I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
I read a much darker subtext into that.
Glenn is smart enough to get it.
The creator of the t-shirt... I'm not so sure about.
and, I presume, shoot as many pan-Africans as possible, maybe even a few queers, since the colors are also reminiscent of the gay flag.
Welcome to more and more fascism.
I thought it was more sinister than even your interpretation. I read it as "Celebrate Diversity -- kill a black person."
well, yes, i was being as charitable as possible.
An image/caption befitting a dickweed like Reynolds.
In the photo it looks like he's wearing a different shirt, where the text is solid yellow.
ok well I guess I'm going to swim against the current. At first (and second) glance, I didn't catch the anti-black subtext which Atrios proposes.
If it is indeed intended by the creator of the design, I would think it's much too subtile to be noticed by your typical gunophile, let alone a pointy-headed fancy-pants intellectual liberal like me.
Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.
S. Freud
Glenn actually has intelligent commentary on the Second Amendment, despite the gaping holes (no pun intended) in some of his arguments.
Maybe Instapoodle can be encouraged to play Russian Roulette more often.
Atrios,
You're a good writer; often my own writing would benefit from a few hours' think. He's just making a sick joke and trying to turn a truly lovely and audacious idea -- celebrate diversity -- into something ugly.
I read recently that Protestants are becoming the minority religion in American. We're going to be a more and more diverse society. We'd damn straight better learn to celebrate it.
I've seen the image before, and I can't remember if the words were in pan-African colors then, but I certainly didn't object to it following that line of thought. I was more annoyed by the attitude taken toward the concept of diversity. Not to slam Reynolds in particular, but I don't doubt that for a lot of people who wear that shirt, owning a lot of different guns is the closest they get to diversity.
So do we censor it? Call him names? We really should point it out, nod sagely, and go about our business, I think. I feel that much of the abuse of dissenters will end when a better model is available than the current Ashcroft-Cheny-Rove High Command.
The fact that the NRA came into being the same year the KKK was declared an illegal terrorist organization, and besides this the very constant relationship between racists and guns, is kind of loud--if you're aware of it. If not you just kind of think, oh, well, it's a lot of guns, it's like the celebrate diversity shirt that has all the different kinds of beer or liquor.
I think there is something significantly more sinister in that message, too. "Diversity" to Repugs is Us vs. Them. Ascribe any color, gender, orientation, religion, creed to that "them" you like.
it's like the celebrate diversity shirt that has all the different kinds of beer or liquor.
Alright! As long as it's not a shirt with a bunch of malt liquor 40s. That would be...
No I agree with Loudocracy, it says to me "kill the black, brown, yellow, red, ...". Sometimes I wonder if women and non-whites just get it, because they have encountered it so much. (You know it is tough when, as the Vatican just reminded us, God is a white male.)
There's nothing insidious about it, it's just a stupid t-shirt. The use of "African" colors parallels the cooptation of "celebrate diversity," a phrase often used by pro-black organizations. Of course, the trope of the "joke" is based on a non-sequitur but again, it's just a goddamn t-shirt.
hecate, who is like a goddess to me, here is the article you referenced.
Yes, I agree with Melanie and Loudocracy.
The subtext is much darker and the "kill a nigger because he stole your job because of affirmative action" is even there.
I think you put as charitable a spin on it as possible, Atrios, but the fact that it took you several hours to decide how to frame your thoughts on it I think is a resonable indicator of how deeply disturbing you find it.
The fact that you saw it, reacted in such a way as to say to yourself, "No, that can't be right. They can't mean THAT", and then give them the benefit of the doubt to the extent you reasonably could, well, I think that speaks volumes in and of itself.
Please forgive me as I am making assumption about your thought process and am probably completely off-base.
As if the message portrayed here, even with the most charitable interpretation, is one that needs more public advertising.
Right wingers equate guns with power.
Mao: Power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
This, the right wing endorses greatly. This is why they are always sore losers in elections.
The message I see is
"Here's what you can do with your goddamned diversity!"
There is a subtext of hate in that t-shirt.
middle,
Please do not get me started on the Vatican's latest shit on women.
Hey, the guy can wear whatever shirt he likes, but he's going to have to defend all the ugly wink-wink-nudge-nudge behind it too.
"Yeah, but for me it only represents my right to bear arms" doesn't cut too much slack, frankly.
It's like, if you know of a company whose business practices you are fully aware are unethical, and yet you patronize that business, you are tacitly endorsing what they do with your dollars.
The fact that the shirt is (I would presume) purposefully vague enough to lend itself to these ugly interpretations, would make me uncomfortable to wear it -- regardless of my stance on gun rights.
We were trying to think of a leftist parallel (in nastiness) and couldn't find one. Maybe "celebrate recycling", with an image of the destruction of one of those phallic mega-weapons their kind worship. Or the same image with the heading, "celebrate violence" or "no justice no peace". Or the same image with "black firepower's gonna get your white momma".
Sometime a cigar is just a cigar.
How about a t-shirt with "Republican Diversity" as the text--and show a bunch of grave markers?
Or "Republican Diversity" and show guns and Halliburton and Enron and dirty air and a violent Jesus and Abu Grahib and bombs falling and so forth.
Just a thought.
+++
The t-shirt celebrates guns and hints how they could be used. If it was worn in public in Toronto it would cause problems because it is a very aggressive shirt.
I read it as an anti-minority statement.
I've always marveled at humor of the right wing. Take Tucker Carlson and the "Jacuzzi Cases" line, please.
A few years ago "Rush" Limbaugh used to run a commercial for "Reginald Denneys" a restaurant where white people went to get beaten up.
Har Har...
Now the real subtext of this ad seemed that it was mocking the Black secret service agents who were denied service at the time.
Conservatives can be caustic bastards.
It would be interesting to do a retrospective on the Humor of the Third Reich...not that I would ever want to associate Glenn with Nazis.
who is Reynolds?
Instapundit frequently puts on way more offensive stuff on his site (such as writing "Michael Moore's work is the Turner Diaries of the left, and it's likely to have a similar consequence"), yet we're talking about a T-shirt?? Oy, indeed.
Instaloser is just that, but this one is essentially harmless. One could draw the 'kill Africans' inference, but that's a stretch. These guys are racists and all that, but the point of the T-Shirt is pro-gun rights, and anti-diversity-type legislation, nothing else.
I've actually become a big supporter of the pro-guns movement. This country, in general, is just too damn stupid - too damn susceptible to fascism - we're very close right now. One grand attack and it could be all over. Franks or the other jerk has already talked about Martial law being implemented in the face of another 9/11. Methinks it'll take a *lot* less than 9/11 to lock us down with martial law. I certainly believe that, and if you don't, I'm worried for all of us. [@see Reichstag Fire]
The point of the 2nd Amendment was to put one crucial check into the hands of the American people - that's my take, b/c that's what i heard, and it makes sense to me (anyone else know of a better explanation?). Don't think for a minute that this check doesn't matter to people like Bushco - it does - nobody wants to get shot.
As we learned from Michael Moore's previous flick, Canada has a lot more guns, but a lot less crime. The answer to decreased gun violence has a lot less to do with guns and a lot more to do with the love of violence that we Americans have, and permit. I walked out of the 'PG' Spider-man 2 movie during the horrificly-violent hospital scene when Doc was becoming Doc-Ock. That movie, to me, deserved AT LEAST an 'R' rating, if not more restrictive. One guy walked out with his young daughter just before I did.
We need guns, and when the technology permits, we're gonna need automatic guns, or automatic tasers, or whatever. If Bushco wants to become the next Hitler, he's gonna have to answer Mr. Colt - which I don't own *yet*, but I may soon. I'm tired of being scared of some black van screaching up to my front door, with me being defenseless. F that. Come and get me aholes, but first, say hello to my leetle friend!
live by the snark
die by the snark
Instabobo is nothing but
self important self entitled
clueless lawyer
he is the epitome of the empty
suit (or in this case T shirt)
The only person who would wear this shirt is, quite literally, a racist piece of shit. I'm not a gun control absolutist, I think a lot of gun control advocates are living in Lalaland, basically agree with Howard Dean that it's an issue that has different meaning in different states and cities and should be dealt with as such beyond assault weapons, etc. , I grew up with guns and enjoy the shooting range. But this shirt is racist propaganda on par with white hoods and swastikas. It's actually more insidious because it masquerades as satire. Reynolds is nothing more or less than a racist goon promoting hate crimes .
purposefully vague enough to lend itself to these ugly interpretations
This is the "mystery religion" rightists have instead of an ideology, using coded phrases to let racists and religionists and Rand-followers think they're in without revealing too much to the outsiders.
Cf Richard Nixon's woman walking home through a dark street commercial, law and order, etc: he never said anything about the darkies burning down Watts, noe did he? Or the fact that Bush I never said anything directly about Willie Horton, or that Bush II using almost exactly the same dodges never actually expressly said that Iraq was the main and only force behind IX/XI.
i'm not particularly anti-gun. I think gun fetishists are silly, and generally believe fewer guns would be a good thing, but gun control legislation ain't my bag baby...
There is no doubt that this shirt has a wink-and-nudge racist message behind it, and I think any right-winger would get it. The message is: the response to ethnic diversity is firearm diversity. It's as clear as day people.
The evil Glenn. See if I posted using my given name, I'd be rather offended reading this post.
Peter:That's a poor way to defend yourself, namely because you can't hope to well..live through it. You just can't compete.
The problem isn't the guns anyway. The problem is the gun culture, the culture of fear and selfishness. I got mine so fuck you and yours mentality.
As for looking for the type of leftist nastiness, you're not really going to find it. The worst you'll find is wanting Bush to stand trial for warcrimes.
Maybe extreme, but not really violent.
And, you have to ask yourself, what's WRONG with diversity? Why do they hate it so much? It's good to diversify your portfolio. In any ecosystem, diversity is a good thing. In any situation you can think of, diversity helps avoid the problems that come from overspecilization. So why would you wear a t shirt that basically advocates killing diversity?
Peter, as my neighbor out here in rural NY state put it, they have bigger guns than we do. What good are guns gonna do?
If you think that somehow all the gun-owners are going to successfully revolt against martial law, you are even loonier than your last paragraph indicates.
Don't call him racist. He'll pull out the old line "My sister in law is African" routine, which of course is a show stopper.
I sometimes wonder if something is wrong with me because I'm not afraid.
How can 19 guys and a couple thousands ghosts bring America to its knees?
As Tom Ridge says "America, You're Yellow!"
Well, I'm all for every American owning a variety of guns. And you can never have too much ammunition. Democrats being gunless only means the Republicans will have all the guns.
On a lighter note, here's a fun comic on the history of american imperialism:
http://tinyurl.com/4lf8w
Enjoy!
"The message is: the response to ethnic diversity is firearm diversity. It's as clear as day people."
NJL 08.03.04 - 10:17 pm
clear, concise, to the point,
needed to be repeated.Thanks, NJL
I was originally from the South. I know what the "shared values" Bush is always refering to are. They are the tradiotional values of Southern whites.
Look at the asshole running as a Republican in Tennessee for Congress in the Republican primary unopposed, James L. Hart. From kos...
"...He is an unapologetic supporter of eugenics, the phony science that resulted in thousands of sterilizations in an attempt to purify the white race. He believes the country will look "like one big Detroit" if it doesn't eliminate welfare and immigration. He believes that if blacks were integrated centuries ago, the automobile never would have been invented...."
Look at the testimony from Pvt. England's trial.... Asked if he had determined why the U.S. soldiers had abused the prisoners, Arthur said: "Basically it was just for fun ... and to vent their frustration."
Beating Iraqis for fun.
There is no further need to play around with terminology. Neo-cons are a bunch of bigots.
kei & yuri,
Good point re: KKK - NRA connection. I'd forgotten that.
With all due respect, it's not just a "damn t-shirt." It is a subtle (and not so subtle) coopting of ideas, and it serves to weaken the original import and intent of a "beautiful and audacious idea," as Hecate noted. It works to undermine the idea of the celebration of diversity through the ellision of irrelevant "correlates." No one is seriously concerned with the "value," say, of the diversity of beers. Human diversity, though, is highly valued, highly important, and, sadly, highly contested by those who would seek to provoke w/ incendiary shit like the "rasta" flavor colors of this t-shirt's slogan. That color scheme is neither random, nor innocent.
To the "anti-fascism" argument for uncontrolled guns:
Your pappy's shotgun is going to stop the stormtroopers? Okay. You take your pappy's shotgun, unlimited ammo, and pick your territory: we'll take the glories of a modern mechanized army. You won't make it past the first helicopter. You won't make it past infantry tactics the Germans came up in the freaking First World War. No guerilla force has ever done that well, none lasts without large popular support and a steady supply stream, and nothing you can stockpile or sneak out of a gun show can face a properly trained and supported infantry team.
And the fact that you're holding a gun will guarantee your death, as opposed to the adult resistance, which will be trying to stay alive.
I agree with brucds. Reynolds clueless? I don't think so.
Gee, I had pictured him more as a big sloppy BO-smelling balding beer-bellied drunk. How disappointing.
Sorry, but the message of that hideous shirt is pretty clear to me. If it had been beer, I would have thought, ha! Cute! Be diverse in your choice of getting drunk. This is guns, though. And not just guns, hand guns. Be diverse in your choice of killing.
And don't think these miserable, twisted wingnuts don't know EXACTLY what it means. They do. It's code for them, like "state's rights."
Just a shirt: and copkiller was just an album. Or: let a black kid wear a shirt talking about "no justice no peace", let an Asian wear something less than perspicacious regarding intellectual property rights, let a Mexican wear something about "taking back" the land from California to Colorado...
I agree completely with Peter. All I see in this T-shirt is a pro-gun message mocking a classic liberal slogan. The African colors pop up because celebrating diversity goes hand in hand with celebrating your true African heritage and Kwanzaa and yada yada yada. It's just a joke, like the "gun control means using two hands" bumper stickers.
You can read a deeper message of hate and intolerance, sure. You can also believe that Arnold was bashing gays when he made the 'girly-man' comment. I don't think either of those are likely.
I thought Glenn was urging us to buy an assortment of guns, go to Africa and shoot as many blacks as possible. The subtext was crystal clear to me and I'm outraged. How do they get away with this!?
Forgive the OT, but no place else to put it ...
Howard Dean is doing very well on CNBC right now. He's on John McEnroe's new show. Very relaxed, and a sympathetic host and audience. He's doing the post-mortem on his campaign - very interesting.
Just for fun, I blew up Glenn's picture 400%. He looks like he's trying to look scary and mean, or something. Sad.
The t-shirt, and the entire website, are indicative of mental illness.
.
Mike,
STFU
I might point out that the big problem today isn't a few t-shirts. The big problem is the Republican National Committee is turning over heaven and earth to find a candidate to beat a promising black man in Illinois, and did absolutely nothing to find competition to run against an avowed white eugenicist running for Congress unopposed in a Republican Primary in Tennessee.
Why on earth would anyone think that shirt is a joke, when right below is the Ann Coulter shirt, which is just as bad. Instapundit is an ass for promoting the shirt and its "deeper meaning", and that's that.
Just for fun, I blew up Glenn's picture 400%. He looks like he's trying to look scary and mean, or something. Sad.
The t-shirt, and the entire website, are indicative of mental illness.
.
fibo
STFU
I actually saw someone wearing that shirt last night in West Oakland. Someone who happened to African-American. I must say that, in that context, I thought the shirt was fucking phat.
and, let's be honest- Reynolds looks like a nazi psycho in that picture.
Um- where is all the talk about Sibel Edmonds' latest volley? Pretty heavy stuff I'd think, but no comments here or on Kos (unless I missed them).
The racist subtext is obvious. The word "diversity" is this case is right wing code --- poor bastards just can't say what they really mean any more -- ni**er, g**k and sp*c -- without most of society finding them disgusting. So, they hide behind other words and cackle derisively when they say them.
This one is actually quite clever --- it gives them the patented wingnut "who me?" by allowing them to say they are celebrating their love of guns while tweaking the PC police at the same time. But, everybody knows what it really means --- even a law professor from Tennessee can figure it out. It's an unfunny joke about killing racial minorities, particularly blacks. Typical bully boy crapola.
I invite Instapundit or anyone else who finds the shirt amusing to don it proudly on the streets of East LA, the Tenderloin, Gary, IN, Detroit or DC (away from the Capitol, of course), especially around 2am.
Or wear it to an inner-city church some Sunday where people have friends or relatives who were killed by gun violence.
Or, wear it to a trauma center ER and show it proudly to the doctors and nurses who deal with victims of gun violence.
Wear it to a Boys and Girls Club where people are working to keep kids off the streets, out of gangs and away from guns and violence.
Go ahead - do it. If the shirt's so badass and funny, I'm sure you'll bring down the house.
I am embarassed just reading this thread. Or maybe this is a gag? That must be it. Just a shirt folks, lol.
OT: Pakistan Lets Taliban Train, Prisoner Says
The prisoner, who gave his name as Muhammad Sohail, is a 17-year-old from the Pakistani port city of Karachi, held by the Afghan authorities in Kabul. In an interview in late July, in front of several prison guards, he said Pakistan was allowing militant groups to train and organize insurgents to fight in Afghanistan. Mr. Sohail said he hoped that granting the interview would increase his chances of being freed. Mr. Sohail described his recruitment through his local mosque by a group listed by the United States as having terrorist links, his military training in a camp not far from the capital, Islamabad, and his dispatch with several other Pakistanis to Afghanistan.
He did not give all the details that intelligence officials said they gleaned from him in interrogations, but he talked easily about his party and its leaders, and said they had high-level support from within the establishment. He said he was recruited and trained within the past eight months by Jamiat-ul-Ansar, the new name for the Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen party, which was designated a terrorist group by the State Department and banned by President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan in January 2002. Under its new name it is functioning, if more discreetly, and its leader, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, moves around freely.
But but but but, Pakistan is our ally! They fight terror just like Saudi Arabia does! Bush says so!
Heh.
Jonah Goldberg also likes that T shirt:
http://www.nationalreview.com/
go...00403100940.asp
I'll be honest. I didn't see a racist subtext in the sense of "Arm yourself and go kill nonwhites." What I did see was a very bad joke trying to co-opt a very noble idea. I saw it as showing enthusiasm for guns along with contempt for "celebrating diversity."
Sorta o/t:
Can anyone explain to me the T-shirt on that site that says "A realistic plan for world peace: Nuke the Moon"?
Is there a joke (or even an attempt at one) that I'm missing? I just don't get it.
And if you have to explain the joke, then I'm sorry T-shirt designer person, but it ain't funny. I guess I'm just a humourless leftist!
I don't know if anybody remebers this incident...
Just before Christmas in 2002, a white lawyer and his son were arrested in a mall for refusing to remove t-shirt that they had made at a shop in the mall minutes earlier.
The son's t-shirt had "Give Peace A Chance" in black letters on the front and the father's t-shirt had similar lettering bearing the message, "Let There Be Peace On Earth".
Mall security approached them and demanded that they remove their t-shirts, leave the mall or face arrest.
They both refused to remove their t-shirt or leave the mall and were subsequently arrested on charges of trespassing.
That mall is where I live.
Can you imagine if a person of color wore anything remotely controversial?
Not that many black folks in eastern Tennessee, of course. (Western NC is also pretty darn white, too.) Knoxville may have a decent-sized black and Hispanic population, but get outside Knoxville and head out towards Johnson City, and you're in the land of the pale and blotchy. (Although Johnson City is surprisingly gay-friendly.)
But who would have thought that the use of innuendo to highlight nasty ideas with plausible deniability was the domain of 'Professor' Reynolds?
Wow, I completely fail to be surprised.
Peter,
STFU
Obviously, I don't live in the mall.
Please read, "That mall is in the area in which I reside.
fibo
STFU
Hecate
I posted my opinion, politely, and explaining my reasoning. If the appropriate response to an attempt at polite disagreement is vulgarity, fair enough. I'll remember that in future.
I agree that it's offensive in the sense of mocking diversity. What's wrong with that? What are they sticking up for instead... a segregated, white-dominant America?
Since I am a white male, that would certainly be in my interest, but no thanks.
But I just don't see the racist subtext in that shirt.
I invite Instapundit or anyone else who finds the shirt amusing...
Stinky
Stinky, I invite you to pull your head out of your ass.
I read it the same way you do, Atrios, and it is intended to be read that way, I think. It's really ugly.
This is that stupid, ugly, racist joke the guy in the office tells you because he thinks you're like him because you're a straight white male.
Does that mean the guy who tells the joke, or wears the T-shirt, is a stupid, ugly, racist?
Of course it does.
And Pundit Reynolds taught his daughter to use the phrase girly boy
long before the recent schwarzenegger flap. It was a way of describing sissies.
Yes he is a really charming guy. NOT
What is this persistent fantasy about "just a joke"? How is a nod to the bigots and racists funny in any way? Why should we not be diligent in exposing their most insidious tactics? Oh, haha, we're all jolly and laughing along, wink wink; meanwhile, back in the 'hood, 10-yr-olds can't play outside and have to watch their friends being shot because of the "diversity" of handguns in their neighborhoods. Real fucking funny.
Yeah, I see the white man that's been put-upon-by-affirmative-action thing going on with that shirt. It says: "I'm a god-fearing, conservative white male getting victimized by the system, but I'm still red-blooded, lovin' my guns. Heh."
More chickenshit, pity-party, loser b.s. than anything truly threatening...
But it's not a funny joke. And it does have a violent racist subtext.
You know, kids carried guns to school all the time, back before desegregation. They'd put em in their lockers and take em out for after school rifle club.
With all due respect, it's not just a "damn t-shirt." It is a subtle (and not so subtle) coopting of ideas, and it serves to weaken the original import and intent of a "beautiful and audacious idea," as Hecate noted. It works to undermine the idea of the celebration of diversity through the ellision of irrelevant "correlates." No one is seriously concerned with the "value," say, of the diversity of beers. Human diversity, though, is highly valued, highly important, and, sadly, highly contested by those who would seek to provoke w/ incendiary shit like the "rasta" flavor colors of this t-shirt's slogan. That color scheme is neither random, nor innocent.
Another equally probable interpretation is that the intention behind the t-shirt is to expose the "progressive" agenda as standing on empty rhetoric. That is, the t-shirt's tacit claim is that the progressive rally cry of "celebrate diversity" is in fact code for "celebrate black people," the latter being a direct contradiction of its proponents' purported message. In other words, the t-shirt alleges that there is nothing diverse about those who claim to support diversity. Indeed, the t-shirt's picture of various gun types glibly implies that even this sort of nominal diversity is more meaningful than the one ridiculed by the text below it.
Seriously, as this thread wears on you guys are just outdoing each other for who can come up with the best reductio ad absurdum of the "it's racist" interpretation.
I live in Reybolds' state and quite a few times I have thought about driving to East Tennessee (about 3 + hours away), finding Reynolds and just asking him what the hell he's thinking.
This strikes me a lazy, thoughtless kind of racism. A guy like Reynolds knows exactly how it comes off but he probably wants to look disdainful of those old silly ole liberal Political Correctness. A faux rebel, who can't be bothered doing any heavy lifting. On short, just another callous smug, white, conservative SOB. (And a personal opinion note - I will always find conservatives hard to take seriously as long as they embrace idiots like this guy.)
I admit I say this based on limited info. I've read his awful blog and we've had an e-mail exchange. He was polite enough but totally dismissive of what I had to say.
He's one of the most sanctimonious summbitches I've ever seen in my life. His head has been up Bush's ass so long when Dubya sneezes, he flies across the room. I hate that he's from my state.
This is the most ridiculous thread I have ever seen. It's a stupid fucking t-shirt with a not so clever logo. How you pull racism out of this is beyond. Get a grip people.
Let's say there is no intentional double entendre. It remains undeniable that there is a history of racist "coding" and that this shirt just happens to fit neatly right into that tradition. Could a black liberal leader get away with such a coincidence, say, a careless remark interpreted to be about Jewish slumlords who interpret the lessons of intolerance as pertaining only to them?
Jonah Goldberg also likes that T shirt:
Wow. Pudgy white guys of the world unite.
As I write this, I am wearing a t-shirt that says on the back, in various rasta-marijuana hues of green, yellow, and red: "Celebrate Diversity." Accompanying these secular holy words are pictures of dozens of different handguns...
Now, the pan-African red, gold and green has a somewhat more nuanced heritage, but we would expect the Spawn of Lucianne to know that, would we?
There is definitely a subtext, I think Atrios put it well. Its an evil, racist subtext.
A bit of rambling, because I thought the picture of those guns was pretty cool, without the subtext. I dunno, just want to offer a view that isn't so typical of liberals, of which I am one.
Now I'm a cornfed hick from the heartland. Educated, with some progressive and some extremely liberal values. (And I am voting for Kerry.)
Total gun control ain't one of them. Well yea sure, we don't need AK-47's for sale or other automatic weapons, they only have one use, and thats slaughtering other people. I and other well-intentioned gun owners, have zero use for them. Don't need 'em at all. What I need/use is a shotgun, a rifle, and someday a handgun. Purely for sport, and god (small G) forbid it ever occurs, for self-defense. The former two are for hunting and the latter because its my right as guaranteed by the 2nd amendment. (Theres a reason the 2nd amendment is there folks, and it ain't for decoration. There's also a reason it was #2 instead of #10. Right after freedom of speech, religion, assembly, etc.) Plus I like the designs of the newer handguns. Really awesome.
Heres the thing. I *know* what guns are, what they are used for, how to use them, how *dangerous* they are -- I respect and fear them, in a *biblical* sense (heh I loathe Christianity, so pardon the term). The problem is, there isn't enough respect and responsibility to have guns in our popular culture. In the culture I grew up in? Hell yes.
Do I trust guns in the hands of someone (like myself) who was taught to use/respect/fear guns in a mature fashion? Hell yes.
Do I trust guns in the hands of suburban/urban punks with zero understanding of cause-and-effect because they've seen too many violent movies, played too many violent games, whose entire worldview has been shaped by the unreality that is modern media?
Hell no.
Its a troubling question. Everyone in the rural area I grew up in loved, feared and respected guns.
I don't get that sense from the majority of where America lives now though.
I dunno. I like guns, but I don't like them in the hands of people who don't have a clue about respecting humanity.
Blah. Sorry for the ramble. Got off on a tangent.
Mike: "You know, kids carried guns to school all the time, back before desegregation. They'd put em in their lockers and take em out for after school rifle club."
Mike, why don't you tell us all your tales of the golden days of segregation. Please. Go Ahead. We're all dying to hear it.
elaine> Right wingers equate guns with power.
Close, very close. Wingnuts fetishize their firearms, which is not the same as equating. It isn't the guns that empower the wingnuts; it's the metaphor that the gun represents that they find empowering. Look at how much imaginary power they irrationally invest in their firearms.
Professionals never confuse their weapons with their sexual identity. It's the amateurs you have to worry about. They're the ones that get all confused about what it means to be the guy with the gun in his hands.
And Peter: get therapy. (Here's a free tip to hold you over. Given standard force multipliers, it would take at least 7,000 troops just to pacify San Francisco, CA, and what are they going to do about Oakland and San Jose? They'd need close to 300,000 just to keep and hold California. There just aren't enough hillbillies in all of Redneckistan for you to need to start your own armory now. And if it ever does get that bad, you will have no trouble finding guns and ammunition. None. In fact, somebody will probably issue you one without you even having to ask. Crew-serviced weapons systems, on the other hand... In the meantime, find a way to relax.)
Remember, all the fun subtextual analysis of this t-shirt has absolutely nothing to do with ourselves projecting our neurosis onto the t-shirt maker. Keep that in mind.
OT: Barlow suggests would-be GOP convention protestors should just launch an all-out week-long celebration in the streets. No politics at all. It would draw media attention and just weird folks out. And that's the first step to enlightenment. Barlow at: http://tinyurl.com/5b8ny
I just don't get Instapundit. He's a snarkly link whore. I'm not sure why he's so popular. I think we should just ignore him.
