a second T shirt that had, “I’m with Stupid” on the front and a large red arrow pointing directly upward.
It is just another reminder that for today’s wingnuts there is a fine line between irony and truth in advertising.
ABL
@arguingatsignposts – thanks. :)
ABL
i can’t tell if they repeated the stupid from last year or not. the wonkette article doesn’t contain a link. the video in weigel’s post is from last year.
corn-fusion.
Senyordave
And you’re stupid “Yup, I’m a racist” t-shirt is going to end up on the back of some black hipster in Silverlake, and everyone will “ooh and aah” at the irony of it all.
Hopefully the black hipster will have obtained the t-shirt by prying it from the cold, dead hands of some gun-hugging wingnut.
gocart mozart
How dumb are they?
These people are so dumb . . .
Bags of hammers laugh at them behind their backs.
Jim C.
Bravo. Excellent post ABL.
If only we could get our national idiotic media to do their job and ALSO point out that these people have no idea what they’re talking about instead of being lazy “he said, she said” stenographers then we might have, I dunno, an actually educated electorate.
Of course that would require our national media to actually educate themselves on the issues and not be scared shitless that Fox will call them a part of the liberal conspiracy so maybe I need to go drink another Red Bull to wake up from my dream state a bit more.
Tsukune
Rincewind had always been happy to think of himself as a racist. The One Hundred Meters, the Mile, the Marathon — he’d run them all.
— (Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent)
Joel
Jeffrey Goldberg was right about Dave Weigel, wasn’t he?
Raka
When will the administration face its failure in tracking down and apprehending Carmen Sandiego?
different church-lady
1) Everything you need to know about the mindset/lifestyle is encapsulated by Carl, Jr.’s. When the rest of the fast food universe was trying to offer “healthy options” they decided to introduce the “Fuck Yeah, I’m a Future Cardiac Episode!” burger. Their entire marketing model is based on a terrific understanding of the emotional power “pride in your dysfunction” has over certain people. (People like my brother, for example.) Some people deal with shame by feeling ashamed. Other people deal with shame by walling it off with a fortress of pride. Either way shame is at the core of it. But the latter type tends to give the rest of us severe cases of cognitive dissonance.
2) Same phenomenon creates this.
3) Obama IS taking our freedoms away by locking us into a police surveillance state. I know this from reading diaries on Daily Kos.
Legalize
No, no. It’s not really guns. These people have been robbed of their right to not have a black president. We need look no deeper than that. The past 2 1/2 years have all about screaming about other stuff so that they didn’t actually have to admit their racism. Looks like they’re starting to throw that pretense out the window finally. By November 2012, they’ll be openly calling the president the n-word. And David Brooks will still be telling us that the “Tea Party” is only concerned with small government.
different church-lady
In the realm of corporations, any and all behavior can be justified with the statement, “We’re providing consumers with what they want.” Irony does not exist in that environment. Basically they’re just as willing to sell stars to plain bellied Sneeches as they are to remove stars from star bellied Sneeches.
Monkey Business
I want one concrete example of a right that has been rescinded during the last three Democratic Presidential Administrations. Obama, Clinton, and Carter. I don’t need one from each. Just one, total.
arguingwithsignposts
@Monkey Business – DOMA? DADT? Warrantless Wiretaps? I’m just throwing stuff out. It’s a good question.
First Name Last Name
@Zandar: I know that the video and article date back to last year, but the Teatards were at it again this year, selling the same shit yesterday(on Short St near Limestone), mostly ignored by the diverse group of people who attended the street festival. They were ironically in a tent right next to the Fayette County Democratic Party’s table. I do have pics of the racist tees myself, but they’re of the crappy cell phone kind.
Perhaps as a further bit of irony, Lexington, is perhaps the most liberal city in Kentucky (which may not be saying much), but they do have an openly gay Democratic mayor (currently the largest city in the country to have one, after Houston), an unusual large out-gay population for a city its size, and the surrounding county (Fayette) voted for Obama over McCain 61-36% in 2008.
I guess that counts for something.
…But yeah, to be honest there are some scary stupid fuckers 20 minutes outside of the city.
Jim C.
@42
Just Devil’s Advocating here since I am against all three of the examples you listed but…
1. DOMA – Gay people never had the right to get married to begin with, so this didn’t take any rights away. It’s just making it harder for rights that they SHOULD have already to be granted.
2. DADT – Gays were already explicitly barred from serving in the military when this policy when into effect. This simply said that the military wouldn’t pry anymore and gays, if they kept their mouths shut, could serve. Not the most moral and ethical argument ever (which is why this policy doesn’t exist anymore) but again, it didn’t actually take any rights away.
3. Warrantless Wiretaps – If I am remembering right, wasn’t this a part of the Patriot Act which was enacted on Bush II’s watch right after 9/11? In other words, not put in place under a Democratic president. Obama has, again if I’m remembering right, continued to claim this right with a bit of pruning each time the Patriot Act has come up for renewal, but this wasn’t done during a Democratic president.
BlizzardOfOz
ABL seems pretty dim, so it’s not surprising she missed the joke. It’s like this: if you go around calling people racist because they oppose Obama on policy grounds, then how can you respond other than with yep, I’m “racist”.
different church-lady
Jokes usually have an element of humor.
Or did you mean joke in the sense of “You’re a joke”?
Jax6655
#45 Jim C.
Yep, and I doubt the Tea Party is concerned in the LEAST about the rights of gays to serve in the military OR the right to marry.
#43 arguingwithsignposts
You made great comments earlier in this thread then went full firebagger about Dem. presidents taking rights away. WTF?
Yutsano
And once again you go and prove that conservatives just. aren’t. funny.