He's one of those smart racists who have taken their weird views to the logical extreme and become ugly.
the empty agenda of diversity? So, self-described libertarians don't arne't fans of diversity?
Conservatarianism - Free to be Just Like me!
There is definitely a subtext, I think Atrios put it well. Its an evil, racist subtext.
You know, this thread has a subtext. It's an assinine, hysterical subtext.
Never misunderestimate the stupidity of powerless angry white men. They are mostly the ones who buy crap like this.
Well, I can't help but notice that there really are a bunch of libertarians who honestly do not get that connection between racism and the GOP and NRA. They simply don't see it. They will deny it at every turn. Racism in America is dead, and you can't possibly think anyone would like this shirt for that reason. No no no. I hear it's a river in Egypt.
Reynolds is an asshole. It's just that simple.
American proverb from a hundred years in the future:
"Shit on a black man and complain that he keeps moving, fail to open the door for a Jew and get sued."
There's stuff people can get away with and stuff that you can't get away with, and this has everything to do with money. Thus sincere, seriously regarded discussions about black cultural pathology, and not Irish or Sicilian cultural pathology.
There is no other way to interpet this shirt but as a double entendre. In fact when I first saw it I didn't catch the diversity of the different guns angle. I just took it to mean celebrate diversity by gunning down people who are different than you.
This strikes me a lazy, thoughtless kind of racism.
I think of the racism in the image as being like a graphical freudian slip for the wearers. They may not even be able to see the racism in it for what it is. Instead they are fixated with the faux rebelliousness of flouting the so-called PC. It's real cowardly toady stuff. The mindset of someone who finds this sort of thing funny? They would have to be excessively fearful and defensive; maybe even have a persecution complex.
Kinda like the brownshirts who had to have a gang and a fuhrer to tell them what to do, or the homophobe preachers who fixate on the sexual acts they dare not admit they want to perform.
Jesus, Anonymous, how pretzeled did you have to get to come up with this logic?
"...the t-shirt alleges that there is nothing diverse about those who claim to support diversity."
Man, that's some wishful thinking about the philosophical nuance of our T-shirt designer, isn't it?
Um.
Reynolds is an apologist for the fascist war criminal in the White House.
Whatever else he may think or say seems to pale in comparison.
My position on gun control, as an expat from Foreignland. If there's no gun culture, there's no need to establish one by loosening existing laws. If there is a gun culture, then use the law and soft power to encourage a bit of fucking responsibility. I don't mind the Swiss model, where they issue every adult male an assault rifle and a case of ammo, and put him through six weeks' militia training, with annual refreshers.
Meeting the husband of Mrs Anon's co-worker, and getting to see his collection of rifles -- some of which, frankly, I only recognised from playing Counter-Strike -- was just a little bit disturbing. But most gun owners from the rural South aren't as pig-shit ignorant or as irresponsible as a fuckwit like Reynolds.
Jesus Christ, what kind of hypersensitive, nitpicking sissy could even begin to get upset over that shirt. This has got to be one of the stupidest threads I have ever seen on this site. For Petes sake, there is no "sinister subtext", it's all in you guys pointy little heads. Now get over it, and find something real to bitch about.
Man, that's some wishful thinking about the philosophical nuance of our T-shirt designer, isn't it?
As wishful as the thinking that generated the "it's racist" interpretation to which I was responding, which was my point.
Look, I think it's a stupid t-shirt, I'd rather go naked than wear it, but you people are investing it with far more complexity and significance than it deserves. It's laughably picayune.
"Stinky, I invite you to pull your head out of your ass."
Smelly
Um, I happen to be a "librul" AND a gun owner, Smelly.
But then, I don't find the shirt funny. If you do, why not wear it in a tough inner city neighborhood? Or why not show up at an after school program where people are making minimum wage to keep at-risk youth away from gangs and guns? Or wear it to a church where people have buried a young community member killed by a bullet? Or wear it to a trauma center ER/public hospital where doctors and nurses treat kids shot to hell?
If you don't grasp why the shirt isn't funny, I guarantee, you'll figure it out pretty quick. Dumbass.
bannedman:
You miss my point. Incorporating diversity lowers liberty.
A people live by laws and customs. Accepting diversity requires adding laws to reconcile different customs. Infinite diversity would require infinite laws (or some Star-Trek-like universally acceptable behavoirs).
Certainly, many more people are now better off because of desegration, civil rights bill, etc. A different, smaller set of people now have less influence then they did then.
Maybe voting comes down to how you want your parasites. Vote conservative and get humongous war-starting parasites, or vote liberal and get millions of tiny parasites (in addition to a major surviving group of the humongous parasites, which are still capable of starting wars).
Time for Stewart...
Heh anonymous, theres a serious subtext there. You're a fucking idiot if you don't realize it.
I say this as a proud gun owner and vocal supporter of the 2nd Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
Fuck you btw.
I'm not wanting to be smarty-pantsed or anything like that, but we in Australia just banned handhelds and automatics, long ago. There was a stink. The farmers were up in arms (although not the general "I just want to defend myself and my home" city folk).
90% of Australians were in favour. It is the one thing that our hopeless Bush-hugging government has done that I totally agree with and support.
Sure, the criminals have guns, as do police and some security guards. Farmers kept their non-automatic weapons, too. There are some gun deaths, very occasionally of innocent bystanders, as there has been an influx of cheap Chinese pistols getting into the hand of drug gangs.
But on the whole our gun death statistics are way down on what they were before the ban (and even then they were low). The ban was triggered by a mass murder by a psychopath with an automatic rifle. He killed 35 people at a tourist resort. No one knows why. As a result there was genuine, national revulsion against gun culture, across the board: ethnic, economic, demographic and class.
It was a defining moment for our country: would we make excuses, spout platitudes, seek loopholes, lobby politicians, ytote bumper stickers? Yes, there was some of this, but too little to really influence government. I was proud on the day the states and federal legislatures passed enabling legislation to turn us away from a gun culture to a civilised culture.
The guns were bought back by the government and melted down for scrap.
You could do the same there, exvcept I think there's a deep, underlying, almost genetic streak of violence in your society, coupled with a Puritan self-righteousness that - even on the left - leads you to believe in your bones that the right to kill is inalienable, or at least sufficiently arguable as to be untouchable to all but the utterly determined (of which there are few in any society).
The truth is that only Americans see themselves in this way. The rest of the world sees the truth, but your press, your corrupt politicians and your own hubris, married to a lack of resolve to go and hunt down the truth continually defeat you.
Um, I happen to be a "librul" AND a gun owner, Smelly.
But then, I don't find the shirt funny. If you do, why not we--
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz...
And I'm a liberal.
Fuck you doubly.
well, the only good thing is that racists who wear t-shirts to that effect are easier to pick out of a crowd. It's the sneaky racists that are REALLY scary.
On the post above, where the poster is pro-guns because people in this country are stupid and susceptible to fascism... now THAT isn't comforting at all. Because it's mostly the stupid ones with the guns in the first place.
Anonymous,
I humbly suggest Occam's Razor in considering the message of this, let's face it, racist t-shirt.
Which is more likely?
A) Bald appeal to disenfranchised and much put-upon NRA white guy? (If it's not blacks, it's feminists...it's gays....it's....?)
B) Contorted mental gymnastics which posit that this is a highly nuanced argument for the emptiness of progressive rhetoric?
Frankly, I think it's a bald attempt to push the buttons of the victimized white guy surrounded by uppity types, and, lookie here!, there's the solution right there in his hands. Hey, white guys have diversity, too.
Charming.
"Jesus Christ, what kind of hypersensitive, nitpicking sissy could even begin to get upset over that shirt. This has got to be one of the stupidest threads I have ever seen on this site. For Petes sake, there is no "sinister subtext", it's all in you guys pointy little heads. Now get over it, and find something real to bitch about."
Anonymous
I notice you're so sure of your opinion that you refused to give your name. You're real brave when you're hiding lobbing grenades with no identity attached to the grenades.
Some of you folks are grasping at straws. I'm a registered democrat and self-proclaimed libreral. But news flash: there are folks in this country who don't think in lock-step fasion with folks who frequent this site. I read Glenn's site daily (as I read Atrios daily) because I'm interested in and willing to entertain a range of views on the more pressing issues of the day. The characterizations of Glenn as a guy who wants to kill African Americans are just plain stupid. Grow up.
sheer violent ignorance...that's what this shirt represents.
The stupidity this thread has subjected me too is so irritating that I have decided there is only one way to level the score. I'm buying one of those t-shirts for each of my three children, ages 4, 5 and 7. I'm going to have them wear their shirts daily for the next three months. Aaaahh, sweet revenge.
Jeebus, what a cunt Malkin is:
http://michellemalkin.com/archiv...ives/
000166.htm
Anonymous,
Celebrate Diversity in African colors is racial. Make a stupid joke about that with handguns (many of which I've fired, BTW) and it's racist. I don't think it rises to anything over the stupid racist joke you hear from your stupid racist brother-in-law, but that doesn't mean it's not racist.
cornfed hick, I didn't think your post was rambling at all. In fact, it made perfect sense to me.
It's not guns per se that are the problem, I think; it's the idiots who think guns are toys, or ways to prove their manhood, or whatever other bizarre rationalizations they have.
I think that was part of Michael Moore's point in Bowling for Columbine.
The characterizations of Glenn as a guy who wants to kill African Americans are just plain stupid. Grow up.
Oat
Which characterizations?
Oh, the ones in your own mind. Got it.
OK, I didn't read all the posts, but this subtext idea is just BS. A joke has a punch line, and the punch line is not a subtext, it what the joke is all about. The joke here is Celebrate Diversity by Arming Yourself, which is only funny to those who feel threatened by the 'diversity'. Atrios, and others; you are being way to generous about the shirt, about Reynolds motivation, I don't know.
Hate is a way of life for some people. The only consolation we can have is that they are ruining their health so that they will soon have lost all of that energy and won't bother humanity too much longer.
"I'm going to have them wear their shirts daily for the next three months. Aaaahh, sweet revenge."
Anonymous
Wear the shirt to an inner city neighborhood. Take your kids. And enjoy your "revenge". Pussy.
For the love of God, Oat. Take another peek at this thread. Read carefully. No one is saying "Glenn wants to kill black people."
Sigh.
You miss my point. Incorporating diversity lowers liberty.
Diversity = reality.
Someday, when I'm not so busy, I'll explain to you the difference between parasitism and symbiosis.
And maybe I'll throw in a brief course on mathematical ratios.
And valid inference.
Which characterizations?
Oh, the ones in your own mind. Got it.
Philalethes
Oh boy, the thread just got worse. Goodnight all.
mind the Swiss model, where they issue every adult male an assault rifle and a case of ammo, and
Goddess guard us. Now I am going to get drunk.
Philaletes,
Read the thread first. Then comment.
Someday, when I'm not so busy...
Philalethes
LMFAO. So busy you have hours to spend boring us to death daily? You're too funny bro.
LOL!!!!!
This is an issue with you clowns??? I love seeing you nitwits getting steamed up over trivial crap like this. Hell, I know two people with that shirt and they are both Democrats! As far as they are concerned, it's morons like you guys that makes it hard for Democrats to be taken seriously by regular people. This is just to silly to believe.
hahahahaaaaa
Stinky, what was the last time you've been to an inner city neighborhood? Noone there is going to give a fuck about that t-shirt. You are so fucking clueless. Get out of whitelandia once in a while chump.
Hey, maybe it's just me, but I think I prefer to err on the side of the folks celebrating diversity, not deriding it. The haters can shove it. They can go Cheney themselves with their handguns and appeals to homogeneity. Tiresome, and, ultimately, ruinous.
This defense of diversity "stupid"? Wow.
Has Instafuckwit linked to this already? I'm not going to bother looking, but the infestation of trolls suggests it's a fair possiblity...
Thug,
I believe you when you say this is trivial, but I don't believe you when you say you know Democrats.
No self-respecting ones, anyway.
Stinky writes
"Wear the shirt to an inner city neighborhood. Take your kids. And enjoy your "revenge". Pussy."
Translation: inner city folks will react negatively to the sight of children wearing such shirts.
Fact for Stinky: seen the shirt in West Oakland, near US Mail Distribution Center (near 7th and Peralta). Worn by black male. He was treated respectfully by other African-Americans and whites. I, in fact, chuckled.
Conclusion: shirt is not racist. Shirt is a joke at the expense of a worn-out liberal slogan which I (a lifelong Democrat and "Bush-hater") also have grown tired of.
Conclusion 2: Perhaps Stunt Woman was right.
I read the thead, and here is some of what I saw:
Zepper wrote: "and, I presume, shoot as many pan-Africans as possible, maybe even a few queers, since the colors are also reminiscent of the gay flag."
Loudocracy wrote: "I read it as "Celebrate Diversity -- kill a black person."
middleoftheroad wrote, "No I agree with Loudocracy, it says to me "kill the black, brown, yellow, red, ...".
genoasail wrote, "The subtext is much darker and the "kill a nigger because he stole your job because of affirmative action" is even there."
Philalethes! Welcome. I've been missing you.
Shove it, Oat.
Anonymous,
I humbly suggest Occam's Razor in considering the message of this, let's face it, racist t-shirt.
Which is more likely?
A) Bald appeal to disenfranchised and much put-upon NRA white guy? (If it's not blacks, it's feminists...it's gays....it's....?)
B) Contorted mental gymnastics which posit that this is a highly nuanced argument for the emptiness of progressive rhetoric?
Frankly, I think it's a bald attempt to push the buttons of the victimized white guy surrounded by uppity types, and, lookie here!, there's the solution right there in his hands. Hey, white guys have diversity, too.
Charming
You've outlined a false dilemma. I don't think either interpretation is more likely than the other because I think both are pretty ridiculous. To try to construct some meaningful gestalt out of this poorly conceived idea for a t-shirt is a fruitless exercise.
At any rate, to assert that one interpetation is more likely than the other because no mere t-shirt creator could be as subtly subversive as I posited simply begs the question. You've already made up your mind that this t-shirt is the by-product of some inbred racist's pathetic attempt at wit, hence you deem my interpretation improbable.
/not the same Anonymous as my more abrasive namesake.
"Someday, when I'm not so busy...
Philalethes"
But Philathetes is never to busy to accuse someone whose friend is fighting cancer of being a psychotic liar merely because that someone disagreed with Philathetes about moveon.org's ill-advised promotion of a Hollywood disaster movie.
Atrios, good shorter Marlo Thomas re: the anti-diversity folks. Free to Be Just Like Me, indeed!
Thug:n"LOL!!!!!
This is an issue with you clowns???"
It is an issue in the context that we are seeing A Republican white supremicist eugenicist getting the GOP nomination for a congressional race, we have troops saying they torture "brown" people for fun, and we have the person pictured in the t-shirt defending WW2 Japanese internment camps on his blog earlier in the day.
Just the t-shirt might not have drawn attention. That picture among all the other stuff I mention makes the context of the picture much more clear.
Katie wrote, "Shove it, Oat."
I guess that's an available recourse for someone who's just been shown she doesn't know what she's talking about.
Bannedman, you forgot to mention that Instapundit prefers bagels to grits.
"I don't see the racist subtext in the shirt"
WTF?
Okay, maybe you at least see the multicultural theme being threatened?
Someone was explaining "white priviledge" to me this week. Simply put, being white means you don't "have to think about it".
There are people that do have to think about their skin color all the time, no matter where they go in society. Believe me, they would see the subtext.
And subtext is so gentle...Okay, since the words are below the guns, I'll go with subtext...But I really think it's more of a theme.
Son of Hogzilla,
You make a good point. It is an overused liberal slogan that I was sick of the second I heard it.
And a black man wearing that shirt puts a completely different spin on the joke.
Then, it's actually funny, in a meta ironic kinda way.
"Thug,
I believe you when you say this is trivial, but I don't believe you when you say you know Democrats.
No self-respecting ones, anyway."
Maybe Thug is a staffer for Zell.
This is an issue with you clowns???"
=======
It is an issue in the context that we are seeing A Republican white supremicist eugenicist getting the GOP nomination for a congressional race, we have troops saying they torture "brown" people for fun, and we have the person pictured in the t-shirt defending WW2 Japanese internment camps on his blog earlier in the day.
Just the t-shirt might not have drawn attention. That picture among all the other stuff I mention makes the context of the picture much more clear.
=======
Then you are being even sillier than I thought. Look, both parties have morons run for them all the time. Thats a constant and isn't going to change. And bad things happen in war...another constant that isn't going to change. So trying to build some kind of ridiculous context out of a couple of constants to make a sinister subtext for a friggen T-shirt is taking the term "overreacting" to all new heights.
"Bannedman, you forgot to mention that Instapundit prefers bagels to grits."
Son of Hogzilla
I mentioned what felt was necessary. If you cannot see the bigotry in a person who write rants in support of Japanese and Middle Eastern internment camps and goes around wearing clothing with such messages, then you are blind.
Dear less-abrasive Anonymous,
Thanks for your note. Let me clarify:
1) I did not outline the "false dilemma," you did. I think there is only one overarching interpretation of this t-shirt. The nuance thing I'll get to in a minute.
2) Actually, I don't have to construct a meaningful gestalt for this t-shirt. This shirt EMPLOYS that gestalt for me. See, they are using the gestalt of the pro-diversity types. That is the conceit. The gestalt already exists; no gestalt, no t-shirt.
3) Having said that, I think it's NOT a poorly conceived message. It very clearly gets its point across. It is, actually, a highly successful message. (Note to trolls: I'm not saying I like the message; I'm saying that from the POV of the message makers, this shirt works. We all "get it.")
4) "Improbable" is a good word. Yes, I think your explanation is less probable, because of what you note about messages being "poorly conceived" or not. Your interpretation requires much more work, and this t-shirt is meant to provoke by using provocative symbology and language. It is not a Derridean position paper.
See what I mean?
"If you cannot see the bigotry in a person who write rants in support of Japanese and Middle Eastern internment camps and goes around wearing clothing with such messages, then you are blind."
Oh, so blind people are incapable of seeing racism? Nice one.
The seller of those shirts has several other designs. All aimed to incite. All uncharitable. All show piggishness.
The gun shirt is just one of the bunch.
Katie Dingo almost always knows what she's talking about. So I wouldn't attack her on that basis if I were you
Just sayin
Weblackey, brilliant riposte. I never saw it coming.
(Sending a Valentine to Hecate.)
I think "blind" was in reference to inability to "see" the point...or "see" the bigotry, or "see" outside one's own experience.
And concrete thinkers suffer from cement in their heads.
Hecate, I just did. Read the thread.
"The seller of those shirts has several other designs. All aimed to incite. All uncharitable. All show piggishness. The gun shirt is just one of the bunch."
So now we're judging T-shirts guilty by association? Next I suppose you'll be arguing that the design of the black T-shirt is "less sophisticated."
You people make me sick.
your dime...
Viva la raza! What else are you going to dig into? Fucking cultural killers think they will civilize us with the "WASP" culture. You know, Latinos got big, I mean, big balls. So Bush's intimidation tactics don't scare us. Most of us us can track our ancenstors over 5 generations. I mean all those white "culeros" that came through "Coney Island" and there progeny don't have any moral equivalence to point us out. My words to them: Bring it on culeros!
Son of Roachzilla: "If you cannot see the bigotry in a person who write rants in support of Japanese and Middle Eastern internment camps and goes around wearing clothing with such messages, then you are blind."
Oh, so blind people are incapable of seeing racism? Nice one.
Nice distraction. Not.
Hecate, please answer me this: why do trolls get off on being little playground idiots? You know those kids who walk over when a group of kids is playing nicely and just, like, pull some kid's hair or kick sand on their game? What is up with that? What is this need for attention which trumps all else? Sigh.
I'm a gun owner as well and a few years ago was given a shirt with a much less contextual message - "So many choices, so little time."
I won't wear the shirt but won't give it away either for fear that someone else will. The first thing I noticed were the colors in the banner. The second is the obvious pairing of "diversity" with handguns. I would hope this is a clueless mistake by instapundit.
But I spend a lot of time at the gun range lecturing those who want to buy a gun based on fear that they would be better off buying a good alarm system.
Once again Atrios, you have struck to the core of the message. It will be interesting to see how much race-mongering is used in NYC and on 'til the election. There's not much left for Rove and the Pacemakers to campaign on.
Instacracker - who gives a shit?
Like this, though:
"Got my shirt, and love it. Perhaps I'll wear it to a faculty meeting..."
I got a better idea, cracker - howzabout you wear it into the locker room after a UT football or basketball game?
Make sure you're carrying a watermelon, too, prick.
I for one would just love to see 50 Cent or Ja Rule wear this shirt...
Forget the Pan-American crap.
Anyone's primary idea that diversity involves a wide array of guns indicates a demented mind. I will not be tolerant about this. THIS IS MAJOR SICK.
1) I did not outline the "false dilemma," you did. I think there is only one overarching interpretation of this t-shirt. The nuance thing I'll get to in a minute.
My intent was to show you how ridiculous I think your interpretation is by showing you one that you would readily identify as ridiculous. As I think neither is an apt interpretation I most certainly did not invoke a false dilemma.
2) Actually, I don't have to construct a meaningful gestalt for this t-shirt. This shirt EMPLOYS that gestalt for me. See, they are using the gestalt of the pro-diversity types. That is the conceit. The gestalt already exists; no gestalt, no t-shirt.
3) Having said that, I think it's NOT a poorly conceived message. It very clearly gets its point across. It is, actually, a highly successful message. (Note to trolls: I'm not saying I like the message; I'm saying that from the POV of the message makers, this shirt works. We all "get it.")
Well I guess our differing interpretations are incommensurable then. As I see it there is no coherent message conveyed by the t-shirt, just heavy-handed imagery (Red-Black-Green flag and "celebrate diversity" phrase to represent the "other" side, and guns to represent right-thinking wearers of the t-shirt) with no clear relationship beyond an anemic pun.
4) "Improbable" is a good word. Yes, I think your explanation is less probable, because of what you note about messages being "poorly conceived" or not. Your interpretation requires much more work, and this t-shirt is meant to provoke by using provocative symbology and language. It is not a Derridean position paper.
It's not complicated. Imagine a vanilla placard at some progressive agenda rally that says "celebrate diversity" with the letters drawn in with flags of all different nations. The meaning of the words and the imagery of the text would seem to be congruous in this case. Now look at the t-shirt, where the "celebrate diversity" text is drawn in with a single flag that represents only one particular group. The imagery of the text is incongruous with the meaning of the words.
Weblackey, good one re: cement.
Might I venture O/T for a moment, with hopes that it will draw Philalethes back in? When President Obama addresses issues of diversity in the coming years, will we still have to go through this violent spasm in defense of all things divisive and vulgar? Are we doomed unto unseriousness? Atrios?
Katie, you're thinking of bullies. There are trolls who are bullies. But a lot of trolls are not bullies at all. Rather, they are more like the kids in school who encouraged the teacher's pets to make asses out of themselves.
Katie,
My theory is they get away with it because we let them, pure and simple.
Your analogy is spot on. They're the kids on the playground that no one wanted to play with. So they disrupted the game, instead.
Two points: One, no decent person would wear that shirt. It's racist.
Two: Reynolds isn't a truck driver, he's a law professor. He teaches a diverse classroom. How can his minority students trust him to be fair? You have to wonder if other state employees endorse racist slogans?
It's not just a shirt.
Katie,
Textbook passive agressive behavior: you misrepresent Reynolds and then say we're just playing nicely in the sandbox, no malicious intent here.
I don't for a minute believe Reynolds is racist, and I don't belive he has endorsed internment of any minority. Read his post on Malkin's book C-A-R-E-F-U-L-L-Y.
As I see it there is no coherent message conveyed by the t-shirt.
Note to concrete thinkers upthread, visual learners tend to equate understanding or knowledge with sight.
No one is being sightocentric on this site. I've cited an example where a person, clearly not seeing the point, has equated not seeing the light with not knowing what's right. No one is being sightocentric on this site.
Katie, if our "doom" is to ridicule slogans like "Celebrate Diversity" or "Compassionate Conservatism," then please let's get to that point as soon as possible.
Smoke a J and watch a few episodes of South Park, 'kay? You'll see what I mean.
"Fact for Stinky: seen the shirt in West Oakland, near US Mail Distribution Center (near 7th and Peralta). Worn by black male. He was treated respectfully by other African-Americans and whites. I, in fact, chuckled."
Good. That guy had the balls to go out and wear the shirt in public where he would encounter people who are aware of the public health threat posed by gun violence, and likely encountered people who have been directly impacted by gun violence. You, apparently, did not, or you would have pontificated about how respectfully *you* were treated wearing the shirt.
see what I mean?
Shorter Instabigot: Kill 'em all, let a Norse god sort 'em out.
"Compassionate Conservatism"
Under those guns would not disturb me near as much...I would kind of expect that.
But if one of my professors ever wore that shirt...there better be a damn good reason, like some sort of sociology experiment on how long it takes to get shot.
"Mississippi Burning" is on True Stories channel right now... for those who need a little reminder about what the fight was about.
. Instead they are fixated with the faux rebelliousness of flouting the so-called PC. It's real cowardly toady stuff.
We see it exactly the same way.
This is Reynolds' way of pandering to his base and looking like a professor's version of bad ass. I'm sure he'd collapse in a whimpering
pile of goo if he wore in public and was even in the same room as a black guy, say the size of Isaac Hayes.
We have to remember that pissing off liberals is a big motivator for conservatives like Reynolds. They're stuck in the 8th grade and they can't get out. Hell, the guy was giddy for days because someone defaced a NY Times newspaper with "lies". He had photographs of it like it meant something.
They're thoughtless and small and not very bright. The sneering could be about blacks or gays or vets like Mex Cleland. They just don't care.
Good grief, arguing with any of these InstaTrolls about the meaning of this shirt is like trying to point out to people once upon a time that calling people N****rs was offensive.
THEY DON'T GET IT. THEY WON'T GET IT, until they have been SHAMED into at least saying nothing if they can't say anything nice.
Stop feeding 'em. It's not worth the effort.
Dear less-abrasive Anonymous,
A couple of questions:
1) You're saying that you challenged my interpretation with a false interpretation and not your personal reading? Do you have a reading of this shirt's message?
And just to be clear, you do not think this t-shirt has a certain gestalt? Do you think the t-shirt is unclear in its reading or in its design? Do you think that the makers and wearers of this t-shirt do not understand this t-shirt to be saying something in challenge to accepted, PC even, notions of "diversity"? I believe you noted earlier in the thread that you would, "as revenge," put this shirt on your young children, which suggests to me--even as I understand that you are being facetious--that this would convey a certain message. What message do you understand that to be?
I am not sure I understand exactly what you're getting at with your response to my 4th point. Would you mind restating? Thanks.
Yo Stinky, I didn't wear the 'Celebrate Diversity' shirt because I didn't even know it existed until now. Under the circumstances, it seems rather unfair for you to leap to a conclusion about my balls.
I was blasting my Grateful Dead bootleg of the 8/3/67 Toronto show at maximum volume as I pulled into the parking lot. I'm quite certain that garnered me no sympathy among the locals.
Son of Hogzilla, thanks for the distinction; that's an interesting one. Little provocateurs are the cost of doing business, as they say. It's the bully-types who are so tiresome.
Hecate, darlin', I hear you. I responded against my better judgment. I forgot to set my computer on "ignore." Next time, I promise.
Might I venture O/T for a moment, with hopes that it will draw Philalethes back in? When President Obama addresses issues of diversity in the coming years, will we still have to go through this violent spasm in defense of all things divisive and vulgar?