Did you read the rest of his statement? He agrees with the monkey over there.
lacp
As has been pointed out already, the “right” these mouth-breathers want back is the “right” to a white president. Everything else they say is bullshit.
Nellcote
White supremicists running for office in growing numbers:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/07/04/white-supremacists-running-for-political-office-in-2012-in-growing-numbers.html
Calouste
@Dave
FTFY
Tbh, I’m surprised the Tea Party hasn’t gone paramilitary yet. Being fat, stupid racists with no military experience didn’t stop the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging from doing so.
arguingwithsignposts
@jax:
What part of
is hard to understand?
b-psycho
The least bothered demographic in the U.S. has a full-blown persecution complex. Wonderful.
BTW: if the point of the shirts is supposed to be that they’re not racist, and are being called that only because of a set of policies that have nothing to do with race, it strikes me that there’s a really simple way of testing that:
Ask whoever is wearing the shirt “so…what do you think about Alabama’s immigration law?”
Warren Terra
To be sure, there is an anti-terrorism argument in favor of securing the Pakistani border. The Pakistani border with Afghanistan. Whether it’s a good argument has to do with how much importance we place on Afghanistan’s security. What any of this has to do with Mexico, I’m not entirely clear.
Jax6655
#53 arguingwithsignposts
#49 Yutsano
Thought you/he were/was actually answering his question [as a firebagger would] rather than snark which now makes sense.
sparky
hmmm some of my comments here might just might be construed as answers though i am certain that such a close-reading commentariat would never tar and feather without good reason….
/runs
rikryah
a joke?
G-T-F-O-H
Marmot
The first proposition’s truth or falsehood doesn’t affect the truth or falsehood of the others. Especially alongside such poor formatting and writing. And punctuation! OMG! Exclamation!!!!11
Brock
@Monkey Business: How about the right to get on a plane without being groped? Admittedly, airline security theater started under Bush, but it’s really been ramped up under Obama.
Tone In DC
Amen. Teh st00pid, it BURNS.
Joel
@ BlizzardOfOz
Tea party humor is so subtle! For example:
Loosely translates to “I seem pretty dim”, right? This is one of those super-sly eleventh-dimensional irony dealies, isn’t it?
different church-lady
@ Marmont (#59)
Grammar and typo obsessions are the last, and first, refuge of annoying people.
atlasfugged
I get peeved each time I read something like this, even – or perhaps especially – from liberal writers and bloggers.
Obama has not raised taxes on anyone – not the middle class, not the rich, not even the hella rich.
Despite destroying Capitalism as we know it, the evil, economically-catastrophic, and totally un-Murrican Stimulus cut everyone’s taxes – including those of the rich and corporations. The payroll tax-cuts that were passed at the end of 2010, along with the extension of the Bush Tax Cuts, affected all taxpayers. The increase in payroll taxes that are part of the PPACA (aka healthcare reform) are not scheduled to go into effect until 2014. So, Obama has not increased taxes on a single tax-paying entity in this country. Not one. Indeed, the effective federal tax rates under Obama are lower for every tax bracket than they were at any point during the Bush Administration!
Jimperson Zibb (formerly Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
Well, I’m always happy when the racist assholes have the decency to let evrybody know who they are. I keep hoping that at some point these fuckups are going to be obvious enough about who they are and what they want–and here I’m talking about pretty much the whole Republican Party from the top right on down to the bottom–that even the serious People will wake up and see what a threat they are.
I saw today that Richard “I’m a Funny Guy!” Cohen wrote a piece in the Washington Post about how the Republican Party has become a cult. If it can break through that guy’s skull, then maybe we have half a shot that the other Serious People will sit up and take note when Michele Bachmann wins the nomination next year, and point out that these people are utterly un-American. We need to find a way to marginalize these people. I don’t want Michele to use me to “prove” that liberals want to put the Heartlanders all into death camps, so I’ll clarify a bit: I don’t want to kill teabaggers and their hangers on and their sympathizers, but I do want them to end up politically marginalized and isolated so badly that nobody listens to them and the political institutions of this country don’t bother trying to get them to vote. I don’t know how likely that is, but if even Richard Cohen can see what’s going on–and it only took 30 years for him to work out what’s really happening!–then I feel more hopeful today than I have in a long, long time.
Jimperson Zibb (formerly Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
See, Brains, what you seem not to understand here is that I haven’t seen a whole lot of calling people racist for opposing Obama on policy. Maybe there has been some of that, but I can’t think that I’ve seen any; and trotting out some random Ward Churchillesque blogger nobody ever heard of won’t prove your point.
What we’ve been yelling about for the last two years and a half has been actual racists. We’re calling the racists out for being racist, not for not liking Obama’s energy policy.
Larkspur
Oh yeah, it’s tongue in cheek the same way the t-shirt that said “Dead Chicks Don’t Say No” is. They should just cut to the chase and get t-shirts that say something like “Yup, I eat my own poop”. Nobody would even have to bother with “I’m With Stupid” shirts. Nobody would wonder why everyone else goes “Eww” and edges away. Dude, you eat your own poop.
Makes me want to carry around a can of non-toxic but permanent spray paint in Blood Spatter Red. Oh no, not really, shut up, I’m being sarcastic or tongue-in-cheekish or whatever.
El Cid
I can’t wait to break out my “Ha ha I’m glad Al Qa’ida finally killed 3,000 American assholes on 9/11!”
Don Pratt
The video seems to be 2010 as this group was in another location this year.
Sadly, the activity around the booth was MUCH greater than the “liberal” group’s locations, and the material available representing their position was far greater there as well.
My message is to challenge the “liberal” groups to note the success and better it!
Thanks for showing this video and making us think!
Dr. Psycho
The last time this came up, my observation was that “Sure I’m A Racist” was indeed intended as a joke, and that people should not try to make jokes if they don’t understand what humor is.