I'm no expert, Katie. But my guess is that we will. There's so much ugliness boiling right under the surface already. I think we're going to have to go through some serious national convulsions on this...not violent, hopefully, but maybe a national debate where the racist right loses BIG. I could see Obama being the man to start that discussion, and end it in a way that results in most Americans "adjusting" in the direct of greater tolerance. But it'll be ugly...no question. Especially if it happens while the Repubs are out of power. The Neoconfederates alone will see to that.
Welcome back, Lucky_Ducky and LJ!
{Troll 'ignore' ON.}
Atrios you hypocrite
Your insinuation about the T-shirt reveals more about yourself than it does about the person wearing the shirt.
I have seen this shirt, and the racist violence you claim it represents never occured to me until you brought it up. But then that's what it really is all about isn't it, you jumping to the worst possible conclusions about someone who likes guns.
Your kind of hatred fuels the anti-gun crusade in America and is a big reason why the Democratic Party is no longer a majority party. Gun owners understand how the Democratic Party is the tool of the anti-gun movement. And thanks to comments like you just made we understand the real motives behind the anti-gun crusade and it's champions and allies.
It's a shirt. It's not overtly hateful. *shrug*
Good evening, Katie. 
I saw the some trolls along the way but they didn't seem half worth it.
It's not an end-of-the-world issue all by itself but I think it shows how small and callous some conservatives have let themselves become.
Philalethes! Finally!
I would like to think that it will be a hiccup of adjustment, but I suspect it will be otherwise, too. There is a lot at stake, psychologically, for the racist right, and I am sure there will be the inevitable incoherent name-calling and outing and fearmongering as the last gasp of a dying culture. I do believe that President Obama can find the language to bring the rest of us around to the idea of a more generous America though. The audacity of hope, indeed.
Brad still lives in Bandcamp.
And fuck you Brad. I'm a gun-owning liberal that understands the 2nd amendment.
Go collect your GOP trolling fee.
TKS.
Hecate, I can't help it. I want to tell Brad to shove it.
The racist threat is implicit in the caption and color scheme.
And Brad, you degenerate asshole, that shirt is the most racist thing I've seen, sported on a Law Professor.
Fuck you doubly, you prick. Come near my property, I'll shoot your ass in self-defense.
The question is: Would this T-shirt get you arrested at a Bush rally?
Rhetorically speaking, of course.
I don't live in Texas, or I just might.
Lucky_Ducky, agreed. It's not the end of the world, but it IS indicative of a callousness which, in its way, by insidiously allowing us to rationalize rejection and humiliation and implied violence as "just a joke," engenders a larger callousness and violence, etc., etc. Were it not so late and had I not skipped supper, I am sure I could pontificate on this question such that I could get from this t-shirt to the Abu Ghraib abuses.
And don't ya'll mind Brad, he's just slow.
1) You're saying that you challenged my interpretation with a false interpretation and not your personal reading? Do you have a reading of this shirt's message?
To quote myself:
"As I see it there is no coherent message conveyed by the t-shirt, just heavy-handed imagery (Red-Black-Green flag and "celebrate diversity" phrase to represent the "other" side, and guns to represent right-thinking wearers of the t-shirt) with no clear relationship beyond an anemic pun."
So, I don't think there is a clearly discernible message but rather just a weak attempt at a joke. That joke being: "where I'm from the most important kind of diversity is owning lots of different kinds of guns." It's a heavy-handed attempt at drawing out a culture-clash moment for comical purposes.
And just to be clear, you do not think this t-shirt has a certain gestalt? Do you think the t-shirt is unclear in its reading or in its design? Do you think that the makers and wearers of this t-shirt do not understand this t-shirt to be saying something in challenge to accepted, PC even, notions of "diversity"?
I'm sure the wearers of the t-shirt think it has some significance, but I doubt it goes beyond "I like this t-shirt because it hijacks 'progressive' ideas using some unspecified logic, which is a sassy way for me to announce my fondness for guns."
I believe you noted earlier in the thread that you would, "as revenge," put this shirt on your young children, which suggests to me--even as I understand that you are being facetious--that this would convey a certain message. What message do you understand that to be?
Different Anonymous, maybe he/she was usurping my non-identity to slander my good un-name.
I am not sure I understand exactly what you're getting at with your response to my 4th point. Would you mind restating? Thanks.
Well, you seem to think that the subversive interpretation of the t-shirt that I proferred (in jest) could only be construed by one given to "mental gymnastics." So, I was just trying to show that it's not so difficult to see how one might make this interpretation. For example, perhaps the creator of the t-shirt associates the colors in the "diversity" text with black people, and so by filling the "diversity" text with just those colors he implies that the endorsement of diversity is made predominately by blacks, making the proponents of the agenda decidedly not diverse. This characterization of progressives might not be accurate but that's irrelevant.
Atrios you --
ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
Anus Moses,
It is a sad day when trolls defend racism and t-shirts espousing peace and democracy can get you banned (or arrested).
2+2=5.
Yeah! DAMN that damed racist NRA!
horsehockey...pure horsehockey.
No matter how you dress it up, only an innocent (or someone who lacks experience and education which is not the case of the professor) would fail to see the archetypes being used in that shirt.
So, I hereby validate my right to think it's crass, rude and abrasive, not to mention racist. Argue if you wish, to no avail.
I defend the right of others to make total jerks of themselves with free speech, however, I can point and laugh at their folly, or say "I told you so" when they get shot.
horsehockey!
(Pardon me, I'm in a bad mood)
i posted this on another thread but got no response and it's bugging me. in harper's index this month it states that the chances that a new york national guardsman is currently serving in iraq are 1 in 4, while the chances that a texas national guardsman is currently serving in iraq are 1 in 31. i would be interested in seeing a breakdown of national guard deployment along red/blue state lines. has anyone seen anything like this?
"I'm going to have them wear their shirts daily for the next three months. Aaaahh, sweet revenge."
Dude. Tell me you're at least gonna wash the damn things once in a while...
Okay, so I showed the image to my brother, who's liberal and fairly pro-gun control but not the "looney lefty" guy I am. He said: it's stupid. A bad joke and kinda tacky, but like all such things, basically meaningless. And a word to the website's designers: t-shirts aren't "edgy", okay? Seriously. Stop it, you look silly when you say shit like that.
For me, it reminds me of the Confederate flag t-shirts like "It's a white thing, you used to pick it" or "You've got your X, I've got mine". Not directly, overtly racist - from the minds of the wearer, anyway - but there's a definate racist subtext they don't or won't see. I doubt Reynolds is a card-carrying member of the Klan, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's the type to call the fuzz if a black man is in his neighborhood "being suspicious" (i.e., driving slowly looking for a friend's house).
And hey, who else caught the Armed Forces "Freedon World Tour" shirt? The one with all the countries we've "liberated" with it's little slam at France ("all future liberations cancelled"). Funny...they've got Japan in 1945 and Kuwait in 1991, but nothing in between. I coulda sworn there were at least two major dust-ups in the years between. Must be the weed playing tricks with my memory again...
Dear less-abrasive Anonymous,
Thanks for the clarification. I disagree. Haha. That's the short version. The long version:
1) I think your "heavy handed imagery" is my gestalt. You say tomayto, I say tomahto. We both know what we're talking about, and I think that everyone else does, too. I've taken an informal poll of this thread, and, anecdotally speaking, most people had the same reading as I did. There was not a lot of confusion as to the "meaning" of this t-shirt's message, which implies a coherent message. Again, the messengers were successful. Heavy-handed symbology worked.
Also, I don't buy that this is merely a "weak attempt at a joke," sorry. There is a discernible message. Without the slogan, "celebrate diversity," there is no chuckle w/ the guns. I do agree that the joke is weak. I just don't agree it's as harmless as "just a joke, devoid of message." These shirts are made to provoke. If we were just after hahas, people would be putting knock-knock jokes on t-shirts and offending no one. Surely, you'll admit that there is a niche for rude, obnoxious, provocative, immature sloganeering in the "marketplace of ideas." To put it another way, non-directed messaging tends to be less successful.
2) The t-shirt's "logic" is to "hijack a progressive idea." That's its logic; it's not unspecified. It is deliberately co-opting a progressive idea; namely, diversity. See?
3) Pls. disregard my confusing you w/ the less agreeable Anonymous.
re: 4th point: I still think you are giving the t-shirt makers entirely too much credit. This message is significantly more crude. I maintain that these "message" shirts work only if the message is readily recognizable and interpretable by a majority. (see pt. 1) What need have these folks of a sophisticated semiotics?
And now I must go to bed. It's late here, and I'm tuckered out. I've enjoyed this though, so next time we meet up, let me know it's you and not the abrasive Anonymous. You could use a more idiosyncratic moniker, too. Just sayin'.
I think someone mentioned this guy, but speaking of racists..and God help me, he's in Tennessee. And running for Congress for Republicans, much to their horror.
If you want your hair to really stand on it, look at this.
Otherwise, you might want to skip it.
One of his bulletpoints, so to speak..
"Stop Welfare and Immigration Replace it with a War on Poverty Genes
"
http://www.jameshartforcongress.com/
And the Times has a story about him.
"Eugenics Backer Causes Stir in Tenn. Race"
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/...-
Candidate.html
God help us all - even though Tanner will surely stomp him into the ground.
Maybe Reynolds can send him a T-shirt. He ought to love it.
Seemed pretty obvious to me immediately that the t-shirt (whatever colour design it has) is a celebration of the diversity of people you can shoot. Niggers, ragheads, fags, dykes, gooks, wimmin, trannies, hippies, hebes, et cetera.
Personally, the red/gold/green thing seems pretty straightforwardly Africa-implying to me...but the amount of brainpower among the manufacturers and wearers of these things is low enough that it's hard to guess what an individual "thinks" it means.
I like the apparent idea, though, that if it were a racist shirt, it'd logically be EXPLICITLY racist. And therefore, if it's not explicitly racist, then it's not implicitly racist either. Because after all, we know that TRUE racists always announce their feelings to everyone they meet; they NEVER compromise by speaking in coded terms, or using ambiguous words or imagery. Nor do they ever take advantage of the rules of civil discourse by playing "devil's advocate" and "trying to provoke discussion." They never hide their beliefs for personal or political gain, or simply to keep the heat off.
Why would they do that? It'd be downright dishonest.
Olaf,
I haven't gotten to my new Harper's yet, but no, sorry, I hadn't heard about that discrepancy.
I don't think there's any racism in the caption. They seem to thrive on pointing out hypocrisy within the progressive elements in that every race, religion and sexual orientation is to be tolerated, but those who enjoy firearms should not be included. Diversity with exclusivity.
I hadn't seen a picture of Instahack before. He looks, well, very hacklike. Kind of like Kaus with more hair.
Philalethes, if ever you're in NC, I'll buy you a cup of coffee. Or tea. Or a martini. Whatever. You, too, Lucky_Ducky!
All the gun enthusiasts I know all have a phobia of young black men. They all imagine gangs of armed black youths driving 50 miles into the country at night to storm into their houses, rape their wives and steal their Toby Keith cd's.
Ya know what I love to see? The majority claiming that celebrating the diversity of the various minorities "discriminates" against them. The classic "white guy bitching that he can't say 'nigger'" argument.
Truly amazing.
The tendency of the left to see racism whenever and wherever convenient is truly amazing.
And hey, who else caught the Armed Forces "Freedon World Tour" shirt? The one with all the countries we've "liberated" with it's little slam at France...
Backslider
Also notice that Instawife is wearing that shirt on the same page.
Living in Oakland, CA, my first thought was how attractive that shirt would be to certain blacks.
Overall, I see both shirts as the same thing - the perception of marginalization expressed as a middle finger to the "politically correct" oppressors of the SCLM, etc., etc., etc. It reminds me of my Dad starts in about persecution of Christians in the US of A--I just can't take it seriously and yet I feel very frightened about those who do. Sort of like reading an email forwarded from one of my sisters quoting her boyfriend in Arizona about "ragheads" and then having that poor man in Mesa killed within 48 hours afterwards. It contributes to a climate of hate and resentment.
Ah. Racism is a matter of "convenience", then. Interesting theory. Say, you ever hear that old saw about why white people notice the racism ingrained into society's fabric? Something about the same reason fish don't notice water.
Janet,
I just thought the "Freedom World Tour" shirt was a hoot. Not only the idea that we "brought freedom" to 1945 Germany and Japan (when we, meaning America, didn't really even bring it to France), but the fact it conveniantly ignored Vietnam and the Korean conflict (though it championed an upcoming tussle with North Korea).
But you're on to something there. The whole idea of the right being "oppressed" by the forces of PC, and what's the best way to fight back? Why, a t-shirt, of course. Not with thoughts or ideas or logic or plans or anything silly like that, but a piece of fabric that's had a screen printer took to it. Ye gods.
The fact that the NRA came into being the same year the KKK was declared an illegal terrorist organization...(#)
This much does seem to be true, but your implication would be that of NRA as the new KKK.
Wikipedia, whom I adore, says otherwise. The timing (noted below) seems to work, but Wiki says the KKK disliked the NRA b/c the NRA was training blacks how to airm and fire guns, too. Also, the NRA was founded by two Union soldiers. The 1st Prez of the NRA - Union Army General Ambrose Burnside (the namesake of 'sideburns'). Union Army General Ulysses Grant was named NRA president in 1883. The NRA was established in New York. Were all these guys at least pseudo-racists? Do you have other evidence?
The dates seem to match your theory (last 2 imporant):
--------------------------------------------------
----
04/09/1865 - Civil War (semi-)officially ends on
12/24/1865 - Ku Klux Klan established
05/27/1870 - First Enforcement Act passed
02/28/1871 - Second Enforcement Act passed
04/20/1871 - Third Enforcement Act (Ku Klux Klan Act) passed (this was the biggie!)
11/17/1871 - NRA established
Link to more info on at least 2 of the Acts (PBX rocks).
Today, someone asked me how the KKK gots its name:
The name Ku Klux Klan comes from kyklos, the Greek word for circle, and "clan". Another etymology proposes and onomatopoeia of the loading of a gun.
That's a poor way to defend yourself, namely because you can't hope to well..live through it. You just can't compete (#).
I'm open to ideas on how better to defend myself. And I disagree on the other sentiments - too fatalistic, weak-willed. Greece just won Euro 2004 - what do you need to believe?
as my neighbor out here in rural NY state put it, they have bigger guns than we do. What good are guns gonna do?...If you think that somehow all the gun-owners are going to successfully revolt against martial law, you are even loonier than your last paragraph indicates(#).
You never know - depending on who is Prez and how sadistic and ignorant and blind the right-wing, gun-toting electorate is - anything is possible. Who's to say if/when they'll come to their senses? I certainly can't predict something like that. As for successful revolt against martial law/f
ascism, see Iraq 2004, the Kurdish north of Iraq, the Free French Forces fighting the Nazis and Vichy France, and any number of hundreds/thousands of uprisings/revolts over the centuries. C'mon brutha - keep hope alive. EL GENTE…UNIDOS, NO PUEDE SER DERROTADOS!, and all that good stuff.
Your pappy's shotgun is going to stop the stormtroopers? Okay...You won't make it past the first helicopter. And the fact that you're holding a gun will guarantee your death, as opposed to the adult resistance, which will be trying to stay alive (#).
I'm just gonna have to say this, cause I been thinking it, but have refrained. The first part of this is fatalistic and weak-willed, but it's more than that - it's cowardly, and un-American. Did you live your life in a cave? Have you ever taken a risk and gotten your ass handed to you? Have you ever taken on the seemingly impossible and kicked its ass? If not, I suggest you do. One of America's ideals - pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, overcoming impossible odds - is one of its more endearing and valuable. There's a fine line between bravery and stupidity, but it just sounds to me like you are *very* afraid to have to fight for your right to life, liberty, and the pursuit. I just look to the Civil Rights movement in this country for inspiration - black kids sitting in dining parlours getting harassed, spit on, assaulted, often in fears of their lives - some losing their lives. If they can do it, so can I, and so should I. If you just prefer to try to found some underground movement - fine with me - difference of opinion, but as I said, your first statements sound outrageously gutless to me - along with what others have said. In the slang of our Aussie friend, I would at least want to 'have a go' at resisting. As for 'adult resistance' and 'staying alive' - we could debate those ideas. Adult resistance, to me, is Che, and many other revolutionaries. Staying alive, to me, is freedom from severe oppression - I truly think I'd rather be dead than live under severe oppression like martial law. Maybe that's just me, but I doubt it.
get therapy...it would take at least 7,000 troops just to pacify San Francisco, CA...And if it ever does get that bad, you will have no trouble finding guns and ammunition (#)
I'd considered therapy. I used to wake up at night thinking about Ashcroft's black van tearing up the (National) Mall until his other vans close me down within a half-mile. Too much open space out there, man - sh*t. But, regular exercise has helped - including Running Against Bush - I no lo
nger have Bush/Ashcroft/black van nightmares. 7,000 troops? Does that exclude the use of police/fire/auxilliary forces? Just curious - I'm not sure how the resistance would develop - I only know I want to be ready to lead it in my part of town. Glad to hear the guns/ammo will be readily available, b/c the whole martial law thing probably wouldn't a lot to make sure my family isn't getting kidnapped for ransom money, etc - like the goings on in Iraqistan right now.
On the post above, where the poster is pro-guns because people in this country are stupid and susceptible to fascism... now THAT isn't comforting at all. Because it's mostly the stupid ones with the guns in the first place (#).
Ouch. Good point. But
That Swiss model is bizarre, man - totally. If I saw a dude walking in downtown DC with a shotgun I would about-face quicker than George W. Bush in front of his local draft board!
Finally, to tie in gun control, and martial law, and terrorism, and Iraqistan, and 'political scandal at home, where the invading army has had a long commitment to the Geneva Conventions' - you remember when the DoD decided to watch the Talk about Battle of Algiers to figure out what was happening in Iraq regarding the resistance, and how to defeat it, etc.? Well, I read the articles on it, and I watched the movie, and I was like wow - we are so f*cked over there it's not even funny. But what I just realized was that was *not* what the Pentagon folks got out of this movie at all - they learned a totally different lesson - that to win, to beat the resistance and their terrorist tactics, the United States military would have to resort to 'torture, brutal intimidation and outright killings.' It *never* struck me until just now that this movie was a precursor - a HOWTO - for the Iraq/Abu Graib/other torture scandals. Fudge. After watching the flick, I thought we'd be fighting a brutal resistance until the American electorate decided to return to human form - 20 or so years, because the thought that our military/Rumsfeld/etc would 'go cowboy' on prisoners to get the victory was just not possible. I knew they were evil, but torture requires a whole new levelof commitment to evil, and a whole new twisted logic. But they did it. And if I was paying attention I would have known they were going to do it. Shoot - I guess they already were doing it in Gitmo, Diego Garcia, etc.
1) I think your "heavy handed imagery" is my gestalt. You say tomayto, I say tomahto. We both know what we're talking about, and I think that everyone else does, too. I've taken an informal poll of this thread, and, anecdotally speaking, most people had the same reading as I did. There was not a lot of confusion as to the "meaning" of this t-shirt's message, which implies a coherent message. Again, the messengers were successful. Heavy-handed symbology worked.
Also, I don't buy that this is merely a "weak attempt at a joke," sorry. There is a discernible message. Without the slogan, "celebrate diversity," there is no chuckle w/ the guns. I do agree that the joke is weak. I just don't agree it's as harmless as "just a joke, devoid of message." These shirts are made to provoke. If we were just after hahas, people would be putting knock-knock jokes on t-shirts and offending no one. Surely, you'll admit that there is a niche for rude, obnoxious, provocative, immature sloganeering in the "marketplace of ideas." To put it another way, non-directed messaging tends to be less successful.
It might be helpful to distinguish between meaning and use. I don't think the t-shirt invokes the images and words it contains to articulate a specific meaning, even though it relies on the meaning that these images and words have when separated from one another in the course of using them for comical ends (cf., political slogans are often bereft of meaning but they serve to stir the audience up for political purposes (use)). The t-shirt's joke is abstract: different people interpret the same phrase differently, and the "celebrate diversity" with guns juxtaposition is just one manifestation of that joke. So, I think it's likely that in the t-shirt's creator's aim to use these symbols to craft a joke he/she has inadvertently left the t-shirt open to your view that the images and language cohere into some political message. Jokes always offend someone, but not always intentionally.
2) The t-shirt's "logic" is to "hijack a progressive idea." That's its logic; it's not unspecified. It is deliberately co-opting a progressive idea; namely, diversity. See?
Yes, but to what end it hijacks the progressive idea is unclear (if to any end at all). There is nothing inherently ill-intentioned in appropriating language from one context to use it in another.
re: 4th point: I still think you are giving the t-shirt makers entirely too much credit. This message is significantly more crude. I maintain that these "message" shirts work only if the message is readily recognizable and interpretable by a majority. (see pt. 1) What need have these folks of a sophisticated semiotics?
I think what's readily recognizable is just that there is a large gun sub-culture in our country and so a wearer of this t-shirt is probably a member of that sub-culture. Thus, the joke is to comically exaggerate the differences be
tween members of the gun community and outsiders by implying that the only way pro-gun people know how to conceptualize the phrase "celebrate diversity" is to think of it in terms of a diverse array of guns. To be honest I could just as easily see the person who made this t-shirt replace the pictures of guns with bottles of different kinds of alcoholic drinks (or different flavors of ice cream, etc.); I hardly think you'd deem such versions of the same basic joke to be offensive. Think of this t-shirt along the lines of those Foster's beer commercials: "A big gun collection: Gun Nut for diversity."
It's like those crappy Family Circus cartoons where the parents laugh because their kid thinks "rimjob" has something to do with tire maintenance. In that sense the t-shirt pokes fun at the person who wears it (i.e., "I'm so single-minded that when people say 'celebrate diversity' I think that they are referring to guns, aren't I a riot?
Musta missed the "Family Circus" where "rimjob" was a punchline. I gotta start reading the funnies again, man. They're hipper than I thought.
Seriously, that whole site is fucking insane.
I absolutely must have this shirt, solely so that I can wear it with this hat.
Y'know, to fuck with the squares.
Shouldn't there be a Glock on that shirt?
I hope you all feel the same way about N.W.A.'s Fuck the Police. Since, you know, it's totally serious.
bad Jim, I wish you would post more. I love your insights. I wish Old Hat would post more, too.
Don't be fooled by the tacky racist t-shirt- It's obvious that Glenn desperately wants to have sex with a black man, but so far he can't find one who wants to be with a dorky white guy with a one inch penis.
I own a tie dyed shirt with a peace symbol that says Peace Through Superior fire power. It gets lots of laughs and has started a few seriously conversions with people about Gun Control.
To me, the shirt, in question, is not saying kill blacks or kill diversity, it a play on the fearmongering stereotype that People Of Color are all gun toting thugs that want to kill whites. It's subtext is an arms race to protect oneself from armed People of Color.
But I dunno. I use to own a tee shirt that had Geronimo on it and said "My Heroes Have Always Killed Cowboys" It was a anti Stillwater Cowboys shirt, not intended to be a political statement.
I hope you all feel the same way about N.W.A.'s Fuck the Police. Since, you know, it's totally serious.
15 years ago called. It wants its thread back.
when i looked at the web sales page there was another shirt advertised which said "Fry Mumia". I think that clears up any doubt about the intention of the shirt. Plus, celebrate diversity is practically a trademarked liberal phrase. There can be no other meaning to this shirt.
For what it's worth, Instafool's brother is married to an African American (or a first generation African immigrant).
There was a picture of them some months ago on his website.
"I guess I'm just a humourless leftist!"
"humourless leftist" -
Redundant term.
Great t-shirts! Thanks for the link!
Toodles.
Holy freaking shite!
What an idiot, either he's Theodore Bilbo or the dumbest law professor on earth (and that is saying something).
What a bunch of sick fucks are you all and what kind of a verbal concentraton camp are you preparing for us?
"humourless leftist" -
Redundant term.
Yes, we're all familiar with the long list of hilarious GOP funnymen -- Jon Stewart, Will Ferrell, Howard Stern, Chevy Chase, David Cross... oh wait.
But at least you guys have Craig Kilborn, Dennis Miller, and uh... the ghost of Bob Hope?
By the way, does anyone else find the Professor's intelectual inconsistencies funny? He's a Rand-style liberterian with imperialsitic longings that could rival Emperor Palpatine. Don't take his guns, but by all means, take them from the Iraqis and anyone else we choose to invade.
The use of pan-African colors implies using violence against African-Americans, in my opinion.
To what kind of celebration does it refer ? A lynching, perhaps?
Truly hateful stuff.
What a bunch of sick fucks are you all and what kind of a verbal concentraton camp are you preparing for us?
Is is better to be a sick fuck than a dumb fuck? No one ever said the Professor or any of you other closest racists can't wear the shirt, but when you ignorant hayseeds get called on it, stand and be up a man instead of playing coy about it. If you don't care for black people, say it -- don't bitch about "verbal concentration camps."
I swear to God, this Republican party is the biggest bunch of fucking cry babies in the history of politics. You're anti anything that isn't interest of white males. Fine. But act like men and stop bitching when we call on you it. Christ.
This reminds me of the B.C. debate a few months back. B.C. is just a comic strip and this is just a t-shirt. Neither of them are very funny. Neither of them are worth getting your panties in a twist about.
Eyes on the ELECTION, people. If we keep letting stupid shit like this distract us, we'll never get anywhere.
What a bunch of sick fucks are you all and what kind of a verbal concentraton camp are you preparing for us?
Why don't you go chat up Michelle Malkin, one of your ideological cohorts. She has an affinity for REAL Concentration Camps.
Wow! What has the Drug Culture of the 60s wrought?
A T-shirt fantasized into a symbol of virulent racism? People who read the 2nd Amendment metastizised into Klu Klux Klansmen?
Bizarroworld is here and you can read all about it at Eschaton.
As I said last night, pathetic. Long after I'd gone, we have:
* Name stealing, starting with another female poster, Hecate this time.
* The return of other stolen names, "Thug" which was someone else's troll that he took over.
* Variations of other trolls he's used ("Son of...")
* Support for other names he's used (Stunt Woman) whilst conveniantly forgetting that Phila and I not only cleaned his clock on that one, (He went from claiming to be a Science researcher at a highly rated university that night, to babbling so incoherantly that he couldn't even describe the disease afflicting his "friend". Note now that he claims it's a cancer, instead of what he originally claimed) but even forgets it seems the single issue Stunt Woman originally had was. And yet he's so certain that it's inconcieveable that other people really truly do have better Memories than him, and that the regulars here will somehow become confused and think what he claims really happened, instead of what we actually all saw...
Yes, remember troll watchers: Even if every single slander he's ever used about me, about you, about anyone here is true: Not one of us is as obsessional or imbalanced as he is, as he cannot help but prove over and over again. Even when you tell him that's all that is he really is doing here.
*winces again*
And amongst all of this patheticness, we have (I suspect) the return of another troll: (as one of the anonymous'es) One would not be too presumptious in suggesting an air of almost Toby-esque smugness combined with ignorance in some of the comments, especially as I made the mistake of popping in to his own blog recently to remind him of his lack of manliness: Perhaps he's slunk back here for revenge, this time not even deigning to bother using his own name because he's so lacking in dignity? Or maybe it's just another of those interchangeable idiots who think merely growing up in America (or especially, in Texas) is a good substitute for an education: "Yeah, I could use things like logic and analysis, but I'd prefer to be Patriotically Correct to y'all instead".
But either way, who ever it really is, they are still some considerable degrees less pathetic than our obsessional chum: Everyone here is, even the other trolls. It's just some of us look like Gods compared to him, and some of us are merely devils, but you AM are the dirt upon which all of us are standing.
(The "Missus" says 'Oh he is wuvved, don't you worry' by the way... just thought you'd be pleased to hear that)
God save us from Eschaton and its hordes of amateur psychoanalysts!! Is this what happens when lit crit majors are released into the wild... they go hunting for racist subtexts and hidden meanings under every rock?? OY VEY!!!
America's Nemesis, it's simply not fair to Atrios or his readers for you to soak up 30 column inches for each and every post (which all seem to carry on and on about trolling while failing to address the topic at hand.)
Trolls have to post here
can't post comments at instapunks
"can't post comments at instapunks"
Hey, on that topic when is Juan Cole going to invite comments on his blog?
Atrios reaching new levels of PC every day.
And you wonder why leftists are considered uptight and uncool.
And just to repeat a point which seems to have been missed earlier, at least one other person gets the subliminal message:
As I write this, I am wearing a t-shirt that says on the back, in various rasta-marijuana hues of green, yellow, and red: "Celebrate Diversity." Accompanying these secular holy words are pictures of dozens of different handguns...
(From anonymous in nc above)
Just because you can't see something inherant in something, it does not mean that the understanding you have of something is universal. Like Racism itself in fact: There is no scientific evidence Race has any true meaning in biological terms at all, and yet human beings often act as if Race is an absolute determinant of all sorts of wild materialist claims. Just because you can't scientifically show such a causal relationship between the two, it does not mean that belief in (say) 'rasta-marijuana hues', and what that says about the person so coloured does not exist for someone out there. Because for at least one person, as we have seen, that belief does exist.
You see, what is important is not understanding the content of the shirt, but what the context of the shirt is... because that is what the human eye often makes it's judgements based upon.
Or, put more Python-esquely:
Squire:
Look... are you insinuating something?
T-Shirt:
Oh, no, no, no... yes.
"This reminds me of the B.C. debate a few months back."
Me too, where Atrios boobs had their colletive panties bunged about some incredibly inoffensive comic strip. Lots of hidden meanings and subtexts there for the palmreaders to decipher; a crescent carved into an outhouse as a symbol for patriarchal oppression and phallocentrism. Highly entertaining stuff.
'America's Nemesis, it's simply not fair to Atrios or his readers for you to soak up 30 column inches for each and every post (which all seem to carry on and on about trolling while failing to address the topic at hand.)'
My topic at hand is to simply point and laugh at your insanity.
Your topic every day seems to be
1.) To try and distract from the topic at hand
2.) To obsesses about posters here who try and talk about the topic
3.) To claim that talking about the topic, or your own topic in any length is somehow wrong (*ugh* Intellectualism bad *ugh*)
4.) To insist everyone talk about the topic at hand... wait... trapped... in... own... illogical... failings *flail flail flail*
And only 4 trolls in 14 minutes though not quite as good as your record for posting after I've prodded you is it? 5 posts in 6 minutes under my name, and that following a post claiming you weren't obsessed with me as I recall? A quite magnificently debased performance that was! Still, you do get credit for remaining here trolling nearly 12 hours after I left... What was it you said after I'd gone? Ahh yes... Stop trolling and the pain of Eschaton will go away!
Or hey, how about we play a game to ease some of the pain? Why don't I ask what your favourite band is, and I'll tell you mine! Let's debate that topic shall we?
My favourite band is Korn. Now you say what, exactly?
(Rolf Harris)Can ya' guess what the game is yet, Troll Watchers(/Rolf Harris)
Now I say, "Fuck off, kid, ya bother me..."
Now I say, "Fuck off, kid, ya bother me..."
'crescent carved into an outhouse as a symbol for patriarchal oppression and phallocentrism. Highly entertaining stuff.'
Except that wasn't the claim at all, but about something else: you have gotten the criticism of the cartoon of a right wing blowhard confused with your imaginary friends the Phallophobic Feminists you seem to think exist here: And there was me thinking we all seemed to make jokes about Bush instead...
Oh, and there was a second cartoon equally offensive to another religion discussed too, pointing out a trend for that cartoonist to make such visual metaphors. I can probably still describe the first comic, all 3 panels, exactly from Memory, and the second in basics too (It was quite a wordy one riffing off Jewish symobolism to make a point about Christ)... You really don't have any Memory at all do you?
And why aren't you discussing the topic at hand like a rational human being, instead of a foaming person who... ah, but that would be spoiling the game, wouldn't it? Come out and play for a while troll boy! I want to hear your opinion on music now... address the topic!
'Now I say, "Fuck off, kid, ya bother me..."'
But... but... but you said you should address the topic at hand!
*laughs*
And you also said go away, and it'll stop bothering you
Damn, you are stupid! Didn't you try this "Ha, I shall answer in some third, witty way, without either the necessary wit to pull it off or realisation that I've already discounted any other way myself in earlier efforts to troll"? And yet what has he learned, Troll Watchers!
*chuckles*
Anyway, what is your favourite band?
http://funky16corners.tripod.com...d.com/
cover.htm
Tut tut tut: You address an issue by making a definitive statement... you really don't know how to argue honestly, do you?
Let me give you a little tip about how to then: We've started up "a topic", you have now given some sort of answer to the question that "topic" raises. You've not addressed my opening line, but for now let's assume that's because you have no comment to make, rather than that because you are trying to weasal out of the trap you know I've set. Now... Considering that the link leads to a page which has the following statement attached to it, whether or not this is supposed to be the answer to your favourite band or not, will you address whether or not you stand by the following statement yourself?
'Vote Kerry/Edwards!
Bush MUST GO!'
See, this is the fun of our little games: You've already lost, you threw away all your credibility 18 months ago, and you and I both know it. Already I can feel your squirming as you try and get out of this part of the trap, to try and prove some small point and thus claim victory: But there will always be a further part to the trap, because you just don't have the ability to think logically, or even as far ahead as I can. I'm just sitting here laughing as I wait for what we both know will come... but in the meantime, address the topic at hand. So you like anti-Bush music, yes?
"(blaming the victims of genocide, for one), "
Oh... kinda like how some on the Left blame Israel for what's going on over there?
Maybe I don't get it, but I think you guys are reading way too much into this.
I do see how one possible explanation is the one which Atrios suggests (arm yourself against the blacks!) but let me play the devils' advocate here. I think an alternative subtext would be "Gun owners deserve as much respect in society as black activists."
Sure, it mocks diversity, and that annoys me, but I'd advance a couple of salient points: 1. Gun rights activists, rightly or wrongly, often view themselves as being part of a "civil rights movement", 2. the cultural diversity movement is often associated (rightly or wrongly) with blacks, 3. in order to co-opt the diversity theme, they'd want to use pan-African colors.
Maybe I don't get it, but I think you guys are reading way too much into this.
I do see how one possible explanation is the one which Atrios suggests (arm yourself against the blacks!) but let me play the devils' advocate here. I think an alternative subtext would be "Gun owners deserve as much respect in society as black activists."
Sure, it mocks diversity, and that annoys me, but I'd advance a couple of salient points: 1. Gun rights activists, rightly or wrongly, often view themselves as being part of a "civil rights movement", 2. the cultural diversity movement is often associated (rightly or wrongly) with blacks, 3. in order to co-opt the diversity theme, they'd want to use pan-African colors.
It's a shirt. It's a joke.
It's a joke shirt.
America's Nemesis, I could care less if Bush were struck by lightning. When will you get this through your thick melon rind of a skull?? Can't I make fun of stupid leftists without being confused for a Bible thumping republican??? Am I either an Eschaton booster or "objectively pro-republican", Mr. Ashcroft??
Pookie
so typical of Glenn supporters
try to change the subject
this is about Glenn and this site
loser
Reynolds is a low rent faux news type
quite willing to adjust his snark for money --yes he writes insty for free (and whatever he panhandles) but he also has other blogs for hire.
He is bought and sold
and being a racist sleaze is just part of his income stream
"Oh... kinda like how some on the Left blame Israel for what's going on over there?"
Adam, don't get them started on Israel, or kei and yuri might come goose-stepping into the fray.
If it were a one time event
maybe a very poor taste joke
but for instapundit a pattern of
off behavior where only his life
is above reproach
Atrios reaching new levels of PC every day.
Actually, it's the exact opposite -- it's become so un-PC to decipher Republican codewords that the little babies cry "foul" everytime we do it.
Grow some skin thicker than tissue paper or go wipe your tears over at Instapundit, with your fellow whiners; and to quote John Adams "may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
'America's Nemesis, I could care less if Bush were struck by lightning. When will you get this through your thick melon rind of a skull?? Can't I make fun of stupid leftists without being confused for a Bible thumping republican??? Am I either an Eschaton booster or "objectively pro-republican", Mr. Ashcroft??'
ADDRESS THE TOPIC AT HAND!
Either one of them will do in fact.
*rolls on the floor laughing*
By the way, stealing 4-4-2's name, who is actually the very sort of intelligent reasonable conservative you claim doesn't exist here, just to reply to it yourself? You tried that earlier, didn't work. Just like you can't seem to realise when you yourself have set up a false dichotomy which has trapped yourself instead...
And Kei & Yuri is the one person who actually is ... no, never mind, every sane person here can remember who Kei & Yuri is!
*sides hurt from laughing*
But one more laugh? Why not!
'Can't I make fun of stupid leftists'
But why does it matter that they are leftists? And don't you realise that the point of a joke is for your audience to laugh at the subject and not the joke teller himself?
Oh my aching sides!
"Except that wasn't the claim at all, but about something else: '
Yeah, I know, here it is again.
I have to say it gets funnier with each reading. "Not very subtle attack on Islam" AGGGH you're killing me!!
*quote was Sam, not John Adams.
"Grow some skin thicker than tissue paper or go wipe your tears over at Instapundit, "
Look who's talking you fucking crybaby!!
Poor Glenn
so misunderstood
NOT
*wipes tears from eyes*
So the answer to your question by the way, is that no, you obviously can't make fun of stupid leftists, because
1.) They aren't stupid, and clean your clock every time you try and claim to be arguing intelligently, because you just can't be either honest or consistant. Name stealing anyone? And...
2.) You start out dishonestly, but then degenerate into outright idiocy,
anyway, thus revealing to everyone, even those who haven't been here as long as you have, who the real stupid person is.
Hey, remember how you claimed for years that Atrios knew nothing about economics, and then it turned out he was a PhD in that very subject... and then instead you attacked him for being an elitist?
I can't stand Korn by the way. I just knew how you'd react to anything stated in a definate way: You did, after all, use both "Muff diving" and homosexual related statements (Cowboys image obsession anyone?) as insults, almost as if what ever anyone says, you'll attack it...
*collapses into laughter again*
...So... so... self-defeating, so utterly self destructive of any credit he might have had for any claim he might make later...
*guffaw*
Please, no more! For your own peace of mind, realise when you are way, way beyond the point at which what you are doing makes any sense at all! For pity's sake, take your own advice last night: Even when I'm not here, there is enough intellectual and humorous talent to smack you down every night: And if you pay any honest attention, that's what we've all been doing since you began here all those years ago... The joke really, truly is you! And today, I feel like laughing at it again.
*laughs and laughs and laughs*
"...then it turned out he was a PhD in that very subject... "
I have yet to see proof of this. For a PhD in economics he asks some unusual questions.
'1.) They aren't stupid, and clean your clock every time you try and claim to be arguing intelligently, because you just can't be either honest or consistant....'
----
'Me too, where Atrios boobs had their colletive panties bunged about some incredibly inoffensive comic strip. Lots of hidden meanings and subtexts there for the palmreaders to decipher; a crescent carved into an outhouse as a symbol for patriarchal oppression and phallocentrism. Highly entertaining stuff.
Pookie'
----
"Except that wasn't the claim at all, but about something else: '
Yeah, I know, here it is again.
I have to say it gets funnier with each reading. "Not very subtle attack on Islam" AGGGH you're killing me!!
Pookie'
AND THE AUDIENCE LAUGHED AND LAUGHED AND LAUGHED, AND ONLY THE CLOWN SEEMED UNAWARE OF WHY THEY LAUGHED AT HIM. AND WHETHER THE CLOWN WAS ACTING OR GENUINELY STUPID THE AUDIENCE NEITHER KNEW NOR CARED. THE ONLY LAUGHED.
"Brevity is the soul of wit"
-W. Shakespeare
"Maybe I don't get it, but I think you guys are reading way too much into this.
I do see how one possible explanation is the one which Atrios suggests (arm yourself against the blacks!) but let me play the devils' advocate here. I think an alternative subtext would be "Gun owners deserve as much respect in society as black activists."
Good catch, Jim D. I would expand on that, adding it takes on the whole "celebrate diversity" spiel as just another utter meaningless PC slogan (i.e. it's exclusive of those who believe differently).
"Sure, it mocks diversity, and that annoys me"
That's a just a side benefit of the
phrase appropriation, lol. Just as when "Murphy Brown" appropiated the phrase "family values" from Dan Quayle to mock him and the conservative's take on it's meaning.
Toodles.
At least we can all take comfort in knowing that wearing a t-shirt featuring handguns is the closest to real activism Glenn and his lily-livered ilk will get.
It's a bunch of whiny, white-bread macho braggadocio, a cornerstone of conservative bloggers. Racist? I'm not so sure. Trite, banal and extremely unfunny? You betcha.
"Brevity is the soul of wit"
-W. Shakespeare
And why, if we count the lines of original text in my last reply, it comes to a brevalicious FOUR. Which, combined with 3 earlier quotes, was all it took to once more show how stupid you appear. Just call me Shakespeare, bitch.
And 1 quote, from where you make a huge fuss about Atrios being Duncan Black, the PhD in... should be enough to prove it again, no? And yet now you claim you've seen no evidence of it... It's almost as if he's become so obsessed with attack people here he no longer knows or cares why he's doing it
*laughs and laughs some more*
"Grow some skin thicker than tissue paper or go wipe your tears over at Instapundit, "
Look who's talking you fucking crybaby!!
What's your point? I said if you can't take an insult, leave. Since I didn't turn around and get mad at someone who insutled me, you have no point. Next...
By the way, this IS just like BC. Instead of being a man and openly saying "I think is Islam is a religion that has some problems," Hart had to play coy and use little codewords, just like this shirt does. I swear to Christ, you guys have the maturity and emotional stability of a 13 year old girl experiencing her first crush.
Uh, I don't know that last post was all in bold...
Pookie,
If you intend to promote a rational and logically cohesive case against Bush and for Kerry, you are in the wrong place. Buffoons like America's Nemesis and fascists like Kei and yuri are not capable of supporting their beliefs in that manner and resent people who can and do.
Things fall apart, no, no, no! What you should say is that "Leaving makes the pain go away"... and you only say that when the poster has already left after making that very point to you about continuing to troll here And then, 16 hours later when you are still there trolling, you lie about when that poster left and... and...
Actually, you really don't want to do that at all, do you? Sanity cannot hold when you act like that! 
Call us both Blake now, Pookie!
I first became aware of Reynolds noxious emanations during the infamous "objectively pro-Saddam" contretemps, in which Glennie advanced the clownishly stupid proposition that since Hussein didn't want to be attacked, anyone who was opposed to the Iraqi war was therefore essential siding with Saddam. By extension, of course, this implies that you approve of the actions of any nation that you are not in the process of invading, a "logic" which would have make Ronald Reagan "objectively pro-Soviet."
Naturally, I found this offensive and I e-mailed Reynolds to say so, referring to him as I always do as "Instaschmuck"... and believe it or not, the jackass actually responded with a display of hurt feelings. Imagine -- Reynolds thinks it's perfectly all right to impugn the patriotism of the millions of Americans who do not share his opinions, but let one of them respond with a decidedly low wattage Yiddishism, and the sky falls in.
I am amazed by Instaschmuck's reputation as something other than just another right-wing nut job. I guess it's the university credentials. Maybe this T-shirt incident will take away some of his utterly unearned credibility. Atrios is right to make a big deal of it. The obvious statement being made is that white folks need to arm themselves against those vast hordes of criminal-by-nature non-whites inflicted on this country in the name of diversity. If Instaschmuck doesn't understand this, he's an idiot. If he does, he's a racist. Take your pick.
"If you intend to promote a rational and logically cohesive case against Bush and for Kerry, you are in the wrong place. Buffoons like America's Nemesis and fascists like Kei and yuri are not capable of supporting their beliefs in that manner and resent people who can and do."
Amen, good lord I was worried there.
Reynolds is the kind of the smarmy responser and the thinnest of skins witness the number of people he has responded to claiming his feelings were hurt by some lame reference no worse than the crap he posts on a daily basis.
I think the comments section here reflects the desire of a lot of people to tell him to f--- off but you cana't since he doesn't allow comments.
Whe he was busted lying about a Kerry statement-he tried to blame it on his inability to work google news.
He and that wanker Kaus are the worst kind of "observers of the political scene" because they
are intellectually dishonest.
Esther said: "There is no other way to interpet this shirt but as a double entendre. In fact when I first saw it I didn't catch the diversity of the different guns angle. I just took it to mean celebrate diversity by gunning down people who are different than you."
I quite agree with her that the shirt's initial message is the above. Having lived in Chicago when Benjamin Smith was on his shooting rampage in the Midwest, it seemed as though, in a sense, he wasn't discriminating about who he shot, as long as they were different from him. IIRC, he killed a Korean American graduate student and Ricky Byrdsong (Northwestern basketball coach at the time). He also wounded 9 others, including Orthodox Jews, Africam Americans, and Asian Americans.
Some people may say or think, "Tt's just a shirt, get over it" but when it becomes acceptable or part of popular culture to wear shirts that call for hate crimes against minorities, or ridicule the history of your community in the US (a la Abercrombie & Fitch's "Two Wongs can make it white"), it really really disturbs me.
Particularly when people wear it and think nothing of it, because they don't understand the pain that it engenders.
ravenastro
The fact that the NRA came into being the same year the KKK was declared an illegal terrorist organization, and besides this the very constant relationship between racists and guns, is kind of loud--if you're aware of it. If not you just kind of think, oh, well, it's a lot of guns, it's like the celebrate diversity shirt that has all the different kinds of beer or liquor.Uuuh, yeah, maybe.
Never heard that one before - but considering that the NRA was FOUNDED BY UNION GENERALS following the Civil War - because they were embarrassed by the general quality of marksmanship of union soldiers - your inference is not only foolish but wholly baseless.
But then again, what should we expect from a web page paid for by George Soros.
You people are all friggin' crazy and need to get a life.
Subtext of hate, what a joke.
Some people do not HATE guns, they ENJOY guns... a perfectly respectable hobby and interest. And, they appreciate that the Founders saw fit to protect their right to bear arms in the Second Amendment.
Substitute stamps, cars, dogs, whatever you fancy... and celebrate the diversity of all the choices available to you.
Methinks some haters are projecting...
You people are all friggin' crazy and need to get a life.
Subtext of hate, what a joke.
Some people do not HATE guns, they ENJOY guns... a perfectly respectable hobby and interest. And, they appreciate that the Founders saw fit to protect their right to bear arms in the Second Amendment.
Substitute stamps, cars, dogs, whatever you fancy... and celebrate the diversity of all the choices available to you.
Methinks some haters are projecting...
Apologies for the double post
"He and that wanker Kaus are the worst kind of "observers of the political scene" because they
are intellectually dishonest."
Oh yes, Anonymous, Kaus is indeed the other right-wing blogger with a totally undeserved image of seriousness. I guess the media has to find SOMEONE out there in Blogland to fill the role of the rational representative of conservative "thought," and finding no one who comes close to fitting that description, they have settled on the two who can at least fake a certain degree of sanity.
I actually agree with the general application of the crypto-shirt theory.
For example, take a look at this guy's shirt. The apparent high polyester content is obviously a sneer aimed at low-paid garment workers in underdeveloped countries.
' Buffoons like America's Nemesis and fascists like Kei and yuri are not capable of supporting their beliefs in that manner and resent people who can and do.'
But YOU HAVEN'T DONE IT either... or is there some long intelligent post by "Anonymous" that I've missed somewhere about this very issue?
Where as I... I can point you to at least two post's in the last 2 weeks or so which I've made which deals with the very issue of why bi-polar conditions develop in politics, and why this issue must be tackled first before pushing a third party. And thus why a vote for Kerry is the only responsible choice at present if you actually truly believe in liberal causes... Don't make me point out how to use Google again to you dishonest hacks.
Meanwhile, "Anonymous's" displeasure with being treated in exactly the way trolls operate, only far more effectively, has been noted. Thank you, that's what I'm here for, folks!
As for you Pookie, when regulars here do write on topic, you accuse them of being verbose! And needless to say, someone famed for responding to his own trolls under different names is hardly going to convince anyone this time that he said anything meaningful about the posters here, whether alone or in reference to anyone else's (equally stupid) claims.
As I said, you've gotten so eaten up by hatred you can no longer tell, much less respond to anything anyone here ever says, but just attack each and every comment blindly, whilst weaseling away from ever making a sensible comment yourself.
And what did you say your favourite band again was?
Oh well, no doubt you'll be here later, of course you will. Too stupid to even take his own advice: no doubt the posters here have lots more lying whilst calling for honesty to look forward too, more acting in a moronic manner whilst demanding intelligent debate... but for me, it's time to go catch up on life at home!
*heads to the door laughing*
Oh, and Kei & Yuri, by the way, are Israeli themselves. Just thought I'd point out the punchline to that joke you didn't get earlier either. How does it feel to be the butt of the whole world's laughter? They do try and tell you, you know, but you won't listen it seems... perhaps you like being laughed at? Well, enjoy it... I know I am enjoying the laughing at today!
His wife is a babe.
"Subtext of hate, what a joke.
Some people do not HATE guns, they ENJOY guns... a perfectly respectable hobby and interest. And, they appreciate that the Founders saw fit to protect their right to bear arms in the Second Amendment.
Substitute stamps, cars, dogs, whatever you fancy... and celebrate the diversity of all the choices available to you."
As I said above, Seppo, "If Instaschmuck doesn't understand [the message of the t-shirt], he's an idiot. If he does, he's a racist. Take your pick." You have apparently picked the idiot defense -- your interpretation only works if you think that both the creators of T-shirt and the purchasers of it are completely ignorant of the fact that "celebrate diversity" is a well known slogan of the multicultural movement in the U.S., which just happens to be despised by the American right. I find that unlikely, but if you want to imply that Instaschmuck and others like him are clueless morons, God knows I won't stop you.
By the way, I completely agree with yo that it is a joke to imply that there is a subtext of hate in the t-shirt. The hate is quite overtly in the text and graphics -- there's nothing remotely "sub" about it.
"Kei & Yuri, by the way, are Israeli themselves."
Posting such heresy from that police state? A likely story!
Richter, you are an obsessive and completely illustrate my point.
Millions of Americans do not share your politicalization of everything under the sun, especially from the angle you approach it.
They do not see everybody who holds a differing opinion as a hate-crazed enemy! And maybe we can celebrate some diversity of thought about what celebrating diversity means.
You are obsessed with hurling invective at your imaginary enemies, other people are obsessed with their own interests, hobbies, sports, whatever. And if they can poke a little fun at an overly-earnest slogan while tooting their own pastime, where is the harm?
Only in the minds of deluded obsessives, I guess...
I can see how it could be interpreted badly, but really I think it is just about liking guns. People in Texas collect them like Bennie Babies.
Glenn
If you like the comments section so much why not add one to your blog?
Having read your blog I know you don't have anything better to do than respond.
Bitter Party Of Glenn
Check this out from Insty's defender Stephen, linked in the trackback:
"First, the “celebrate diversity” slogan and coloring is a jab at the Africa adulation that is so obvious in black culture. I’ve seen hundres of people wearing shirts with pan-African colors here in the U.S. yet I rarely see photos of actual Africans display this level of racial pride. Explain that disconnect.
Second, the diversity of guns is a not-so-subtle jab at the underbelly of black ghetto culture, which glorifies guns (and actual violence) way more than the NRA ever has. It’s a mockery of a stereotype that actually rings true in some quarters. Go figure."
I think that calls for a rewrite!
"First, the 'Likud Uber Allies!' slogan and Germanic font is a jab at the fascist tendancies that are so obvious in the political platforms and actions of the extreme right-wing Israelis. I’ve seen hundreds of people of color die for the racist and fascist policies of crazy old Jewish men, many of who experenced the Third Reich firsthand. Explain that disconnect.
Second, the is a not-so-subtle jab at the underbelly of hard-line Israeli right wingers, who glorifies, advocate, and encourage racial violence (and actual genocide and mass displacement) to a level rarely seen in first-world nations. It’s a mockery of a stereotype that actually rings true in some quarters. Go figure.
"I’ve seen hundreds of people of color die for the racist and fascist policies of crazy old Jewish men"
It must drive the likes of Chomsky nuts seeing their work promoted by real white separatists , neo-nazis and racists of the Tim McVeigh building-bombing stripe.
I wonder if my shirt idea, "I am full of hate" would sell well over at that site?
I think that better cuts to the point than all those other shirts and really covers all the bases. After all, imagine the problem of having to decide, "Do I wear the shirt that declares I hate Blacks or Gays or the French". The "I am full of Hate" eliminates that problem.
Now don't steal my idea you greedy liberals.
ATRIOS HAS BEEN UNMASKED as Duncan Black. Now, I think, Duncan Black has been unmasked as Emily Litella. Wrong t-shirt? "Never mind!"
In truth, I have no particular position on pan-Africanism, though as someone with African relatives I'll note that most Americans who talk about that stuff have quite literally no idea what they're talking about. Perhaps one day I'll collect some amusing anecdotes on the topic.
The old saying "Too clever by half" comes to mind.
Atrios,
Are you crazy? Or is it just some colors that make you that way?
The old saying "Too clever by half" comes to mind.
Foil hats anyone?
T-shirts=kill pan-Africans?
No wonder Alfred E. Neuman is going to win, the Left is loony.
this is a typical Republican joke
like calling John Kerry names such as lurch.
And the bullying tactics of the Groperfuher and then when called on it they say the same thing
wassmatterwidyou don't you got a sense of humor?
Well yes I do and you are not funny.
Annon above writing as Glenn --that was funny.
As a young, multi-ethnic woman who owns the T-shirt, I feel obligated to provide my interpretation.
Guns are as diverse as people. A gun ideal for self-defense is not ideal of deer hunting. A gun ideal for carrying deep concealed is different from a gun you would carry openly.
There are lots of different kinds of guns, and especially in a political climate that tries to ban guns because they "look scary" (see the Assault Weapons Ban that limits the number of certain cosmetic features of semiautomatic firearms), celebrating the diversity of the centuries-old tradition of gunsmithing is a good thing.
As a young, multi-ethnic woman who owns the T-shirt, I feel obligated to provide my interpretation.
Guns are as diverse as people. A gun ideal for self-defense is not ideal of deer hunting. A gun ideal for carrying deep concealed is different from a gun you would carry openly.
There are lots of different kinds of guns, and especially in a political climate that tries to ban guns because they "look scary" (see the Assault Weapons Ban that limits the number of certain cosmetic features of semiautomatic firearms), celebrating the diversity of the centuries-old tradition of gunsmithing is a good thing.
Having solved all other problems, Duncan turns to the pressing problem of determining what other bloggers should wear.
Oy.
The old saying "Too clever by half" comes to mind.
Geez. Lighten up folks!
As a young, multi-ethnic woman who owns the T-shirt, I feel obligated to provide my interpretation.
Guns are as diverse as people. A gun ideal for self-defense is not ideal of deer hunting. A gun ideal for carrying deep concealed is different from a gun you would carry openly.
There are lots of different kinds of guns, and especially in a political climate that tries to ban guns because they "look scary" (see the Assault Weapons Ban that limits the number of certain cosmetic features of semiautomatic firearms), celebrating the diversity of the centuries-old tradition of gunsmithing is a good thing.
Bannedmann writes:
"The big problem is the Republican National Committee is turning over heaven and earth to find a candidate to beat a promising black man in Illinois...."
Did it escape your notice, Bannedmann, that the two people the Illinois Republican Party are considering to run against your "promising black man" are another black man and a black woman?
Wow. Talking about your barking moonbats. This has been a most entertaining thread--the lunatics seeing sekret konspirasies and evil racist plots in a humorous t-shirt. If somebody had told me about this, I wouldn't have believed it. Now I know better.
You folks are all seriously disturbed. Good luck with your search for reality, but I don't hold out much hope for you as you are incapable of finding your ass with both hands and a flashlight....
As a young, multi-ethnic woman who owns the T-shirt, I feel obligated to provide my interpretation.
Guns are as diverse as people. A gun ideal for self-defense is not ideal of deer hunting. A gun ideal for carrying deep concealed is different from a gun you would carry openly.
There are lots of different kinds of guns, and especially in a political climate that tries to ban guns because they "look scary" (see the Assault Weapons Ban that limits the number of certain cosmetic features of semiautomatic firearms), celebrating the diversity of the centuries-old tradition of gunsmithing is a good thing.
LOL......now I understand why so many consider leftist/communists to be pussies.
Sorry for the repeated comments. I was having trouble with the form.
I apologize for the spam.
mention instapussy and the trolls come out to play. I like how they still think that Atrios was 'exposed' or 'unmasked', and not of his own will.
And after taking a look at Glenn sporting that shirt, I think HE should have tried the anonymous thing. Talk about getting beaten up as a kid - is that how all right wingers came to being?
"There is no other way to interpet this shirt but as a double entendre. In fact when I first saw it I didn't catch the diversity of the different guns angle. I just took it to mean celebrate diversity by gunning down people who are different than you."
No... But I'll admit that there is no other way that regular readers of Atrios would interpret that T-shirt. Normal people just think "Hmm... what does diversity, a traditionally liberal issue, have to do with gun ownership?" Then perhaps they stare at it and the intended interpretation comes through as a flash: there are a diversity of guns, diversity of gun owners, and diversity of reasons for owning a gun. That's what makes it clever.
Racist? It seems to me that some people have a gift for finding racism in whatever politics they disagree with. This confounds the issue of racism for people who really do bear the burden of lost jobs, promotions, property, etc. as a result of racism. Shame on you, or are you really so shallow as to continue to do battle with ghosts banished by Norman Lear 30 years ago?
Atrios,
Are you crazy? Or is it just some IMAGINED colors that make you that way?
Just curious here A, would you really like to meet face to face with most of the people posting here and engaged them in rational discourse?
What is this diversity of which you speak? It seem sthat it is the process of assessing programs and people by th color of their skin, Not the thoughts in their minds. And to se what you see in this shirt is ridiculous.
I am a young monochromatic man. My ethinicity has nothing to do with my individuality. Now THAt'S diversity. Forget the T-shirt it is nothing.
I like the shirt because I find it amusing. It's a parody on "diversity," that diversity is inherently good. There is diversity among things other than people. These guns are all different caliber (that's the size of the bullet and the degree to which the gun is likely to stop an attacker), made in all different countries (including USA, Italy, Germany, and Czech Republic, just from a cursory glance).
I find it personally amusing, because I flat out hate several of the guns on the shirt. I've fired them, and I hate them. Others I love. But I'm glad they all exist.
Jim in Texas-we're guessing a certain woot is avidly sought after. We're also guessing his boobies are less impressive in person.
I'm as liberal as they come, but I have to say that I think this interpretation is the type of thing that keeps the independents out of the Democratic party.
Come on - any colours they picked would be impaled on the righteousness of some cause or the other.
As far as the diversity pun goes, it's just a play on a liberal theme with a conservative domain - it's just supposed to be *funny* - for all you reading death threats and what not in, lighten up - all the conservative domains of interest lend themselves to darkness - from abortion, cutting welfare etc - you know the whole laundry list - that's why you are liberal ... so any joke they crack is bound to have an offensive interpretation ... you can't deny them their humor - they'll become even more bottled up and dangerous!
who gave anyone sole possession of any colors?
I rung Green, White & Gold ; I can't run my Mick? Who gave you definition? Who declared you the goddamned crew?
I got papers from the Irish embassy that allows me to speak as an Irishman ... do you have anything that alloows you credit to talk about anything at all?
I'm sorry folks, I just can't agree that Reynolds is darkly hinting that good Amerikkkans should go and shoot black people (including members of his own family?!?). Relax now, take a deep breath, blow it out slooowly.
Look, I don't know a single gun owner who would take the shirt this way and it's just...weird...that you'd dream up this violent, racist subtext.
The shirt *is* making fun of the liberal obsession with "diversity." It *is* playing up an image which most liberals obviously find distasteful (that of guns). It is, obviously, making fun of the entire liberal mindset.
But, honestly, these dark fantasies aren't good for you or for anyone else.
In contrast to these fantasies, I'd have to say that most American conservatives think that liberals are the ones fomenting racist separatism.
That is, when you *demand* that we associate skin color with other differences such as culture or socio-economic status or "group consciousness" it just strikes us as, well, racist. What else can I call a movement that wants to divide us up by the color of our skin?
The shirt is making fun of you for your race-conscious obsessions and your loathing of personal (rather than group) independence. It is not, however, pushing anyone to "celebrate diversity" by arming themselves. Just isn't so.
I'm sorry folks, I just can't agree that Reynolds is darkly hinting that good Amerikkkans should go and shoot black people (including members of his own family?!?). Relax now, take a deep breath, blow it out slooowly.
Look, I don't know a single gun owner who would take the shirt this way and it's just...weird...that you'd dream up this violent, racist subtext.
The shirt *is* making fun of the liberal obsession with "diversity." It *is* playing up an image which most liberals obviously find distasteful (that of guns). It is, obviously, making fun of the entire liberal mindset.
But, honestly, these dark fantasies aren't good for you or for anyone else.
In contrast to these fantasies, I'd have to say that most American conservatives think that liberals are the ones fomenting racist separatism.
That is, when you *demand* that we associate skin color with other differences such as culture or socio-economic status or "group consciousness" it just strikes us as, well, racist. What else can I call a movement that wants to divide us up by the color of our skin?
The shirt is making fun of you for your race-conscious obsessions and your loathing of personal (rather than group) independence. It is not, however, pushing anyone to "celebrate diversity" by arming themselves. Just isn't so.
I own and wear the shirt to shock and outrage establishment folks like you Duncan.
Your concept of "diversity" is bound by puritanical political correctness and fear. Like it or not, you are now part of the powers that be.
One of powerful and lasting messages that came out of the '60s (and I lived through them...) was to "Question Authority".
Sucks being on the receiving end, doesn't it?
An old joke seems appropriate:
Q: What do you call a person who's winning an argument with a liberal?
A: Racist!!!!
*sigh* To those folks going on about some "dark subtext" or whatever... Please, please, PLEASE go aquire a sense of humor somewhere. Mebbe ye can pick one up on eBay. Not only will it help you enjoy the occasional joke, it will also help you deterimine when you are making yourself look like a fool.
As for the shirt. A friend of mine has it. All of our various Les/Bi/Gay friends have seen it. (around there the "Celebrate Diversity" motto and rainbow font are mostly a LBGT thing)
They thought it was funny.
Rich,
Hate should be directed only at Republicans and the rich.
Have you considered changing your name?
What a whiner. Its a PARODY, you dumb idiot.
Stick with bashing President Bush - it seems to be the only thing you know how to do well.
This post is a joke, right?
The vast majority of you are missing the whole point of the shirt. While it may be a celebration of our right to own a number of different types of guns, the slogan itself is meant to cast light on and even ridicule the true definition of "diversity".
The fact that the word has become a declaration of one's political correctness has undermined the very nature of racism. The liberal left has forced the nation to accept diversity as an inherently good thing, while totally dismissing the idea of equality.
In order to promote equality, you have to tear down the barrier of color, you have to make people see each other as Americans and not as members of some secluded race. Under the mission of equality, you have to change the people if you want to change the society.
But diversity, on the other hand, is quicker and simpler - you just have to overly emphasize that there is some fundamental difference between a black person and a white person. That way, you don't have to worry about years of angst and fear and resentment, because all it takes to be "diverse" is to mix the different skin colors. And the leftists desire this outcome, because it makes it easier to preserve the minority vote - if you start teaching the black population that it is not their skin color but rather what they do with their god-given abilities that makes them who they are, then you start breeding independence and free thought and you'll have more minority voters seeing that their political views and opinions lean to the other side of the political spectrum.
Diversity has been swallowed whole by Americans because it is easier to satisfy than equality - it is a fad-diet meant to divide the population as effectively as possible. It has become a measurement of political correctness and a wall that seperates the races in America. Being non-diverse has become the equivalent of being a Communist in the McCarthy era, and the t-shirt means to celebrate guns by ridiculing this terrible word that our lazy nation has so eagerly and so easily adopted.
Gee whiz, it's a play on words. Like the T shirts with bottles of beer, we appreciate variety. It was not a gesture of disrespect for a noble idea and especially shows no hate towards to a group or race of people.
Get a grip people.
Gee whiz, it's a play on words. Like the T shirts with bottles of beer, we appreciate variety. It was not a gesture of disrespect for a noble idea and especially shows no hate towards to a group or race of people.
Get a grip people.
Gee whiz, it's a play on words. Like the T shirts with bottles of beer, we appreciate variety. It was not a gesture of disrespect for a noble idea and especially shows no hate towards to a group or race of people.
Get a grip people.
Gee whiz, it's a play on words. Like the T shirts with bottles of beer, we appreciate variety. It was not a gesture of disrespect for a noble idea and especially shows no hate towards to a group or race of people.
Get a grip people.
The "celebrate diversity" is just short for
"You lefties are full of it, because you claim to be in favour of diversity, but that's just a lie, because the moment someone disagrees with you, he's gonna get called a racist or fascist."
And this thread is ample proof of it.
Says PG
"Not to slam Reynolds in particular, but I don't doubt that for a lot of people who wear that shirt, owning a lot of different guns is the closest they get to diversity.
What do Dems do, own different ethnic people?
Sheesh, what Atrios or whoever his real name won't do for a link.
Oh, well. You poor flaming lefties are in for another dose of humiliation here in a few months, so maybe it's better to just troll for non-election links.
Celebrate diversity! Legalize it! Free Saddam and, um, Mubai!
Best absurdist defense
"your concept of diversity is bound by purantical correctness"
It's defined by diversity and bound by nothing. But I can tell by the tightass posts from the Glenn defenders that you are the ones all bound up. I suggest prunes.
This is all about instapundit and his own petard. One can only imagine the snarky post if it were
Duncan Black in a similar circumstance. And if people posted -oh right can't post comments with Glenn because he is a big baby and can't take it.
So for all of your trotting out the no sense of humor agrument...SHOVE IT.
You should be glad Black doesn't do a daily fact check on Glenn but no one had that much time to waste.
Unable to operate a comments section
poor readers of Glenn's blog don't know how to make comments
It must be really sad to be so full of self-loathing that you must examine everything you do for Forbidden Behaviors. You shouldn't have preferences and your own ideas about how the world works: just edit out your personality and behave how your hive decrees. That's living, baby!
A psychiatrist was administering a Rorschach inkblot test to his patient. The doctor showed the first blot and asked what it resembled.
"That's two poodles having sex," replied the patient.
To the second inkblot, the patient said, "That's a naked guy leaning out a window, telling all the men who go by to come in and have sex with her."
The doctor showed him the third inkblot. "That's a pair of crotchless underpants," the patient said.
Unable to withstand this any longer, the doctor blurted out, "You have a filthy, disgusting mind!"
"Look who's talking!" the patient cried. "You're the one with all the dirty pictures."
"The fact that the NRA came into being the same year the KKK was declared an illegal terrorist organization, and besides this the very constant relationship between racists and guns, is kind of loud--if you're aware of it."
The NRA was actually founded by former Union officers, a fact our good buddy Michael left out of his little "documentary." The KKK was founded to fight the "occupation" after the civil war ended, so this parallel is ridiculous. In many cases in the South, NRA chapters were founded to let the most frequent victims of lynchings defends themselves against the KKK's terrorism. Why would Union officers help an organization that they were still fighting?
What's distressing is that the definition of "diversity" seems to be limited to race, and occasionally, gender.
What about economic diversity? Diversity of hobbies? Diversity of disability? Diversity of profession? Diversity of political beliefs (ie. conservative vs. liberal)?
We are all diverse from one another. Myself, I own several firearms, which I suppose puts me in the "diversity of firepower" crowd. What I find distressing is that those who typically have an outlook one could call "liberal" resort to attacking anybody disagreeing with them. Trolls, in most forums I have come into contact with, seem to be of a liberal mindset. Examples from this thread alone abound:
---"I read a much darker subtext into that...Melanie"
---"I thought it was more sinister than even your interpretation. I read it as "Celebrate Diversity -- kill a black person."...Loudocracy"
---"An image/caption befitting a dickweed like Reynolds...Canary"
---"Right wingers equate guns with power. Mao: Power grows out of the barrel of a gun. This, the right wing endorses greatly. This is why they are always sore losers in elections...Elaine Supkis"
(News flash, Elaine - Gore was the one who lost the last presidential election and took it to the Supreme Court. He was under a "left wing" ticket in case you lost track of that....incidentally, conservative tickets have won all but two of the elections in the last 30 years or so.)
There are a lot more examples here; this is just a starter. Nice to see some of the later commenters restoring some sanity. My initial thought when I saw the shirt was exactly what several people posted - sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Unless you have to debate the meaning of the word "is", that is.
Just think Atrios, if you hadn't endorsed that tee-shirt by linking to it on your weblog, I wouldn't have run out and bought 5 to give out to all my friends.
Why does Atrios love the NRA????
Wow, it must suck to be you people - has any of you EVER smiled? Or is the whole world just one big plot against you?
oy. (
Woops - forgot about Carter. He's so easy to forget, though, having won on a ticket of "Hey, I'm better than the alternative."
Remind you of anybody?
Glenn is a poopy head and sent his minions over to defend him.
Why not just call Atrios out and have a duel...that would seem fitting for a gun nut
"Being non-diverse has become the equivalent of being a Communist in the McCarthy era"
So first of all, isn't "non-diverse" (what the hell does that mean?) really "anti-diversity"? And second of all, the McCarthyite persecutions meant murder, physical harassment, exile from work, poverty and alienation-who has suffered any of this for being anti- (or "non") diversity? And who is other than the Klan?
not only are instahacks fans poopyheads but they are still re enacting the civil war --
I hate to tell them but no matter how many times you ask for a do over the results will still be the same
And the Union Army did not "occupy" the South after the civil war...is that the 'history' they teach in Tenn.
Duels are for situations where parties are both armed. Be it wits or weapons, you'd still lose. lol
The only thing wrong with that shirt is that it didn't include a Walther in there. So sad.
I'm offended by that t-shirt's lack of diversity. There weren't any flintlocks or automatic weapons on it, either. Burn the shirt!
Uh, the NRA was founded by former Union officers. The first president was Ambrose Burnside, and US Grant was later president. They created the NRA to promote shooting skills, which they thought were sadly lacking in the population of the time. They have never had any racial restrictions on membership--very unusual for any organization of the time--and were quite unpopular with the KKK in the south because they promoted firearms ownership among blacks. In short, they were affiliated with the radical Republican side of the post-Civil War society, on the side of blacks and in opposition to the KKK.
wg
witless, factless, feckless and
hoisted on his own petard
I guess insty is just a girlyboy(his term) and has to have his army of homeless trolls come to roost here
if we are so weak and unchallenging why are you bothering to post.
The t-shirt obviously riffs on the Orwellian nature of leftist "diversity", which has a peculiar blind spot where diversity of opinion, or indeed for the Bill of Rights and its Second Amendment, are concerned.
To those on the left "diversity" means making sure every staff member of the college newspaper represents the proper statistical measure of race or ethnicity while at the same time banning columns on, say, affirmative action or abortion which don't toe the party line.
That "diversity" is so often preached by the same people who oppose the Second Amendment is the irony directly confronted by the t-shirt, and its subtler subtext is that political correctness and the homogeneity of opinion it enforces is the opposite of the "diversity" its proponents claim to espouse.
The point of the shirt, for those who care (not many 'round here) is that "Celebrate Diversity" can mean ANYthing and therefore means NOthing. It is, like the Democrats notions on national security and sovereignty (and everything else that comes to mind at the mo') a vapor, barely perceptible, looking a bit like solidity but dissipating at the slightest touch of anything solid. Like that post!
Glennites unite
demand the right to post comments
on Glenn's site
so you don't take up bandwidth
in other people's playgrounds
because you litter and spit
and do not play nicely
"And the Union Army did not "occupy" the South after the civil war...is that the 'history' they teach in Tenn."
I'm actually an Ohioan, and I put "occupy" in "quotes" to show that I "didn't agree with the assessment of the KKK." Do you not "understand" the use of "quotes?"
The fact is that the NRA was founded by the good guys, and the KKK was founded by the bad guys. They were never on the same team, and to say so is dishonest and slanderous. Every time I go to Tennessee, I try to convince people to get over the Civil War. Especially East Tennessee, which was actually a pro-union section that needed to be occupied by the Confederacy (note the non-use of quotes) so it wouldn't leave the Confederacy like West Virginia.
"in other people's playgrounds"
i would have said "sandbox."
I guess the pundiliars have given up on the Reeper talking points if they have all this time to attack Atrios for giving his opinion of instapundit's commercial endorsements. I see it is ok to attack the Dixie Chicks or Whoopie Goldberg or Atrios for giving his opinion but not ok to attack one of the creepiest guys on the planet for
his being a poseur.
A lot of hate here. Serious question, though. In the first paragraph, Reynolds is accused of "blaming the victims of genocide." Can anyone explain when Reynolds did this and who it was?
I'm just wondering, based on all these comments, if I should not be posting here because I disagree with some of the posts? Do we each have to stay in our political sects, the right wing going to or FreeRep. or the lefties going to DemUnderground? What the hell is the point of that, then we just stay in our little echo chambers. Both sides show a lack of tolerance for disagreement. I celebrate it.
duncan,
you are an idiot. A politically correct idiot.
Glenn:
"I am not a racist
some of my best relatives are black
but not black from the US
an imported black person.
that's different you know
heh"
discussion and open opportunity for all points of view
No one is censoring comments here
anyone can post
Can you do that at Glenn's
and Atrios has more readers so it's not a size issue (well it probably is for Glenn)
Anyone know which Genocide Reynolds blamed on the victims?
I continue to be amazed by how the progressive/liberal tendency to ascribe the worst possible motives to their opponents has really soared since BushJr was elected.
One of the few possible bright spots of a Kerry presidency is that maybe the left wing will give their jerking knees a rest for a while.
I am pro-diversity
and pro-choice
and anti-anti-choice
and pro-diversity
and anti-wife-beating
and if you disagree with me
on any point at all
you are anti those things
you Nazi wifebeating rat bastard
Oh and you're a hick too
{thank you thank you}
" ascribe the worst possible motives to their opponents "
They see it as 'payback time' for "Clenis". Quite lame, agreed.
I continue to be amazed by how the progressive/liberal tendency to ascribe the worst possible motives to their opponents has really soared since BushJr was elected.
It might have something to do with the simple fact that, when Nero and his handlers are involved, they always manage to exceed our worst expectations.
(though in this case it does seem excessive... if somebody wants to wear a stupid t-shirt, why should I care? it just makes them easier to spot and avoid)
Random
boy that'a appropriate the level of hate speech in politics is directly related to Republicans and your statement is astonishing in it's duplicity.
Bush has appointed more industry lobbyist to regulatory positions than any other president. What do we think their motives might be.
It's like saying no more rock throwing after you've finished throwing your rocks
go back and post at instapundit
oh right you can't
Glenn the opponent of free speech doesn't allow that.
Republicans: This is American
SHUT UP.
Maybe's it's just payback for what it is a stupid crass commercial endorsement that exposes the shallow thoughtless fool that he is.
It's payback for his endless sucking up to Bush
Anyone? Can anyone back up the statement that Reynolds blames genocide victims? I'm not just blatantly standing up for Reynolds. the statement was made in the original post, and I'm very curious to know what he's talking about. I would think with this many Reynolds detractors, someone could back that up.
Ned
I suggest you email the author directly
Unlike Glenn no one in the comments section would put words in someone else's mouth.
What will you sore losers whine about after W whips Qetchup Queen Qerry on November 2?
Check out the little racist on Atrios' trackback:
"But the thing that sticks in my craw is that he doesn’t even get the black joke. Sure, there’s the obvious joke, but there’s also the ribbing at black culture. What I see is a shirt which mocks blacks on two levels:
First, the “celebrate diversity” slogan and coloring is a jab at the Africa adulation that is so obvious in black culture. I’ve seen hundres of people wearing shirts with pan-African colors here in the U.S. yet I rarely see photos of actual Africans display this level of racial pride. Explain that disconnect.
Second, the diversity of guns is a not-so-subtle jab at the underbelly of black ghetto culture, which glorifies guns (and actual violence) way more than the NRA ever has. It’s a mockery of a stereotype that actually rings true in some quarters. Go figure."
...
"But I can guarantee you one thing, if a white boy wearing one of these shirts decided to stroll down a sidestreet of Crenshaw, chances are he’d probably get jumped and get his ass beat and robbed. And the shirt wouldn’t have a thing to do with it."
http://tinyurl.com/6m2vj
"First, the ‘Likud Uber Allies!’ slogan and Germanic font is a jab at the fascist tendancies that are so obvious in the political platforms and actions of extreme right-wing Israelis. I’ve seen hundreds of brown people die for the racist and fascist policies of crazy old Jewish men, many of who experenced the Third Reich firsthand. Explain that disconnect.
Second, the image of an S.S soldier wearing a yellow star is a not-so-subtle jab at the underbelly of hard-line Israeli right wingers, who glorify, advocate, and encourage racial violence (and actual genocide and mass displacement) to a level rarely seen in first-world nations. It’s a mockery of a stereotype that actually rings true in some quarters. Go figure.”
Okay. I suppose I can do that. I wasn't trying to get anyone to put words in anyone's mouth, I just wondered if anyone knew what he was referring to. Later.
VRWC
I see the best of the instapundit fans have arrived. I don't get what you said could you explain it please
Is that meant to be a joke? If so why is that funny? Are you calling Senator Kerry gay? Are you saying he is a queen if so what does that mean to you did you know it means something is certain slang? And what is Qetchup and what is Qerry?
Q: What do you call a person who's winning an argument with a liberal fool?
A: A racist who takes advantage of the handicapped!!!!
>>wg
witless, factless, feckless and
hoisted on his own petard
I guess insty is just a girlyboy(his term) and has to have his army of homeless trolls come to roost here
if we are so weak and unchallenging why are you bothering to post.
Anonymous
MSimon
I thought you were trying to defend
Glenn!
Because it's fun to watch you dance, Anon. Haven't you ever teased the animals at the zoo? All the chimps do is throw their own poo, which is a pretty comparable image.
Dance, little man, dance....
Oh, by the by...if you manage to figure out the meanings of any of the polysyllabic words you used, lemme know, will ya? Education is a good thing, I've read.
Hate is a left-wing disease, we conservatives have better things to do.
Whether it be hatred of conservatives, the wealthy, the Jews (left-wing anti-semitism is rampant in certain parts of Europe and Britain), or minorities that don't conform to their fashionable socialism, I'm always amazed at how much the left lashes out at others in the guise of feigned compassion. I'm gay, so do you leftists embrace me for being an "oppressed victim" or hate me for being libertarian-conservative? You're probably thinking "traitor", admit it, just goes to show how narrow-minded you really are.
The "sub-text" of the t-shirt you see is your psychological projection of your own narrow-minded hate-filled caricature of those who are brave enough to think for themselves and reject your fashionable leftwing group-think.
MF
North Yorks, England
wg
was there a point to copying that post or did you just like it so much you wanted to read it twice
Did your brain just go on vacation? That's one of the most moronic things I've read.
Actually, I'd really enjoy a shirt that said "I am full of hate!" I wonder if someone makes them.
right wing and gay
do you date drudge
unless that means something different in the UK I'd say you were filled with self loathing
Hate is a left-wing disease, we conservatives have better things to do.
Whether it be hatred of conservatives, the wealthy, the Jews (left-wing anti-semitism is rampant in certain parts of Europe and Britain), or minorities that don't conform to their fashionable socialism, I'm always amazed at how much the left lashes out at others in the guise of feigned compassion. I'm gay, so do you leftists embrace me for being an "oppressed victim" or hate me for being libertarian-conservative? You're probably thinking "traitor", admit it, just goes to show how narrow-minded you really are.
The "sub-text" of the t-shirt you see is your psychological projection of your own narrow-minded hate-filled caricature of those who are brave enough to think for themselves and reject your fashionable leftwing group-think.
MF
North Yorks, England
Oh my god this is the funniest thing I have ever read. Anyone who reads a white supremacist theme into that shirt needs there head examined. You wacky leftys, when will you learn that not everyone shares your deep-seated, well-hidden prejudices.
you don't get to express yourself very often so you have a tiny little
vocabulary--too bad more of your kind of people don't allow comments on their blogs...so you just don't have as much experience as others
get it someplace else.
shut up;
Actually, yes, there was a point. The second post of mine below it was supposed to follow the copying - I wouldn't want to confuse Anonymous people.
Well, that and I liked the post so much it needed to be repeated. I keep a collection of attempts at disparagement. It amuses me.
@ Jeremy - does this work for you?
http://store1.yimg.com/I/
village..._1800_220901047
Hmmm. For those looking, looking, looking for some example of as objectionable an expression on the Left to match the vicious, Hitlerian gasbaggery of Glenn Reynolds I have three little words.
Eat.
The.
Rich.
Hey man, don't strain your squinty little eyes looking for subtext... That's TEXT!
>>right wing and gay
do you date drudge
unless that means something different in the UK I'd say you were filled with self loathing
It's obvious who the commenters are who have linked from Glenn they don't know how to use the halocan because no blog they read regularly allows comments.
No free speech in any of Glennland
>>you don't get to express yourself very often so you have a tiny little
vocabulary--too bad more of your kind of people don't allow comments on their blogs...so you just don't have as much experience as others
get it someplace else.
wg boycotts big word...
Hey, get yer own moniker! *administers a whacking*
>>right wing and gay
do you date drudge
unless that means something different in the UK I'd say you were filled with self loathing
I'm reading this and wondering what the hell you people are putting in your coffee. As Freud said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." There is zero racist message in the shirt, although I can see that actually convincing anyone here of that is a lost cause. You seem to be hallucinating and seeing racism where race is probably the last thing on the T-shirt creator's mind. Please. There are enough terrible things in the world that you don't need to them where they aren't.
>>right wing and gay
do you date drudge
unless that means something different in the UK I'd say you were filled with self loathing
"administers a whacking"
Glenn's trolls are violent '
oh right gun owners
"...but...but...but...it has pictures of GUNS on it...and...and...COLORED LETTERS! We didn't think of using that combination first....IT MUST BE RACIST!!!!! That'll get em...no way they can argue that....yeah..."
My apologies for multiple posts, but the computer seems to be clipping my comments.
>>right wing and gay
do you date drudge
unless that means something different in the UK I'd say you were filled with self loathing
That was fast, a perfect example precisely illustrating my point. You demand group-think and strict ideological conformity. Doesn't sound very open-minded to me. I'm sorry, but when I read George Orwell's 1984, I didn't get an erection. And my partner is a socialist thank you, though he's slowly coming round.
MF
North Yorks, England
Stupid self hating, oxymoronic fags:
"That was fast, a perfect example precisely illustrating my point. You demand group-think and strict ideological conformity. Doesn't sound very open-minded to me. I'm sorry, but when I read George Orwell's 1984, I didn't get an erection. And my partner is a socialist thank you, though he's slowly coming round."
We were trying to think of a leftist parallel (in nastiness) and couldn't find one.
How about the "I had an abortion" tees? A celebration of murder to anyone who opposes abortion (not that anyone here does...)
And don't think these miserable, twisted wingnuts don't know EXACTLY what it means. They do. It's code for them, like "state's rights."
That's just as parinoid as mikey moore saying the Repub's are "hatriots" that wake up each morning trying to figure out who they're trying to oppress today.
You're so busy cheering for your team, and trying to paint the other team as evil that you've lost your grip on reality.
I'm a right-winger, and that t-shirt had no overtone, undertone or sideways tone of racism to me until you guys brought it up. If you're trying to read racism into everything, you're going to find it.
"What color are the roads the white man drives on? Black!! HAh--proof of racism!!!"
You're so desperate to paint people who believe differently from you as evil. I see a long string of insults here in this thread. I saw a Bush rally in my town this weekend, and met a whole bunch of decent families that simply have a different idea about the way this country should be run from you. You people need to put aside your hate, log off your computers and go enjoy your lives--if you're capable of doing so.
My apologies for multiple posts, but the computer seems to be clipping my comments.
>>right wing and gay
do you date drudge
unless that means something different in the UK I'd say you were filled with self loathing
That was fast, a perfect example precisely illustrating my point. You demand group-think and strict ideological conformity. Doesn't sound very open-minded to me. I'm sorry, but when I read George Orwell's 1984, I didn't get an erection. And my partner is a socialist thank you, though he's slowly coming round.
MF
North Yorks, England
We were trying to think of a leftist parallel (in nastiness) and couldn't find one.
How about the "I had an abortion" tees? A celebration of murder to anyone who opposes abortion (not that anyone here does...)
And don't think these miserable, twisted wingnuts don't know EXACTLY what it means. They do. It's code for them, like "state's rights."
That's just as parinoid as mikey moore saying the Repub's are "hatriots" that wake up each morning trying to figure out who they're trying to oppress today.
You're so busy cheering for your team, and trying to paint the other team as evil that you've lost your grip on reality.
I'm a right-winger, and that t-shirt had no overtone, undertone or sideways tone of racism to me until you guys brought it up. If you're trying to read racism into everything, you're going to find it.
"What color are the roads the white man drives on? Black!! HAh--proof of racism!!!"
You're so desperate to paint people who believe differently from you as evil. I see a long string of insults here in this thread. I saw a Bush rally in my town this weekend, and met a whole bunch of decent families that simply have a different idea about the way this country should be run from you. You people need to put aside your hate, log off your computers and go enjoy your lives--if you're capable of doing so.
I am detecting a subtext of hatred on this blog.
Christ, you folks combine unbelievable stupidity with a total lack of irony.
Christ, you folks combine unbelievable stupidity with a total lack of irony.
>>Stupid self hating, oxymoronic fags:
Homophobic bigot.
I hadn't seen the shirt before, thanks for letting me know that somewhere out there is a group of running-dog, capitalist pigs willing to make a buck off of the racial hatred that consumes most of white Amerikkka.
I'm buying one tomorrow.
Oddly enough, Anon, I've hit somebody with a car, but I've never shot anybody. Ergo, car owners are a violent sort, yes?
Blaming a tool for the use of it is absurdity at its best. In the ten years I've owned firearms, I've actually pointed one at someone, with the full intention of using it, once. I was able to talk the fellow into putting down his weapon, not attack me, and wait for the police to come collect him. Had I been the unreasonable, violent homicidal maniac alluded to by gun-rights activists, I'd simply have (justifiably, I might add) shot and most likely killed him. He, incidentally, was an escaped mentally ill felon from the psychiatric ward for the criminally insane. In short, if he hadn't met me, the next person might not have had a gun with which to defend themselves.
In case you're wondering, the car incident was somebody who jumped in front of my car when it was moving, and I was unable to stop. He, fortunately, is fine. Is the car at fault in that incident?
Gun rights opponents will say, "Well, but a car isn't intended to be a weapon!" Yes, a gun is intended to be a weapon - but does that stop a person with homicidal intent from using a car as one as well?
It will be interesting seeing your response to that. I predict more ranting and raving - prove me wrong, please.
OK, let's just assume for a second that they had chosen different colors (since the shirt he was wearing actually WAS different colors)...
What subtext would you find then?
Finders of "subtexts" are really quite amazing. I am frequently amazed at how what people say REALLY means something totally different. (Especially when I'm the one who says it...)
Get over yourselves.
This kind of problem is known as "projecting".
Let me just tell you why the "celebrate diversity" shirt is a good satire shirt:
"Diversity" types are always harping about diversity, and yet, if you're a gun owner, they don't mean you. The whole point of the shirt is to point out that double standard. Duh.
Read whatever "subtext" into it you want - that's your problem.
Seriously,
Can you imagine being trapped in any enclosed space with these boobs?
For crying out loud, I'm sorry that I whipped your ass with a towel in high school gym. Now, as poli/sci or lit majors, you've come to get your revenge by declaring everyone with whom you disagree a:
1) Nazi
2) Racist
3) Bible Thumper
The funny thing is, from the very first post in this thread, you've lost the argument. Anytime dems resort to tinfoil hat theories, extremist namecalling or the assumption of being in the upper eschelon of literate society because of a unique ability to cypher out a social sinner, the argument is over.
Christianity is dying, Only to be replaced by a much more agregious and frightening religion: extreme liberalism. Of course, as a hallmark of any aggressive religion, the most zealous can never see themselves as willing participants in the inquisition.
I'm going to have a beer.
My apologies for multiple posts, but the computer seems to be clipping my comments.
>>right wing and gay
do you date drudge
unless that means something different in the UK I'd say you were filled with self loathing
That was fast, a perfect example precisely illustrating my point. You demand group-think and strict ideological conformity. Doesn't sound very open-minded to me. I'm sorry, but when I read George Orwell's 1984, I didn't get an erection. And my partner is a socialist thank you, though he's slowly coming round.
MF
North Yorks, England
The left has truly lost it...
It's supposed to be a funny T-Shirt.Period. If you can't get the joke, then fine, but to read all sorts of subtexts into it is purely the makings of your own diseased paranoid minds, a manifestation of how you think you see those that would wear such a shirt.
"It's code for republicans" my ass. No, republicans don't have codes, we just say whats on our minds. The fact that you think all republicans want to kill black people is reflected in the manufacture of such a subtext.
Do you see right wingers going on about how anti-Bush T-Shirts reflect some subtext of destroying white mans civilisation?
More so, do you really think an anti-Bush T-Shirt would generate such a thread as this with such dire accusations?
As usual, what doesn't surprise me is the usual intolerance from the left, nor the attempts to generate the accusations of 'thought crime', validated by some half baked psycho-babble.
This has been a fascinatingly entertaining thread.
For all the focus on "racist code words", I bet not many of you know that "gun control" started out as a racist "code word" for making sure black people couldn't defend themselves and that the first "gun control" laws enacted way back in the 1700s were specifically created for that purpose.
Or that the phrase "saturday night special" is a racist term referring to "saturday night in n*ggertown" and that laws prohibiting "saturday night specials" were not created in order to "protect the public from defective firearms" as is commonly used as the justification when people try to pass them nowadays, but in order to ban cheap firearms in order to price them out of the reach of black people.
Or even that the NRA was hated by the KKK because they were strongly anti-slavery and pro-black-empowerment. The NRA has advocated black ownership of firearms since it's creation.
Learn some history and don't go overboard trying to read between the lines.
p.s. Here's the entertaining essay that inspired the Nuke the Moon shirt.
GoFish, here. Have a Guinness on me.
Wow.
(Note: not perfect quotes)
"blames the victims of genocide"
"NRA and KKK are the same"
"McCarthyite tactics killed people"
"subtext of hate"
"it doesn't matter that he's not wearing the tee-shirt I was referring to"
"not celebrating diversity makes you racist"
Amazing. Seriously. This is ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag. Honestly, I'm...amazed. Other people have already pointed out why each of these things is idiotic, so I won't bother, but good lord. I'm showing this thread to everyone I know. Christ, this will net Bush at least a hundred votes. All I have to do is show this to people and say, "You see these crazy, ignorant weirdos? Yeah, the support Kerry."
careful, North Yorks, its only a matter of time before self loathing fag David Ehrenstein posts that Sullivan "milkyloads" ad and then the circle will be complete.
Thanks wg!
Love the Guinness. Brew my own at home actually and it kicks ass.
Makes an otherworldy thread seem even more... surreal.
GoFish
Guinness is the best.
The Pacific NW, USA has a lot of really good porter microbrews that come a close second to it, though. There's one in Eugene, Oregon that's served with a shot of espresso in it and called a "Night Train". Wow.
Alert: thread-jacking in progress....
I can only add a hearty "Hear, Hear!" to the remarks of Brother Eric Rock . . . I have rarely seen so much projection in one thread. Why is it that you leftist, racist whackadoos always see racism in everything? Because you are a bunch of guilty conscience, closet, condescending, racist aholes.
But, then, the rest of us figured that out a LONG time ago . . . we're just having fun watching y'all PRETEND to "celebrate diversity" (as long as everyone agrees with you), and support the "downtrodden minorities" (by continuing to push failed social programs that not only waste money, and don't solve the problems they were "designed" to address, but frequently make them objectively worse).
What color is the sky on your planet?????
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I'm generally considered a "right-winger" (I'm not a registred Republican, I decide each race based on the two candidates positions on the issues... but I haven't found a Democrat I could vote for at the national level yet), and the "obvious code-words" in that shirt aren't exactly obvious to me.
Perhaps one of you could tell me where the "right-wing psychopath" school is so I can go there and find about about all these wonderful "code-words" I'm supposed to know?
Whatever.
I judge people by their behaviour, not their skin color or the shape of their nose, just like almost all of the "right-wing" people I know.
Come, join us on planet Earth - it's a wonderful and actually existing place to be.
An explosion of bile from the right.
I wish Insty would get comments and give these people someplace to go.
Boy these posts sure prove his supporters are racists --even if the Tshirt doesn't prove he is. What an ugly bunch. Considering they have a place to speak something not afforded by their hero. Pundiliar frequently just posts Republican talking points --no record Kerry then we have most liberal Kerry (how can you be the most liberal if you have no record/) and of course the 15point bounce in a race where there are not 15% undecided but he's happy to repeat that Republican lie....but no place for us poor Atrios trolls to post our opinions in response.
Here free speech is observed more than I can say for any of the morons that linked from Glenn the silencer.
Deoxy
for you that would be planet flat earth
Boy these posts sure prove his supporters are racists --even if the Tshirt doesn't prove he is.
Um, how?
no record Kerry then we have most liberal Kerry (how can you be the most liberal if you have no record/)
No record, in the sense of almost NO signature legislation. Most liberal as in most liberal score by both ADA and ACU.
Glenn has every right not to allow comments. If you wanna post your thoughts, get your own blog. lol
As I predicted, more ranting and raving. Wish I'd been wrong...but I'm more "right" than what's obviously "left". Good of you to prove that point for me....thanks.
"Boy these posts sure prove his supporters are racists"
How so? Prove it, shitstain.
wg
And Glenn has everyright to be a horse's ass and he is
and Duncan Black posting as Atrios has everyright to point it out.
it's interesting that the left encourages free speech and the right suppresses it
and I think you just proved that.
Their thought process runs something like this:
**I'm open minded.
**Anybody who doesn't fit my definition of open-minded-ness is therefore not open minded.
**Non-open-minded-ness = closed-minded-ness.
**The best expression of closed-minded-ness is the exclusion of everything that's different.
**Differences = diversity.
**Diversity = race.
**Exclusion of race = racism.
Ergo - anybody disagreeing with me is logically a racist.
What kills me is the tendency of "open-minded" people to automatically adopt an "us and them" mentality when their value system logically says that they're accepting of everything. Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, meet pot....
No signature leg --you are just repeating Republican talking points
since you are at this blog try reading it ..if you can read.
It points out Kerry's legislative record and then goes on to point out
DickCheney's stuff it with pork's record which is truly the one with no legislation no signature legislation none at all except for pork for the homestead. nice try
racists?
look at the track back and read the Glennista's ..ugly bunch you are.
Yep,
WG's one comment proved without a doubt that all conservatives suppress speech liberals embrace it. Case closed.
Step outside your little world for just a second. Can you honestly say that, in the past 20 years, given all the pc shite propagated by the left, that liberals are more in favor of free speech? If you can, there is no reaching you in your happy space.
Rainbows, blue skies and handholding for all liberals. Black, toxic clouds and shootouts for all conservatives.
GoFish
Yep,
WG's one comment proved without a doubt that all conservatives suppress speech liberals embrace it. Case closed.
Step outside your little world for just a second. Can you honestly say that, in the past 20 years, given all the pc shite propagated by the left, that liberals are more in favor of free speech? If you can, there is no reaching you in your happy space.
Rainbows, blue skies and handholding for all liberals. Black, toxic clouds and shootouts for all conservatives.
GoFish
The other disturbing thing is the tendency of irresponsible trolls to hide behind the First Amendment.
Freedom and responsibility are two sides of the same coin - the freedom to do as you wish, and the responsibility to use that freedom in a way that doesn't detract from its most basic principles.
In other words, sure, you have the freedom to say whatever you like. Others don't have to permit you that freedom within their own realm. By way of illustration, if you take this to its logical limit, I have the freedom to express myself by arranging my own feces into what I feel are artistically pleasing patterns. By your way of thinking, then, you would be required to go along with that by allowing me to do so in your living room.
The reason I am posting here is simply because the author of this weblog permits comments. I don't post comments at Instapundit because Glenn doesn't (obviously). I do occasionally have thoughts on Instapundit's posts, and I often email those thoughts to Glenn. Every so often, I get a response - he's a busy guy.
I'm also posting here because it's fun teasing you, frankly. As I said above, it's much like standing at the zoo and watching the chimps fling their own poo at the windows.
Yep,
WG's one comment proved without a doubt that all conservatives suppress speech liberals embrace it. Case closed.
Step outside your little world for just a second. Can you honestly say that, in the past 20 years, given all the pc shite propagated by the left, that liberals are more in favor of free speech? If you can, there is no reaching you in your happy space.
Rainbows, blue skies and handholding for all liberals. Black, toxic clouds and shootouts for all conservatives.
GoFish
GoFish, go easy on the Guinness, huh? lol
Yep,
WG's one comment proved without a doubt that all conservatives suppress speech liberals embrace it. Case closed.
Step outside your little world for just a second. Can you honestly say that, in the past 20 years, given all the pc shite propagated by the left, that liberals are more in favor of free speech? If you can, there is no reaching you in your happy space.
Rainbows, blue skies and handholding for all liberals. Black, toxic clouds and shootouts for all conservatives.
GoFish
Hiding behind the first amendment?
do you even read what you write.
Yes let's all hide behind free speech.
Wg has quite a few posts
I see gofish also cannot read
Insty's too busy to have comments
awwwwwwwwwwww (LMAO)
well if you don't like the attitude here get your own blog
or maybe we should make a plea to Glenn to open up comments so you have a place to go.
Yep,
WG's one comment proved without a doubt that all conservatives suppress speech liberals embrace it. Case closed.
Step outside your little world for just a second. Can you honestly say that, in the past 20 years, given all the pc shite propagated by the left, that liberals are more in favor of free speech? If you can, there is no reaching you in your happy space.
Rainbows, blue skies and handholding for all liberals. Black, toxic clouds and shootouts for all conservatives.
GoFish
>>Hiding behind the first amendment?
do you even read what you write.
You do realize that makes no sense...right? O_o
I didn't say I don't like the attitude here. I said it's fun to watch.
you are reading into the shirt exactly what you have been conditioned to see. . .
if you were raised to be offended and hurt by the things others do or say, that's what you are experiencing.
it's anti-PC and that's it. get over it.
you make no sense at all
figures as a follower of Glenn once
you are off the talking points
you have nothing to say
Like I said, Eschaton Comment Section = Projection City.
WE'RE racists, because YOU read racism into everything you see?
WE'RE ugly, because YOU post shit like "Atrios has more readers so it's not a size issue (well it probably is for Glenn)" and "Fuck you doubly, you prick. Come near my property, I'll shoot your ass in self-defense."
Yeah, classy bunch, you libs.
And, for all those of you bitching about Glenn not having a comments section (and praising Atrios for having same), do you REALLY contend that there are insufficient right-wing blogs out there that allow comments, such that you can't drag your puny, flabby, counter-factual, half-assed little arguments to them to be exposed for the silly logical lacunae that they are????
I'll be HAPPY to give you a list of twenty right wing blogs, complete with comment sections, where you can take your silly ideas to be slapped around.
To put my point in other terms, since you seem not to read past the first sentences of my various posts: "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Supreme Court Justice
>>you make no sense at all
figures as a follower of Glenn once
you are off the talking points
you have nothing to say
I am wg's mom and I am sorry ...
As near as I can tell, I'm still on-topic....or was the topic meaningless insults? You're right, I'm off topic on that one.
Yep,
WG's one comment proved without a doubt that all conservatives suppress speech liberals embrace it. Case closed.
Step outside your little world for just a second. Can you honestly say that, in the past 20 years, given all the pc shite propagated by the left, that liberals are more in favor of free speech? If you can, there is no reaching you in your happy space.
Rainbows, blue skies and handholding for all liberals. Black, toxic clouds and shootouts for all conservatives.
GoFish
wg
you tried to hijack the thread earlier
you clearly are a troll with too much time on your hands.
And you have been flinging insults like poo since you arrived.
The left screams like a chicken with its head cut off about those who promote gun rights, and those in small town America who use guns as a part of their daily lived scream like a chicken with its head cut off about restricting their rights.
Both sides need to learn about the issues and concerns of the other side. I am pretty much as anti-gun as they come, but there is no way I would have taken the gun out of my grandfathers hands when he went deer hunting in Michigan.
Stop pretending you have the moral high ground Atrios, or pretending like you are even the slightest bit objective. You are the Rush Limbaugh for the left. Entertainment. That is all.
"you clearly are a troll with too much time on your hands."
unlike those who
merely respond
to such trolls
like the energizer
bunny
I think some of these right-wingers are attributing some of the comments made here to fictional libs (i.e. conservatives in disguise). I mean, come ON, you can't be that gullible to believe those over-the-top comments, can you?
"you can't be that gullible to believe those over-the-top comments, can you?"
stick around
you ain't seen nothing
yet
no crazies like
eschaton crazies
they are crazy as a shithouse rat.
You know, I went back and re-read my own posts. The closest thing I can find to anything meant to be insulting was my first comment about chimps and teasing. Since insults are in the eye of the beholder, I'm sorry you were insulted by whatever it was I said that upset you. Wasn't meant that way. I don't, however, recall (even on re-reading it all) actually ever calling anybody names. Could you point that out?
I hadn't intended to post here more than once, actually, but the responses I got from my first post were so entertaining I couldn't resist. If a troll is anybody that disagrees, or has a contrary opinion, then I will happily be one. Just to annoy you.
Thanks for livening up an otherwise dull afternoon of processing downtime.
I guess I should post something intended to be insulting, though, since you seem to have your mind set on it. Here goes:
Your parents were brothers.
Happy?
Let's see more good ideas from Glennland --if we don't like what Glenn posts we should go over to the freeper site and post there?
From the same people who lost one billion dollars in Iraq and have no idea where to find it.
Unbelievable. Sure, it's a racist t-shirt since, well, everything's racist, isn't it?
You forgot to hotlink the part where Reynolds blames the victims of genocide, for one.
wg
blah blahblah blah blah blah
so your grandparents were brothers?
*** Coughing on the thick cloud of MJ smoke from this post and thread ***
I'm going to go back to the real world now...
By the way, where can I buy one of those T-shirts?
"if we don't like what Glenn posts we should go over to the freeper site and post there?"
Which would prove what a weak understanding of cause and effect you really do command, since so little of Glenn's readership actually overlaps with that of Free Republic. Don't let that get in the way of a dopey Atrios "talking point".
right up there with kei and yuri suggesting HAMAS gets its funding and arms from the Israeli government. That was a fun thread.
Blue Nun
this was a suggestion from one of Glenn's readers --if we don't like the lack of comments we could go to any right wing blog and post there.
Thank you for adding to the point.
Yeah, I read the Instapundit every day and I don't remember him ever blaming the victims of genocide. I would like to see the link.
Glenn said this site would be a real hoot, and it is.
By the way, Glenn does not have the backing of George Soros, the way Atrios does, so his lack of comments is understandable.
>>wg
blah blahblah blah blah blah
so your grandparents were brothers?
I am wg's mom and I am sorry....
Ok, how about:
"You're ugly and your mommy dresses you funny."
I don't understand the fascination you people have with Reynolds. He's just some cracker hack who somehow learned how to use a computer.
Atrios has the support of his readers
and Instapanhandler rattles his tip jar all the time
he doesn't have comments because he can't take the heat and because he is often wrong.
" go to any right wing blog and post there"
If any stick will do, why don't you go to stormfront or aryan nation? [Give my best to "israeli" jew hater kei & yuri while you're there, by the way]
Do you honestly think Instapundit's readers are all (or even most, or even many) Freepers?
What's up with all the white trash neo-con-nazis on this thread? Gross.
Actually, most of Instapundit's readers come from Stepford.
Again Blue Nun
that was a suggestion from a Glenn Supporter..I can't explain it
Do I think Instahack's readers a freepers? They would be if they weren't girlyboys (term of endearment I assume often used by Glenn and taught to his daughter to use to describe well sissies.)
I think they are bobos another term Glenn ascribes to himself. And I think Glenn is a cheap chicken hawk.
>>And I think Glenn is a cheap chicken hawk.
Appropriate comparison. Your guy here kinda reminds me of Foghorn Leghorn. lol
Healthy American males get real tired of being preached to by aspiring liberals, know-it-alls and schoolteachers. A lot of do-gooder stuff just grates on the nerves -- whether or not they might agree with some of it. The fact is that guns are cool. These are people that know how to handle guns, they are usually responsible with guns, they believe at some level that guns are very important for the preservation of civilization. In short, they think that they are cool themselves. They don't like being told they are racists, when they are basically (not completely) open-minded. This T-shirt is just cool too and a good way to tweak the liberal noses -- ever so gently. They think it's fun to see you get so riled up.
Now, how many ways did I violate the PC codes in this post, professor?
Anonymous:
See Instapundit? The names on the right make up his "blogroll." Many of those blogs are run by like-minded people and frequented by a right wing audience. Several have traffic stats that likely rival Eschaton's. note: Free Republic does not appear on this list. Understand, idiot?
19, by my count. Good work, soldier. Here, have a beer.
Ok. It's taken a while, but I've read through this WHOLE LONG THREAD..I'm not attached to either Right wing or Left wing, but I have to commment on the fact that so many of the people here claiming to be "diversity celbrating liberals" are the people who are attacking anyone with a difference of opinion. It appears that when you can't continue your debate logically you resort to name calling and vulgarity. *Shame Shame children*
Ok. It's taken a while, but I've read through this WHOLE LONG THREAD..I'm not attached to either Right wing or Left wing, but I have to commment on the fact that so many of the people here claiming to be "diversity celbrating liberals" are the people who are attacking anyone with a difference of opinion. It appears that when you can't continue your debate logically you resort to name calling and vulgarity. *Shame Shame children*
Blue Nun
I never said he was a freeper
that came from one of his supporters
who said any rightwing site would do
and I said he and people like you ar not freepers because you are too much a coward to say what you really believe.
I imagine that most people who where the shirt, and even its designers intended nothing other than the "it's funny because diversity here means something different than usual" interpretation. I think that Atrios (and others in the comments) are reading too much into the shirt. One certainly could interpret the shirt as an assault on pan-Africanism (an enormous stretch), or as "kill a black person" (a still quite large stretch). I don't see anything in the shirt design which indicates that these are at all what the designers intended.
The real message is clearly: "I like guns. Here is a not-very-clever joke about guns, so as to indicate my fondness for them."
'I'm gay, so do you leftists embrace me for being an "oppressed victim" or hate me for being libertarian-conservative? You're probably thinking "traitor", admit it, just goes to show how narrow-minded you really are.'
No, I just think you're pathetic and not very clever. UKIP, UKIP, rah rah rah!
As to the rest of you fucktard conservobots, boy do you guys have the thinnest skin when your hero is criticized or what . . . And I am very impolite to thread-jacking conservobot fucktards: I owe them nothing.
'I'm gay, so do you leftists embrace me for being an "oppressed victim" or hate me for being libertarian-conservative? You're probably thinking "traitor", admit it, just goes to show how narrow-minded you really are.'
No, I just think you're pathetic and not very clever. UKIP, UKIP, rah rah rah!
As to the rest of you fucktard conservobots, boy do you guys have the thinnest skin when your hero is criticized or what . . . And I am very impolite to thread-jacking conservobot fucktards: I owe them nothing.
Hmmmm. I agree with views expressed by Atrios maybe 50%-60% percent of the time, as opposed to probably more like 30%-40% of the time for Instapundit. I rarely miss Atrios, but forget or don't bother with Insta fairly often. And Atrios is much better at being intentionally funny.
That said, to me, this one strays close to a so-so Onion parody of Atrios. Oh, well. Troll/STFU/zzzz/etc.
Seriously, is it uncouth to express contrary views here to engage in debate? Is the prevailing view that this is only a place for like-minded people to exchange agreement?
"Could a black liberal leader get away with such a coincidence, say, a careless remark interpreted to be about Jewish slumlords who interpret the lessons of intolerance as pertaining only to them?"
Are you serious? Does "Hymietown" ring a bell?
You guys need to get out more.
The joke seems pretty clear:
1. You guys always preach about the value of diversity, even though your idea of diversity is sooooo shallow.
2. You guys also hate guns with a passion.
3. To mock you then, the T-Shirt manufacturer puts your slogan with an example of "diversity" from which you'd recoil (if you'll pardon the pun).
Ya'll ought to stop taking yourselves so damn seriously.
Wow. Looks like some people have so much free time, they're going around looking for things to be offended about.
No one has tried to shut down discussion on this thread.
You confuse being told your are wrong with being told to shut up.
Of course since you probably also watch Faux News this confusion is understandable.
kind of an odd response linked from a blog with no comments
>>No, I just think you're pathetic and not very clever. UKIP, UKIP, rah rah rah!
At least it's not yet mandatory to vote Labour in the UK, although Her Majesty's Government seems very keen to erode our rights and cede them to Brussels. At least Gordon Brown has some sense to be Euro-skeptic, I just wish I could say the same for our great leader.
Sorry for not being very clever, having grown up on an estate in Middlesbrough, we don't have the same privileges as posh public school types who try to keep us down.
MF, MA (Dunelm.), DPhil (Oxon.)
North Yorks, England
>>No, I just think you're pathetic and not very clever. UKIP, UKIP, rah rah rah!
At least it's not yet mandatory to vote Labour in the UK, although Her Majesty's Government seems very keen to erode our rights and cede them to Brussels. At least Gordon Brown has some sense to be Euro-skeptic, I just wish I could say the same for our great leader.
Sorry for not being very clever, having grown up on an estate in Middlesbrough, we don't have the same privileges as posh public school types who try to keep us down.
MF, MA (Dunelm.), DPhil (Oxon.)
North Yorks, England
Noone told Glen Reynolds until 10:00 a.m. The guy had 2 hours of people yapping about him, until I finally e-mailed him and gave him a heads up.
Why don't we all just get around the water cooler and deep six everybody! I think that is called "talking about someone behind their backs!"
Sue
Sue = Narc
Leftist don't see the left's nastiness anymore than a fish sees water. You are all sooo fucked.
ooooooooono one told Glenny
I wonder does he email the Kerry campaign before he post some fake story and links to the wankette
to prove his pointless drivel or perhaps mindless drek
Some of you are literally frightening:
"and, I presume, shoot as many pan-Africans as possible, maybe even a few queers, since the colors are also reminiscent of the gay flag.
Welcome to more and more fascism."
"...it says to me "kill the black, brown, yellow, red, ...".
"The subtext is much darker and the "kill a nigger because he stole your job because of affirmative action" is even there."
"The only person who would wear this shirt is, quite literally, a racist piece of shit."
First, I own the shirt. It's humorous to me. Second, I do not, did not and cannot interpret it the way (many of) you have. If you want to accuse me of being "a racist piece of shit," I suggest you do it to my face. And third, if you hate that T-shirt, you're gonna loathe this one.
That's a spectrum. Note the shades of orange and green. Sheesh.
That's a spectrum. Note the shades of orange and green. Sheesh.
That's a spectrum. Note the shades of orange and green. Sheesh.
Rainbow probably. Glenn says ROYGBIV.
An explosion of bile from the right.
I wish Insty would get comments and give these people someplace to go.
Boy these posts sure prove his supporters are racists --even if the Tshirt doesn't prove he is. What an ugly bunch.
I haven't seen the explosion from the right that you mention. Most of the personal and character attacks have come from the left.
The folks on the right are trying to figure out why you're finding your racist boogeyman in this one.
I have to agree with several other posters and say that you're projecting your own racism onto others. Your narrow definition of diversity, that only includes those of orgins they percieve as oppressed, is a form of racism.
It's an orthodoxy that allows endless insults of those who believe differently from your, or white males. But, everyone else needs to be protected from free speech.
Even if you silly people find the shirt insulting, you don't have a right to be free from insult at all times. If you don't like the shirt, don't look at it and don't buy it.
If you insist on seeing some sort of racist conspiracy, where there clearly is none, normal people are going to laugh at you.
However, you might find a sympathetic audience for your theories at the Nation of Islam. Perhaps you can book yourself a ticket for the mothership.
Yeah well, Duncan Black (or whoever you are), game's pretty much up. Your "I slam Reynolds, as I hereby acclaim that I do not slam him" , is puke.
A Black racial hustler? Geebus, that's hilarious, if true (but that field is really crowded).
You do have an out: pull a Hesiod. Bye.
Tom
you must have selective vision
did you read the post tracked to this..
and you don't see the racism of the comments because....
This comment thread has been the best laugh I have had in ages.
The shirt is intended to annoy self-righteously PC people and give the rest of us a chortle.
Bullseye!
Glenn Reynolds, you ROCK!
Wow. You people are even crazier than I first thought. Seriously. This is a fuckin' hoot. I'm copying this down, because, as soon as Duncan talks to someone who isn't retarded, he'll realize how dumb he looks and take it down.
Also, just for my benefit, please list some topics upon which Glenn has been provably wrong or questionably misleading. Seriously, I'm not kidding.
Also, as to the Trackback, why is that thrown at me, and, indeed, why is that guy considered a right-winger (he calls Glenn a cunt in his post, and it isn't in a good way)? I don't know anything about that website, but, considering that he linked straight here, why didn't it cross your mind that he was a left-winger?
Nothing in Reynolds blog is fact checked so everything in it is suspect. When something turns on him
he has some lame excuse --I didn't say it ..I just linked to it..
kind of what got this whole thing started.
He 's a rightwing tool who spouts the Republican talking points with no thought. Even Joe Scarborough thinks the attacks on Kerry's military service are a big mistake
but not our brave Glenn who is happy that he was never the right age to serve but happy to wave others off to fight for him.
The attacks on Kerry are led by John ONeil who got his start attacking Kerry at the request and payment of Richard Nixon..
""First, the ‘Likud Uber Allies!’ slogan and Germanic font is ...."
Ahhh kei & yuri aka "anonymous"...
Welcome to the Jew hating left, folks. More Jew-baiting from one of the worst bigoted projectionist of race-hatred and cultural stereotyping ever born.
Maybe this is Reynolds' idea of a joke why not? he supports that other
fine example of low rent frat boy humor-- everything is a joke to him
Blue Nun
blah blah blah blah blah
Nun for us please
Anon: I read your post. I didn't see a point where you actually thought Glenn was wrong or that he had lied. Lots of accusations and angry yells, but no, you know...lies. Nice way to change the point, by the way. Who the fuck is John O'Neil? Weren't we just talking about Instapundit?
Chimpy Terra Outrage Pretentious Bullshit Pretentious Bullshit Pretentious Bullshit Pretentious Bullshit Zionazi Von Wohlfovitz Von Rummsfeldt Chickenhawk Chickenhawk Chickenhawk Racist Freeper Eep Orp Oop Ak Ak Ak Ak Ak
"THE OTHER!!"..."THE OTHER!!"..."THE OTHER!!"..."THE OTHER!!"...
[how do we shut this thing off?]
Eric
why ask for information if you are
incapable of using it
You obviously don't know about Reynolds posting if you don't know who ONeil is...
what a waste of time you are
Do you folks ever listen to yourselves and one another, or do you just talk or write and go on? I have to be charitable and assume that !Sirius was under some kind of stress -- maybe the bushitlehelliburchenKKKrofts stole his medication.
Reynolds had another remark not long ago, to the effect that The Onion wasn't very funny any more -- and that that was because the world was getting more or less impervious to parody. Here we have an example. A master satirist, assigned to produce a screed illustrative of what the T-shirt's message conveys, could not have come anywhere near what you accomplished in a few words of post. And, of course, the comments. Dear Karl, the comments. Emphasizing, as if anybody hadn't noticed, that whatever you may say about people whose party begins with "R", your idea of diversity is that it's precisely specified -- exactly these quantities, sizes, masses, and of course colors, of precisely these elements in these orders, and deviations by so much as a micron or microgram, or nanomemter of wavelength, make it no longer "diverse," and including items not on the Authorized List of Diverse Items (like, for instance, guns) is totally, like, man, just wrong. Then, after decreeing this spectacular instance of order and regularity, you have the gall to put "K"s in Ashcroft's name.
Cute.
Regards,
Ric
If you don't want to play
go away
No one is keeping you here.
Ric, you're obviously an ignorant plant designed to sap our energy away from our discussion.
[sigh]
Don't you realize Ric, we believe in diversity in all things. What we don't believe in is hate. And, Ric, your post was dripping with hate. We also believe in - and ardently seek - the truth.
There are too many people like you who - let's be frank - lie. We will not tolerate lies, or those who tell lies. We will not tolerate hate or those who hate.
Go away, you racist splotchy white cracker trash.
The goaway comment was not directed at Ric but he can go too
Every time I consider voting for Kerry because of his vastly superior domestic policies all I have to do is get on the internet and see what the left wing zeitgeist is looking like today. Then I remember that I have to do whatever I can to keep you people as far from the levers of power as possible.
This just about sums this thread up:
"We will not tolerate hate or those who hate.
"Go away, you racist splotchy white cracker trash."
I wish I could make this stuff up.
"Brad still lives in Bandcamp."
Dude, *I* went to Band Camp. Wait - is this the same band camp I am thinking of?
"And fuck you Brad."
I second that.
I concur, Sean M.
Unfuckingbelieveable.
I see Kevin and Sean
the humor impaired twins are here
Oh right only Glenn can make a joke
Dude... RIGHT after I posted, a FLOOD of trolltards came in. Who let the floodgates in?
""Could a black liberal leader..."
Are you serious? Does "Hymietown" ring a bell?"
I THINK that was the point...
Instapundit is a moron. The shirt is an ignorant jab at something meritorious that's written off as PC by the victim-complex right. Let's move on.
Man, it has been since, oh, college, since I have read so much baloney in such little time.
You all are beyond satire, beyond parody, beyond help.
Is it any wonder why ppl are tuning out the loony liberal leftists. Their racism and idiocy is unbelievable. I can't wait until these fascists bow down to The Mighty Dubya on November 3.
Hey Art, if the rest of the posters here weren't so hand-wringingly serious about finding racist boogeymen to be offended by I might not have thought you were being serious.
I still think your comment sums up the thread quite nicely, though...pure (unintentional) comedy gold.
Obviously the subtext is directed at blacks. When Instapundit had his choice, instead of taking the rainbow version, he specifically chose black. Since wearing this shirt obviously means that you choose to kill the colors on the shirt, he has specifically eliminated all the other colors of the rainbow.
The real question is whether Mr. Insta has other shirts with the additional colors. Perhaps he is too afraid to let the entire rainbow of people know that he is going to shoot them, but in his own way is creating divisions. So the Red man and the Yellow woman etc, feel relaxed and unafraid as they watch the pundit with his agressively anti-black shirt. But what happens next? After all the blacks are gone, he pulls out his anti-brown shirt. And then his yellow shirt and so on and so on. I can't really say what the order will be but it probably is already predetermined.
Perhaps it will simply follow the natural progression of the rainbow. What is on the other end? WHITE!
So, through simple elimination of the colors in order, the only color left is what? His color. And isn't white really the absence of color?
Isn't this what the nazis did?
To "Art is not Your God":
Read the serious comments above.
Without a smileyface ( ) you literally cannot tell.
Sean kind of beat me to it. This whole thread is so incredibly idiotic that it has been setting my joke alarm off from the beginning. Honestly, how am I supposed to tell when you are kidding when you people post stuff as dumb as the idea that a dumb joke shirt is really racist...
I am amazed.
How can we tell the serious left-wing remarks from the parodies above? Surely they are not all by actual lefties?
Folks, bb, Art, let me clue you in... just because I disagree with you I am not supporting some progressive extermination on race grounds. Neither is anyone else. You made that stuff up out of your head, not from what we said.
Just an observation presented without comment...I've noticed that the number of comments listed on the main page keeps ticking downward. It was at 94 when I first commented and it's down to 78 now.
Accept your blood guilt, white man.
Confess your sins you ignorant racist cracker.
We know what you were thinking, even if you don't.
Hick.
While we are on the issue of subtexts...multiple people who apparently are on the liberal side of this crowd have said "wear that shirt in [insert inner city area here] and then see what happens."
Am I the only one who thinks that you could just as easily see a subtext in that comment that minorities are violent people who cannot address a differing opinion except through the use of violence?
If you see the shirt as having a racist subtext, you have to see the "wear that shirt in..." comments as having just as much a racist subtext.
Pot...kettle...
Puh-leeze Atrios...tell me you're kidding. I've connected with you on so many other points that I have a distinct feeling that the reals Atrios was snatched during the Dem Convention and in it's place we now have you...the poster boy for extreme Left wing bullshit...
Don;t take that so much as a flame...but when the Emperor has lost his clothes, somebody better speak up.
I mean, do you know how much OVER analysis has to go into that shirt before that conclusion could be reached. maybe I'm not as bright or intellectual as I think I am, but I got the gist of the shirt immediately...it had EVERYTHING to do with the variety of guns and not the least bit about racial hatred.
I would have never come up the sub-text you described...unless of course I was looking for some way to slam the dude...why look for something obscure and hurtful...there's plenty of material in his written word.
"Earth to Lefties, please return the real Atrios!"
Hey idiots, the guys on Instapundit are cracking themselves up over the insane drivel coming from you guys about what the T-shirt means, what its subtext is, what its subtext could be, what its subtext's subtext's subtext is, and why it's so freakin' important. Just so you know, to NORMAL people, you all sound kind of loopy. Some of you are probably conservatives just trying to yank the liberals' chain. Some of you may even be Karl Rove or Dick Cheney, trying to distract the rest of you from ... you know ... IMPORTANT stuff, like the deficit or war casualties or phony terror alerts, etc.
"A Republican white supremicist eugenicist getting the GOP nomination for a congressional race,"
Because the GOP forgot to run anyone in that race, not because they wanted him.
"we have troops saying they torture "brown" people for fun"
True.
"and we have the person pictured in the t-shirt defending WW2 Japanese internment camps on his blog earlier in the day."
What? I read all his posts from the day, and he specifically...didn't, say that.
In fact, seeing your reactions to the internment post, in which Glenn never shows support for them, and yet you repeatedly pretend he did, I can only assume you are all idiots. Wait, I already knew that...
Earlier I observed the number of comments trending downward on the main page. I've poked around a little (I've never left a comment here before) and only one of the threads I've looked at seemed to have an accurate comment count. I mean, comments on this thread now total 58 on the main page, and it doesn't look like posts are being deleted or anything. Could somebody who's a regular around here tell me what's up with that?
Sean: Shitty-ass commie programming.
A man by the name of Swift wrote an interesting piece entitled "A Modest Proposal" once and while there are people that still believe he's really talking about eating children the rest of the educated world realizes it falls into the category of Satire.
This shirt obviously falls into the same category. It's simply a clever way of using a familiar phrase ("Celebrate Diversity") and using it to promote a particular belief. You could just as easily see that the shirt is praising the fact that Americans have the right to bear arms. We get that right from the same document that allows us to celebrate the diversity of our culture.
To declare that there's some insidious connection between this shirt and racism is to grasp at straws. I could also just as easily say that because this page uses a white background with black text that the person is promoting the putting of white people in the background and having black people rise up 'from' the background and take center stage by supressing the white (background) people. That'd be ludicrous and most people would see that.
To take something as stupid as a shirt that promotes guns and plays off a popular phrase and say that it's promoting the killing of black people (as one person wrote) is so asinine as to cross the threshold of sanity and move into the realm of the unspeakably ludicrous.
Sean M.
Re: comment count
I think it may have to do with variations of whatever internet browser and PC platform you are using. I notice myself the same problem you mention when using my home computer. But when I access this site using IE on a Wintell machine the count registers accurately in the three digit range (lots and lots of comments in this thread!)
Atrios
Re: you big dummy
By now the damage is done. You may have thought you were merely getting off a cheap shot at Glen Reynolds, but instead you have been hoisted on your own petard.
Even before Glen linked up to this thread, your most current embarrassing display of left wing lunacy, I provided a link last night over at a very popular pro-gun website. Over at that pro-gun site there are plenty of people who dislike Bush. But the counter-example you helpfully provided will remind my fellow gunnies just what is at stake during this election cycle.
With any luck you may have just swayed some pro-gun voters to vote for Bush. We cannot risk you and your ilk ever exercising real power over us again.
When the assault-weapon ban sunsets, when Bush is re-elected, I'll be sure to make a toast in your honor. If it weren't for people like you, we might get fooled again.
On thing our regular folks visiting may not know - this over-reaching interpretation is what is taught in academia these days. Various names - structuralism, post-modernism. It is all hate thought because it allows the reader to project his politically sound, righteous values onto anyone else's words.
Then they use their interpretation to indulge in a kind of peacock-like fan display, "See how clear and correct MY values are!"
That's why they appear to take themselves so seriously - its a moral status auction.
Well, Jonah Goldberg, Glenn Reynolds, AND myself wear this shirt. I own three of the weapons (or closely related versions) on the shirt and am an avid shooter. Not that 99% of the Kool Aid addled masses here care I'll tell you what the shirt represents to me: diversity fucking rocks!
Diversity in ALL things. Diversity in heritage, diversity in thought, diversity in genetics, diversity in manufactured goods...just diversity. Just as society refines itself through human diversity...firearms become more refined and safer through diversity. The enemy of diversity is stupidity such as thinking that certain colors and certain concepts, such as diversity itself, are limited to a select usage and forbidden elsewhere.
Personally wore the shirt to a blues festival the other week and had to write down the URL around a dozen times for people who thought it to be absolutely hilarious...my only two naysayers were two young ladies stumping for Kerry whose opinion was given all the consideration that two drunken women slurring their speech deserves (the one looked real intelligent puking her guts out laying in the field at 11pm after the show.)
The funny part is that if this where about a shirt depicting Bush in gunsights or about killing whitey you fucking hypocrites would be screaming about protecting the wearers First Amendment Rights...I feel that diversity means that ALL points of view are allowed. I think the shirt is funny and has a positive message. Your view may differ but that's a product of your twisted mental baggage, not mine.
Brad,
Thanks. I'm using Mozilla on my home computers. Maybe that's what's behind the comments count.
Dude, you're kidding right? Its a friggin T-shirt for gods sake. Humor son, get a sense of one.
Sean M. , the number of comments doesnt change. There should be hundreds of those.... I think the main page only displays number of new comments since the last comments window on a given thread.
"structuralism, post-modernism. It is all hate thought "
Careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Articulate spokesmen for these movements do exist; admittedly none exist here.
"head out towards Johnson City, and you're in the land of the pale and blotchy."
Wow, ALL white people are 'pale and blotchy', huh? Nope, no racism on the left here. None at all. Move along...
Gun control in the USA is and has always been primarily about keeping guns out of the hands of people of color.
The desire to excuse the inherent racism of gun control by imagining racism in those that support the right to self defense is understandable, but it is still despicable.
Atrios, get a fricking grip man. You're losing it.
The lefties just hate it when you mock the cute little slogans that they worship.
"heh I loathe Christianity, so pardon the term"
Nope, still no hatred on the left to be found here. Look away...
I cannot believe I just wasted the time it took to read such a worthless discussion rife with pathological paranoia. Guys, um, it's a t-shirt.
There was a full moon during the writing of this post, correct?
It's not pointless! It's entertainment at its best. Here, watch...
*pokes liberals with a stick*
If it had been meant to be a jab at Africans maybe it should have been a series of different-colored packages of condoms, seeing as how the AIDS epidemic (and ignorance) is killing more Africans than guns?
"Stupid self hating, oxymoronic fags:"
Yep, not leftist hate to be found on this site. I'm convinced...
Uh, for you lefties that don't get it...
Yes, the Celebrate Diversity T-shirts with the guns are made to deliberately piss you off! Of course, the real hidden meaning is that you can exercise your 2nd Amendment *RIGHTS* to arm yourself from amongst a number of different guns. It does *NOT* mean that right wingers are going to start hunting you down. It does mean they will defend themselves if you start trying to hunt them down, though.
Have a nice day!
So many of you see this t-shirt as having subtle or not so subtle racist undertones. I see that many of you also take as an article of faith the idea that those on the right are racist.
Tell me, is Affirmative Action racist?
Pan African colors are green black and red, not green, yellow and red. Those are colors of the rastas.
A few hours deciding how to write the post? You have that kind of time working for Soros? Two hours on THIS post? Maybe it was worth it, though. Look at the insights: "I see the subtext "kill a blackperson who took your job."" What do you see, Atrios? Did anyone get the answer right?
Glenn's sister-in-law is African, so maybe that's the sub-sub-text.
Let's get a follow-up post on this if we could. Soros can afford it.
"Let's get a follow-up post on this if we could."
Don't hold your breath.
Glenn
Some of my best relatives are blacks
but she is from Africa not Tenn
heh
Glenn and Jonah Goldberg both own this shirt..gee not the wankette too
why not chip in and get him one and then the axis of snarkiness could be easily identified.
Oget raises an interesting point. Red Yellow and Green would be a dig at the Rastafarians (why they would have a beef wih the gun lobby is anyone's guess.) Red Black and Green (Marcus Garvery's pan-African flag) is associated with African Americans. So it fails even in the ultra-subliminal culturally-sensitive-to-the-point-of-anguish sense as well.
And yes, Atri-clowns, 'Garvery' was a typo
Duncan my man you ARE a pathetic loser.
"Only the right has a sense of humor"
more of the big lie technique
I guess Glenn was being funny when he said people had not right to demonstrate against the war.
I guess Glenn was being funny when he said the war in Iraq was over and we would be welcomed as liberators
I guess Glenn was being funny when he said Kerry was having an affair with an intern
I guess Glenn was being funny when he said his wife's tape included lesbian sex (not true but he thought it would increase sales)
I guess Glenn was being funny when he defended the Gropers right to grope and slammed the Times for printing the story (Bob Packwood duh Glenn)
I guess he was being funny when he made factual mistatements about the dalkon shield -
I guess he was being funny when he said we shouldn't be concerned about combat deaths because more people died in Detroit oh that was earlier
I guess he is just a funny funny guy
and of course there is a lot more of his humor.
Anonymous, those red herrings smell kinda funny. You're a funny guy (not in the "ha-ha" sense, but in the twirling-finger funny-in-the-head sense.)
I think he also may be funny in the "this milk smells funny" kinda way.
Red herrings???
right from Glenn's own posts
of course you are too lazy to look in the archives so like Glenn without any research you make allegations --typical insty pattern
A psychiatrist could make a killing here.
"I guess he was being funny when he made factual mistatements about the dalkon shield -"
In his archives I found only one completely innocuous reference to the Dalkon Shield (actually he refers only to 'Dalkon Shield litigation."
What in holy hell are you on about?
On March 3 2003
Reynolds had a post about how
certain Tshirts are "dumb and wrong"
I wonder what they said....
"What in holy hell are you on about?"
I think 'Anonymous' is maybe a disgruntled lawyer who wants to 'necklace' Instapundit as some kind of collaborator.
"without any research you make allegations "
HA!! Look who's talking. The red herring charge is obvious. And your scattershot slanders can't withstand the merest scrutiny.
"I think anti-war t-shirts are dumb and wrong, of course, but that doesn't mean that people should be thrown out of malls for wearing them. And as these shirts were entirely unobjectionable in terms of their presentation, the only possible reason for the mall to act this way was because it didn't like the message. As a private business, the mall is free to take that attitude, of course."
Holy shit. I see what you mean. This guy is a real Nazi bastard.
[guffaw]
When you challenge people to use Instapundit's archive, is it a bluff? Do you think people won't actually chase down and read the object of your duplicitous commentary?
You picked the wrong post
keep going back
and what about when he used the Michelle Mailken (which was incorrect) to attack Cruz Bustamante
in August 8 2003
this indeed was a racist attack
Maybe if you were a little more tolerant yourselves you would be able to get jokes. Simply because you believe everybody who disagrees with you is a racist bigot doesn't make it so. Do you realize given this point of view you have incorrect prejudices against half of America?
"but but but but you picked the wrong post..."
{shaking head in disbelief}
He said in a previous post about the mall incident that anti war t shirts are dumb and wrong
in this post he was just sticking up for the guy who got fired not for the right of the guy to wear the tshirt
like Glenn you use a false statement or support your lie and don't bother to do the work
Reynolds is nothing but a cheap shot artist and you are a big time loser
"attack Cruz Bustamante
in August 8 2003
this indeed was a racist attack"
You mean the post about when Bustamante used the word "nigger" in a speech and how strange that was?
Are you some kind of Republican agent saboteur? Be honest, you're among friends.......
dude the free verse
is trying
on the eyes.
ee cummings
you aint.
The story as Glenn Reynolds wrote it and linked to it is false.
Bustamante did use the term but the result was not as pictured by Glenn and his little friend Michelle which brings us to another point --he links to her frequently so when he promoted her book on why we need internment camps for Arab Americans --it was a little coy for his supporters to pretend he was just mentioning the book. He is an avid supporter and booster of Malkin's particular brand of hate.
Since you get all your information from Glenn you wouldn't know the truth of something if it fell on your head.
Anyone can play in the Reynolds Archives
May 1 2003
he defended the right of students to be racists.
On second reading... You guys have got to be RNC operatives... right?
In June of 2003 he attacked the American Library Association based on a false story about Cuba and despite the fact the
instapundit version was crap he never corrected it.
Librarians have been on the forefront of the keeping America's civil liberties safe but Glenn felt he could attack them using a false story. But there is no comment section at instapundit so no way to complain.
"You guys have got to be RNC operatives... right?"
Right. I have voted Democratic in every presidential election held during my adult life and may still yet in this one. Do not conflate your own screwed up species of "liberalism" with mine, if you please.
Glenn is an RNC operative
he frequently posts from GOP talking points memos and never fact checks or corrects.
Today he posts several vicious attacks against Kerry's military service even though none of them are true. He knows that but doesn't care.
We will never find Anonymous quoting Reynold's verbatim, as the M.O. of chickenshit Eschaton cowards is glib paraphrase. Note the absence of links. "Chase down my umpteenth distortion" he dares us. Thanks, I'll pass.
Since you obviously didn't read the dalkon shied post all the way throug
he blamed the people who had sued the mfg for product liability for a lack of research in this area.
Nice blaming the victims.
In the face of facts
Glenn supporters run away
In today's post instapundit links to at least two posts on attacks on Kerry's military record.
John McCain has denounced the swiftwater ad as false and called on the Whitehouse to denounce it.
How long will it take Reynolds to do the same or at least link to the McCain piece
I predict never. Because he is a liar and loser
Nice of him to make the point on today's evidence
How does a squid defend itself????
Everything I post is a lie. Including this.
Don't you think its possible your overreacting?
everybody who disagrees w/ atrios et comust be a blatant racist. obviously.
rock on, world revolutionaries...
In today's pundiliar Glenn makes fun of the comments section of Atrios
and Glenn's comment section --oh right there isn't one because Glenn doesn't believe in free speech
Good grief. You people need to, I don't know, relax or something.
It's a t-shirt, folks. You know, like your che guevara or bushitler shirts.
But I guess that a joke is only funny if it's a liberal lefty telling/wearing it.
Instahack refrains from comments not because he is afraid of opposing arguments. He is afraid of exposing the beliefs of his supporters.
It's okay for puniliar to attack anti war and anti bush t shirts
but not ok for anyone to comment on his t shirt selection.
More crushing of dissent
heh
Freedom. Hurrah! So if a woman wants to wear a t-shirt that says "I had an abortion" Ok. That is her right. The problem would be if I tried to force her to wear this, a modern scarlet letter. Now the posts here seem to track as "we know what this shirt REALLY means" Whaaaa? Dudes, chill! Want to talk about genocidal racism? Darfur is calling, they need troops and you are busy getting twisted over - a - t - shirt! Wow - no arguing with that moral leadership! Let us all join the Marines and go to Darfur to - I don't know, maybe ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING. I guarantee the above posters will hem and haw and disappear.
First of all, the people on the right certainly do not corner the market on adolescence. That much is certain.
The sinister subtext is what has become of the diversity message. There is no desire in any of that "celebration" to embrace a diversity of ideas, only a diversity of shades of skin.
To really are interested in celebrating diversity, one has to tolerate ideas which one finds repugnant. Could those who slather "diversity" bumper stickers, (or what not,) actually tolerate being in the presence of a devout jew, a fundamentalist christian, or someone with a belief system that has those things that would trigger the 'conservative alert' alarm in your mind?
Each of us can only answer that one for ourselves.
The whoe "celebrate" business seems itself to have a sinister subtext. I know who I am - I'm an arab-american. I don't need to celebrate my 'difference' to anyone else, and I certainly don't wan't anyone to do 'celebrate' my difference with them. It's just plain silly if you're an adult. Just follow Emily Post.
What IS sinister about the whole thing is that there are people who are obsessed with the 'diversity' blather. What they really want is for there to be people around them who look different, but agree with them. That way they can have a certain view of the world and not feel some sort of shame or guilt that they've been taught to have. You don't need that. Each of us can think what we want without shame, or positive stokes from the annointed people of the momnent.
Like Glenn has rushed to Iraq
they needed lawyers but did he go...
"The fact that th? NRA came into being the same year the KKK was declared an illegal terrorist organization, and besides this the very constant relationship between racists and guns, is kind of loud"
To an idiot who doesn't know that the NRA was founded by former union generals concerned that confederate farmboys out-shot the more urban yankee boys. What's "loud" is the fact it was founded to help northern boys kill white southern boys better in case of a re-play.
It never even occured to me the left would actually think this was a coded suggestion to kill the "diverse." When I heard about the scandal, i figured you all would be incensed over the "juxtaposition of icky weapons of violence with an ideology of peace and justice and caring and compassion."
It never even entered my mind that anybody, anywhere could be so dereanged as to interpret that shirt the way you folks have.
What did orwell say? "that's the kind of stupidity that requires years of academic training."
This whole post & the comments are goi ng into a keeper file as an example of how you guys think. IK suspect most of my vaguely lib friends will refuse to believe it when I tell them, until I actually show them. Thanks for doing more to embarass yourself than I ever could.
>>"Stupid self hating, oxymoronic fags:"
>>Yep, not leftist hate to be found on this site. I'm convinced...
I do enjoy bringing out the hypocrisy of the left. They just don't know how to deal with me... working class, gay, educated and conservative.
MF
North Yorks, England
I think we should take Professor Reynolds and his fans at their word.
He is just celebrating the diversity of guns. Isn't that bad enough?
I don't read him because he is often wrong but never in doubt. But I would be curious to know where he stands on the assault weapons ban and how Bush is playing politics with the issue.
And just as an aside -Bush has developed quite the country twang in his speech --droppin g's everywhere
Is Instacracker giving Bush speech lessons -inquiring minds want to know
I have never been to Glen's website, so I am not a fan.
I have seen this T-shirt though.
Everybody who thinks this T-shirt is a racist statement is either;
A.) a collossal idiot
B.) intentionally going along with the bs for a chance to rant about something to which you are opposed...racism.
Being opposed to racism is admirable, we all should be. I am.
But there is NOTHING racist about this shirt. It is about guns. It is intended to play on the "Diversity" movement, no doubt. But only to advocate gun ownership, not to advocate using them to kill minorities.
If you don't like gun freedoms, fine, talk about that.
If you don't like racism, great, talk about that.
But to put the two together in the form of this T-shirt is so laughable it only makes you all look petty and stupid. It hurts your credibility and thereby your chances of having any of your messages spark positive change on any of the issues you support.
You silly people.
Considering that Anonymous has to twist and distort things that Glenn has said to attack him, I don't think I'll bother refuting his BS.
This was funny though, " guess Glenn was being funny when he said his wife's tape included lesbian sex (not true but he thought it would increase sales)"
He actually said that the tape was about lesbians, not that there would be lesbian sex. Thanks for playing though.
Seriously, if you had anything good to scorch Glenn on, you'd post it directly, or you'd use quotes. Your pathetic distortions are obvious because of your lack of any real attempt to authenticate your claims.
And, for a final time, I mock you all.
"ok for anyone to comment on his t shirt selection."
Instapundit on "antiwar t-shirts": "They're dumb and wrong"
Atrios on "Celebrate Diversity": "They're an incitement to kill black people (duh!!!)"
Oh yeah, great comparison.
Hmmm.
Protest a percieved racial stereotype by promoting a racial stereotype. Might wanna ask the above-linked Mr. Blanchard about that. This pretty much self-fisks. It's autoparody. And absurd.
'Berg
wow just wow
Some of you are beyond parody at this point.
He did the wink/nudge with the lesbian reference and despite the fact that he has promoted his wife's tape many times since he has never referened lesbians again since it has nothing to do with the tape.
Goodby and take your ignorance with you.
Us crackers who like guns don't no nutn from pan-african colors.
"He did the wink/nudge with the lesbian reference "
What do you find shameful about lesbian sex? About allusions (however imagined) to lesbian sex? Since when have such joyless humorless scolds been affiliated with the left wing?
Maybe you found this post offensive too:wedding advice for gays and lesbians.
Yeah, he's definitely a homophobe, no doubt.
Eric
The tape is not about lesbians.
What do you think the reference
to lesbians meant?
Coan
Please try to keep up.
This is just another example of
Insty's sense of humor.
When he was trying to boost the sales of his wife's tape he said
it was about lesbians(although not about lesbians) --he thought
more people would be interested in
buyng it--proving your point there is
nothing wrong with lesbian sex.
We are just giving example of Insty's humor so those who don't understand his type of humor will get
it.
What exactly have you been smoking?
What exactly have you been smoking?
Where's the post where he blames the victims of genocide?? Come out come out wherever you are....!
Man what a bunch of muckadoos posting here.
It's a friggin joke. I liked the shirt because it made me laugh.
I like guns too, and gun safety.
I even have links to practicing gun safety on my blog.
I am not a racist either.
In fact the term race should not be used because it is rooted in Darwinism.
Darwin was a racist!
Christians should be the first to stop using the word "race" to describe people.
In Christianity there are no "races", there is only the race, as in running the race.
We are all equal at the foot of the cross.
Galatians 3:26-29 :: English Standard Version (ESV)
26for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave[1] nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.
All of you race-baiters better get a clue.
Please educate yourselves.
Acts 17:26 :: English Standard Version (ESV)26And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,
One Blood: The Biblical Answer to Racism
One Blood: The Biblical Answer to Racism -Study guide
J.A. Olinger of Hello Infidels!
You're all a bunch of crazy, left wing nuts! You will spin and twist as much as you have to in order to give sinister motives to anything conservative. What a crock!
Great shirt!
Thanks for the link..
I'm buying two!!
Yet more proof that the left, is in fact, fucking stupid.
Actually, the subtext is even darker than you think.
It's not "kill African-Americans"; it's "Kill Left-Wingers - because they're unarmed"!
Wow! Great shirt, I had to buy one in each color. Thanks for the link!
wow, glad i dont see everything as a mass conspiracy against me like this side of the blog world
You all have convinced me, I am going to buy the shirt.
You are all crazy.
This t-shirt is what was once known as satire. Satire can't be used as a method of communication anymore because you leftwing nutcases have no sense of humor. This t-shirt isn't telling anyone to kill anyone else no matter what their protected minority status.
It's making fun of forced diversity as a good thing. It isn’t. People can’t be shoved into boxes with different labels because we are all more than one thing. We can be gay or straight, all and every human skin color, conservative or liberal, carnivore or vegan or any combination of the above.
I could go on, but I know you just can't get it, so I’ll stop trying.
I once tried to tutor a fellow student in algebra. She just couldn’t understand it. Yet she was very intelligent. I couldn’t understand it then and I still don’t understand why some people can’t understand what’s right under their noses.
The fact that anyone would read into this silly t-shirt a call to kill Africans, gays, etc. says more about their racism than the creator of the t-shirt or those who would wear it.
Celebrate Diversity="Please please like me just because I'm different, don't hate me, pleeeeeeze!"
In the New World Order, these shirts will be traded in for "PISS OFF!"
Bahahahahahahahahaa
wait...no...
bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaha
Best thread evar.
I didn't read but the first few dozen posts. I saw a lot of projection and self-delusion.
A number of the first posters here seem to think there's some sort of Vast Conspiracy directed to the destruction of their world, and that they, personally, may be in physical danger. But despite the Vast Conspiracy gathering all this damning information about them, and desiring an evil end to their ways, the gross incompetency of the Vast Conspiracy hasn't let them actually do anything significant. The Vast Conspiracy has managed to keep any actual evidence of its existance hidden away, but again, incompetently allowed everyone to know about its activities anyway. Far from being a "Vast Conspiracy", it seems to be a "Half Vast Conspiracy".
When Glenn Reynolds wore the t-shirt with an anti-black subtext I said nothing, because I wasn't black...
"This is exactly how Nazi Germany started!" - Basil Fawlty
Oh PLEEEEZE! Rather, the gun-diversity shirt is a lovely deft jab, intended to annoy the bejesus out of no one except humorless, self-righteous multi-cultural relativists. It only works with those who take themselves VERY seriously. Bait taken, I see. Over, and over and...
Some people like to shoot guns...at targets. You know like as a hobby? like archery? like as in setup a bulls eye in a sandpit and see if you can hit it. Some like to be good at hitting the bulls eye with different guns. And there are competitions to do that...Thats why there would be a t-shirt with a bunch of guns. The phrase below it is harmless. Obviously it means diversity of guns. Not, hey here's a lot of guns use them to kill people who are different than you. I understand how some who have suffered from racist and prejudice remarks would take offence. but the response and analysis given by many of the posts here are way over the deep end. Take the shirt at face value. I aggree, however, that those who wear the shirt should be aware of the message it could send. But remember, actions speak louder than satirical remarks on t-shirts.
When Glenn Reynolds wore the t-shirt with an anti-black subtext I said nothing, because I wasn't black...
"This is exactly how Nazi Germany started!" - Basil Fawlty
I see the easily-enraged have taken the shirt's bait (and then some).
Not that there's anything wrong with handguns, mind you.
Not all diversity is racial. The joke of the t-shirt (which I admit is rather weak) is on those who cannot see that point - like most of the commenters here.
Didn't read through all the comments, so I certainly don't mean to include everyone in this, but it completely astounds me how so many of you can paint Republicans (or "repugs") with such a broad, ugly brush. How can you possibly celebrate diversity while hurling insults and stereotypes at people you don't know? It doesn't make sense.
As for the shirt, I can certainly see why it offends some people. I can also tell you 99% of those who buy it won't think of it that way at all. Most conservative NRA types will just jump at the chance to mock what they see as the silly sloganeering of the left. It's a shot at the *politics* of diversity, not at the idea of diversity itself.
Whoever designed that shirt probably didn't think things through. The subtext, whether intentional or not, is certainly unfortunate. But a lot of the commenters here seem to think all conservatives/Republicans/white-protestants/rural-
people-from-red-states are racist, and I think that is even more unfortunate. Remember: diversity means *everyone.*
OMG LOL YOU'RE NAME IS DUNCAN BLACK AND IT SOUNDZ LIKE THAT MEANS "DUNKING BLACK PEOPLE" YOU KNOW LIKE IN WATER SO YOU SHULD CHANGE YOU'RE NAME SO BLACK PPL DONT THIK YOU WHANT TO DROWND THEM LOL!!!111!!!
OMG LOL YOU'RE NAME IS DUNCAN BLACK AND IT SOUNDZ LIKE THAT MEANS "DUNKING BLACK PEOPLE" YOU KNOW LIKE IN WATER SO YOU SHULD CHANGE YOU'RE NAME SO BLACK PPL DONT THIK YOU WHANT TO DROWND THEM LOL!!!111!!!
OMG I DUBBL POSTD LOL!!!111!!
BTW I LOVE JOHN F KERRY CUZ HE ONE 3 PURPLE HERTS AND HE IS A WAR HERO NOT LIKE GEORGIE DUMBYA CHIMPENHAWK!
I LOVE LIBRUL FREDUM!
It's perfectly legal to be racist. Otherwise the NAACP and Kerry's campaign would have to be shut down. Not saying it's right but it's legal.
You can't legislate what people think.
But really. Cmon. I've looked at that shirt a dozen or so times and never saw any racist undermessage and I'm not white.
'Seek and ye shall find', I guess.
Bahahahahahahahahaa
wait...no...
bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaha
Best thread evar.
l33t
agreed....
OMG you guys are a bunch of tards.
I read this shirt as a jab at left wing fuzzy wuzziness by turning a favorite liberal catchphrase into a slogan for a cause that is typically endorsed more enthusiastically by conservatives.
To be clear, what I use the highly scientific phrase "fuzzy wuzzy" an adjective for the stereotypical liberal emotionalism that often typifies the left wing agenda. This isn't a bad thing: it's gives the left a heart and imagination that right sometimes (but by no means always) lacks. But it can go too far sometimes. I find the concept of "celebrating" diversity rather condescending. Diversity is reality. It's like celebrating the fact that the sun comes up and then sets about 12 hours later. So what?
It's this mentality, cherished by some, seen as rather indulgent by others (including me), that is being mocked with the T-shirt. I occasionally lurk here, but felt compelled to speak up for the first time because I'm truly surprised at the extremity of some of the responses.
The shirt itself is as much a troll to liberal hypersensitivity (something that can be a good thing, but also something that can and should occasionally be mocked for the indulgence that it is)-- something that does indeed exist, as some of the comments here attest -- as it is a statement of 2nd Amendment rights.
Just my .02. No offense intended.
Wow. You guys have seriously active imaginations. Thanks for the laughs.
Took you just two hours to make a mountain from a mole hill. Bet if you had really applied yourself you could have done it in just one.
"The shirt itself is as much a troll to liberal hypersensitivity (something that can be a good thing, but also something that can and should occasionally be mocked for the indulgence that it is)-- something that does indeed exist, as some of the comments here attest -- as it is a statement of 2nd Amendment rights."
This is exactly right. The shirt appropriates the slogan of the cultural left to advertise a sentiment usually opposed by the cultural left.
That's why it's funny. Or at least supposed to be.
But to take the guns as an implied threat to minorities, or to assume that they are supposed to be used against the minorities--that just means that you can read anything into anything if you are so inclined.
If you want you can take the shirt at face value. It is a proven fact that lack of guns in a given culture leads directly to a lack of diversity in that cultures population. View the current situation in the Dafur region of the Sudan. Or Rowanda or the Congo or Cambodia or Nazi Germany or The early 17th century Eastern seaboard of the United States. Interesting point of history that the original Democratic President, Andrew Jackson, was the author of the only genocide to ever take place on the North American continent. Even that wouldn't have happened if the Cherokee and Seminols we properly armed.
G'day Duncan,
You're not very bright, are you?
The NRA had among it's founders ex Union officers. Grant was it's president and also a scourge of the Klan. The NRA actually armed blacks in the south to defend themselves. These are facts and they are not in dispute. It's also not in dispute that Republicans are the ones that ended slavery. While it's undoubtedly true that there are racists, militamen and other unsavory types that associate both with the Republican party and the NRA, it cannot be denied that the foundations of both organizations are anti-racist, and anyone who attempts to argue otherwise is simply ignorant of history and not worth any more of my attention.
Not to mention that the first gun control laws restricting access to non-automatice firearms on the books in America were aimed at disarming black men, making them easier to lynch. See Clayton Cramer for more on this.
Quite frankly, the racist, pro-genocide anti-gun movement has no room to criticise much of anything.
Celebrate diversity is meely mouthed liberal B.S. that screams I've never met a quota I didn't love.
Hecate- your arguements are so intelectually stimulating and indicative of your deep intelligence.
Here, I'll beat you to the punch.
Why don't you STFU?
Better read this quickly before it gets deleted by the ringmaster who leads you all around by the fashionable rings in your noses.
My god! There is a subtext!!
Unfortunately, it's that Atrios has finally slipped off the edge of a precarious grasp of reality.
That seems okay, though, as there are obviously plenty of equally dim people to catch him before he falls too far.
What a bunch of fucking morons you guys are. Maybe when puberty kicks in you'll figure it out.
Mr. Black:
Just wanted to thank you for providing such a unique varaiant on the Rorschach Test. The results reveal that you, and a good many of your readers, have the mindset of a drunken parapscyhologist.
Have ANY of you ever opened your eyes enjoyed something for what it is, rather than being blindly led around by your poisoned imaginations?
I have to say, Atrios, that I assumed the popularity of your blog was indicative of some level-headedness and leadership ability on your part. But in reading this post I see that I was grossly mistaken; you are the worst sort of hypersensitive PC pants-wetter imagineable. It's people like you that have driven me steadily from the center-left to the center-right over the past few years.
Zak Braveman is spot-on in his assessment of this nonsense:
The shirt appropriates the slogan of the cultural left to advertise a sentiment usually opposed by the cultural left.
That's why it's funny. Or at least supposed to be.
But to take the guns as an implied threat to minorities, or to assume that they are supposed to be used against the minorities--that just means that you can read anything into anything if you are so inclined.
And Nathan hits the nail on the head when he says of the left:
... it completely astounds me how so many of you can paint Republicans (or "repugs") with such a broad, ugly brush. How can you possibly celebrate diversity while hurling insults and stereotypes at people you don't know? It doesn't make sense.
I stopped calling you people "liberals" years ago, because there's been nothing liberal about the far left for quite a while now. You want free speech ... but not for anyone who disagrees with your word-policing PCness or calls your paranoid assumptions into question. You want diversity, but not a diversity that includes - to use your terms - "repugs" and "digital brownshirts" (or anyone else who dares question the Gospel According to Chomsky). The left has become woefully illiberal, and it's evidenced nowhere better than in the seething prejudice and twisted logic of your supporter's comments.
Once again the sober, rational, thoughtful comments are coming from the moderates and conservatives. The tinfoil-hat conspiricy theories, stunningly baseless accusations of racism, and childish name-calling is coming from the "liberals". I've never been happier to have walked my ass out of that stinking leftist quagmire as I am today.
S
just
I am used to read your blog: I always thought you were on more 'reasonable" side of leftism. No more. You are so fucked up! And spewing mud... coming up with crazy accusations...
Leftism is a disease, indeed.
Heh.
Hmmm. I was give this shirt by a black friend of mine.
Because of my basement.
http://www.thedonovan.com/archiv...ves/
000977.html
He didn't see it that way, but, of course, as a retired soldier, he's not really black anymore, I guess. He's just green an inauthentic.
Let's stop all this arguing and draft an opinion with which everyone can agree. Come on, celebrate homogeneity!
Hahahaha!!! You're all loony!
It's just a freaking t-shirt. If it's mocking anything, it's mocking kneejerk PC whining that you're displaying, Atrios.
I read t-shirts for a livin' and it sez to me:
Pick one of these here pistolas, find you one of those liberal, same-sex couples who are tryin' to defile our Constitution by gittin' hitched, and blow their evil ***** away. Seems innocent enough to me.
Man, liberals are funny people.
Funny in a "sad, pathetic, take-everything-way-too-seriously, read into things that aren't there, transfer there insecurities and neuroses onto well-adjusted others" sort of way.
You all need to just go grab a beer a calm down.
Oh, wait, why are you making fun of drunks? Is this your way of bashing the lower income families? Are you prejudicied against Irish? [/typical liberal rant]
how's that tinfoil hat fitting these days? Seriously, get a grip.
Are you guys a bunch of retards?
Seriously, are you? I wonder what the average age of the commenters on this page is.
I have a 'Celebrate Diversity' T-Shirt and I love it.
The Celebrate Diversity theme is not now and never was a 'black' thing.
The rainbow colors and the words "celebrate diversity" are gay themes and therefore a poster boy for the liberal cause as is gun control.
I live in Key West and I like nothing more than wearing my Celebrate diversity shirt downtown when the have one of their many gay pride or liberal cause celebrations.
It`s my way of giving them a right wing poke in the eye because I am not gay and I don`t celebrate their diversity and I own and like guns.
When they hold one of the many the Womyns fest I wear my NO MA'AM (National Orginization of Men Against Amazonian Masterhood) T-Shirts to express my feelings of the feminazi agenda.
If you guys don`t get it, or don`t like it, tough. Get used to it.
Atrios, your a paranoid moron.
Geez ... I have one of these shirts. All it is - and all it is intended to be - is a bitchslap to political correctness and the gun-banning crowd. There's no racial subtext.
You guys talk about reading into the shirt, but do you really have to read into the message beyond the pornographic picures on the front? It's a T-shirt with guns on it! Everyone knows that guns are evil. People don't kill people, guns do!
If you visit the site ThoseShirts.com, you'll see all kinds of filth. They have a Ronald Reagan shirt making fun of the Che Guevara t-shirts. Obviously, this is meant to show a support for a man worse than Hitler! Reagan was the worse racist and murdering criminal in history. Only the WWII vets that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima were even close.
These 'celebrate diversity' shirts are terrible in their underlying meaning also. Jews, the people that opress the peaceful Palestinians, are commonly involved in pro-gun websites that push such messages. A Human Right is one of these zionist websites, proclaiming an interest in '2nd ammendment rights' while picturing women and fake lesbians in their photos, pretending to be interesting in diversity. But, all Liberals know that Jews hate everyone that isn't Jewish. It's all a zionist lie! I think Reagan was a Jew.
Well, I'll add my two cents....
I personally think that a t-shirt is just a t-shirt, I believe that everyone on this comment page is reading way to much into this.
Let me explain, there are many types of guns on the shirt, and there are many different types of guns for many types of people, that's where the diversity comes in to play. A gun is a tool no different that a hammer or a screwdriver, all can kill. A gun can be used to shoot holes in a paper target, hunt, or to protect personal property.
I'm sure that you all have reasons why people should be banned from doing the above, so I'll try to give a different perspective...
Target shooting - How many of you have ever shot a gun? The responsibility is tremendous, to aim at a target that is twenty feet away is difficult to say the least. I have taken the NRA's safety course, and have never seen nor heard anything remotely racist. I am not a member of the NRA because I feel that I do not have to be in order to exercise my second amendment rights.
Hunting - I have never been hunting in my life, not my thing. Sitting in a tree stand for hours on end is not my idea of fun. However, for some people it is bigger than the Super Bowl. You can argue until you are blue in the face about the deer/duck/bear population, but how many deer have you seen, dead, on the side of the road, they do a hell of a lot of damage to the cars that hit them.
Property Protection - How many times have you heard of the police being at someone's house before the crime occurs? Great Britain has one of the strictest gun laws in the world, yet Great Britain still has one of the worst violent crime records in the world. In 2003 there were 598 homicides in New York, a city that has some of the strictest gun laws in America. What I'm trying to say is that banning gun does not make people safer. Learning to use a gun safely, and correctly makes people safer. Allow me to use a hypothetical, you are a criminal, where are you most likely to commit a crime, a state that has strict gun control laws, where you know the populace has no guns, or a state that has few gun control laws, where you can't be sure wheather or not the populace is armed? I'd choose the state with heavy gun control laws.
About the name calling that has occured on this comment section, I thought that the democrat party was the party of inclusion, I suppose that excludes conservetives democrats.
Thanks folks for giving me so much to laugh at you about.
Oh, and to reconfirm why I am no longer a socialist, but a conservative.
Its a T-shirt, that's all.
To see you all reading it as proof positive of a VRWC in your country is absolutely hilarious.
Don't forget your tinfoil hats, people!
Instead of spewing forth so much nonsense, why don't you spend your time to lobby the corruptionists at the UN to DO SOMETHING about Dafur?
I am. But I am now a conservative, and I actually care about the poor buggers being slaughtered over there, and I don't care about a simple T-shirt.
Grow up. You are choosing to bleat about a T-shirt when your actions could, if you so chose, help to save a lot of human lives.
Atrios,
I need some advice on how to properly dress. I was thinking of wearing a white T-shirt today. You know, just a plain white T-shirt. Would that be racist? Should I try a different color? Maybe a tie-dye? I'm so confused.
Wow. All that, huh? I just bought (& wore) it to poke fun at a few of the IDPA & Action plate shooters I hang out with during my Wednesday night at the range. Sometimes those guys take this whole "Model 1911" vs. "Glock" thing too far.
We MUST learn to accept one another, even if one does prefer a wheelgun, or ...gasp... a 9x19mm.
You know what they say about a 9mm; it's a lot of fun to shoot, until someone you know sees you using it.
These 'celebrate diversity' shirts are terrible in their underlying meaning also. Jews, the people that opress the peaceful Palestinians, are commonly involved in pro-gun websites that push such messages. A Human Right is one of these zionist websites, proclaiming an interest in '2nd ammendment rights' while picturing women and fake lesbians in their photos, pretending to be interesting in diversity. But, all Liberals know that Jews hate everyone that isn't Jewish. It's all a zionist lie! I think Reagan was a Jew.
— "Fascist-Hater"
Either you're trolling, or you're proof positive of how far the "tolerant" Democratic party has degenerated.
I'm delighted to see the vehemently negative reaction to this shirt, which I've long admired (including the original version, in which "Celebrate Diversity" was printed in black— oops, I mean "African-American!"). I definitely have to buy it now.
Anyone else want to join me sometime in Harvard Square, preferably in Tealuxe or Peet's? We can each wear one of these shirts and talk about guns and other un-p.c. things, and we can see how many hippie asswipes we can make get up and leave as they shake with impotent rage.
You people are a bunch of idiots. This shirt has two purposes - 1) Piss off the PC brigades, and 2) Show off a love of guns. It's not the sort of shirt I'd wear, mind you(I'm nowhere near gun-nut enough), but I'm not going to be a bloody fool and try to put bizarre words in their mouths because of some incredible mangling of the underlying idea.
As for the "Celebrate diversity" angle, I'd guess that the reason that particular slogan was chosen(other than that it gave an excuse to put 20-odd guns on a shirt and have it be funny) is because a lot of people(specifically, the kind of people who would wear this shirt - generally right-wingers) find stuff like "Celebrate diversity" to be lefty code for "White people are scum". I'm no racist, I'm fully in favour of equality regardless of "ethnicity"(whatever the hell that really means), but a lot of the far-left PC nuts take their positions well past the logical extremes, and start talking about how we have to give "historically oppressed minorities" better treatment than anyone else, and that's what really pisses me off. That's why I don't like the standard meaning of "Celebrate diversity", that's why I'm not alone, and that's why I laugh at the shirt. Diversity is great, don't get me wrong, but when people are abusing it to push toxic BS on the rest of us, then I'll gladly poke fun at them.
Celebrate Diversity, as long as you do it exactly the same way as everyone else. Somehow 'diversity' is good, but 'individuality' is bad. Our society is so fucked up it makes me cry sometimes. How can one ideology support, concurrently, the idea that diversity must be celebrated but non-PC sentiments must be crushed? How is it that the party of 'tolerance' is suing to stop the excercise of free speech? Why do I bother?
"If you're not a liberal when you're young, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative when you're old, you have no brain."
"A liberal is a conservative who just got arrested. A conservative is a liberal who just got mugged."
"How come they call them 'Political Parties' when no one seems to be having any fun?"
You hypocritical git. There goes your whole fucking 'subtext' theory. Why don't you try some intellectual and philosophical diversity on for size you judgemental prick. Since when can you not combine the colors red, yellow, and green without creating some politically incorrect 'subtext' on the 'pan-Africanism', whatever the hell that might be.
Good God! Who cares?
Good God! Who cares?
HELLO! It's a FUCKING tshirt... A shirt for people who like guns and like to piss off the PC lefties who preach diversity yet not a diversity of opinions... Why don't you talk about the "I had an abortion" tshirt and how that should offend EVERYONE... not just PC idiots.
are you suggesting that he shouldn't be allowed to wear a shirt like that? I'm sure you have many shirts that we would find offensive.
Are you such a Nazi that you get to decide what is ok and what isn't? Hypocrite!
Wow. Insightful analysis. Oy...
Look up irony, you tool: "An expression or utterance marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning." Get it? Explaining it ruins it. It's a t-shirt. A five second "get it-haha" message. The fact that you got it so wrong and then decided to document your misdirection by posting it on the web betrays an even deeper level of idiocy on your part.
There is no worse combination than arrogance and stupidity. Shut your mouth, sir. You're ignorance is a disservice to those of us on the left who still use our brains.
You are simply giving credibilty to those that criticize us. Please stop.
Wow. Insightful analysis. Oy...
Look up irony, you tool: "An expression or utterance marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning." Get it? Explaining it ruins it. It's a t-shirt. A five second "get it-haha" message. The fact that you got it so wrong and then decided to document your misdirection by posting it on the web betrays an even deeper level of idiocy on your part.
There is no worse combination than arrogance and stupidity. Shut your mouth, sir. You're ignorance is a disservice to those of us on the left who still use our brains.
You are simply giving credibilty to those that criticize us. Please stop.
Besides the comment above, i.e. get a life, I have to wonder if you have ever posted a similar blog about people who wear Che Guevara shirts. After all, he was a terrorist who advocated that the Soviets launch a nuclear attack on the U.S. during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Besides the comment above, i.e. get a life, I have to wonder if you have ever posted a similar blog about people who wear Che Guevara shirts. After all, he was a terrorist who advocated that the Soviets launch a nuclear attack on the U.S. during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
What a complete coward! (Yet true to his nature). Instead of just being "man" enough to admit he's a bigoted bastard (he needs to take lessons from Prussian Blue), he hides *not really* his sentiments behind a T-shirt? So sad... reminiscent of his Forefathers.
My new friends:
Partnersuche, Partnersuche - - Promotion, Promotion - - Blog, Blog.
z55
refinance home mortgage
bad credit mortgage
It boggles the mind to try and conceive of how dumb you have to be to read a racist subtext into that T-Shirt.
A big part of the reason we have so much trouble stamping out genuine racism is because there are so many idiots in this country whose view of reality is so profoundly warped that they actually think that that T-Shirt is a secret Klan garment or that the President is a Nazi.
I thought the CLINTON haters had a screw loose...
YOU folks make them look downright sane.
Characters Remaining:
Commenting by HaloScan
