Even for Dave Dan Riehl, this is really stupid:
Riding out of DC on the Metro, 9/12, there were some folks from South Dakota and also another Mid-West state I can’t recall in the same Metro car. We were talking, nothing special, really – politics, of course.
In the back were maybe ten or so black kids taking up that section of the car. There was no confrontation, just one or two of them talking loudly enough to make sure they’d be heard.
Without resorting to the poor diction it was along the lines of, these are the people who think Obama is the anti-Christ. That McCain he wasn’t chit. Obama’s going to be president as long as he wants, so these people better get used to it, etc. It went on but not really to a level that was so loud, or so confrontational that it needed to be addressed.
We just ignored them without much trouble at all.
Yeah, they were technically thugs. But the reality was they were still wannabes really, pretty young, not that big, or many. And if the several adults there for 9/12 actually needed to do something about it, the kids wouldn’t have lasted very long.
So let me get this straight: talking loudly about how Obama will be allowed to serve out his term and seek re-election makes you a thug. Carrying pictures of Obama with a Hitler mustache, bringing guns to town halls, and contemplating beating up children on the subway makes you a patriot.
Have I got that right?
(h/t Thers)
Update. Whoops, I see this is what John just posted on. I got distracted by the video in the post and didn’t notice. Sorry.
Mary
What makes someone a technical thug?
Jack T.
“Have I got that right?”
No. You forgot the “Also.”
This is so stupid I can’t make fun of it.
Zam
Uppity blacks
canuckistani
It is really stupid.
But just about average for Dan Riehl.
brent
What makes someone a technical thug?
Exactly the right question. How does qualify as a thug, technically speaking, as opposed to whatever looser definition Riehl is considering.
Lee from NC
Yeah, so…uh, some people were talking, but not in a confrontational way, and, uh, they were black so, uh, yeah, they were kids and, uh, I coulda beat them up. GO WOLVERINES!!ELVENTYONE!!
NickM
Imagine the nerve of those kids to express their opinions in a way that other people who disagreed could hear them. What do they think they are, citizens?
Crashman06
While growing up through the late 80s and 90s, older conservatives always told me that liberals were wimpy, whiny crybabys.
I have no idea how this idea got started, because it’s now incredibly clear to me that conservatives are the biggest bunch of scaredy-cat, wussy, whiny, cowardly losers.
Zifnab
I think it’s more like, “AH! Scary black people! Kill it! Kill it with fire! Run away!”
scav
I’m rather enjoying the subtle geographic hint that even unremembered mid-western state inhabitants are more valid than uppity black urbanites.
and wouldn’t technical thugs be the ones lurking in dark alleys and knee-capping you with a hard drive?
anonevent
Is there a test I can pass to become a technical thug? I would be willing to pass it to go harass Riehl.
Legalize
Thug = anyone of color expressing an opinion that hurts Dave Riehl’s feelings, whether in public or otherwise.
Wag
It all comes down to two simple mathmaticla equations:
Young+black/disrespectful of Old+White=THUG
Old+White/disrespectful of (Young+Black)President=PATRIOT
Class (warfare) dismissed
gnomedad
Not to mention that the kids had probably recently seen a gizillion poster of the first black president as a witch doctor, Hitler, the Joker, etc. How dare they resent it.
Also:
Yeah, a shame nobody had a chance to beat the crap out of them.
lurkergirl
Sorry to be the copyedit wonk today, but Riehl’s first name is Dan, not Dave. And he’s still a scaredy-cat, wussy, whiny, cowardly loser (@Crashman06.)
4tehlulz
NEGROZ OH NOES
pharniel
yup. pretty much. formerly disenfrnachised and withdrawn youth who are energized by success of a self made man who are now mroe likely to go to school, get good jobs and be productive citizens is 100% WRONG becuase THOSE people are not the kind you want little skyler or indigo running into at yale.
h8 these people.
Napoleon
On top of what DougJ said if there was a way to prove he just made up the entire story I would be willing to bet $1000 that he made it up.
The alternative explaination would be those black youths were actually pretty well read on current events and realized that teabaggers were on the Metro and thought they would have some fun with them.
rdale
On another blog someone commented that “real teabaggers would have filled that end of the metro car with lead,” which gave me a laugh. My daughter is a student in DC and was on the metro coming home while the teabaggers were de-camping. She said they were all clustered in one end, smug and pleased with themselves, still carrying their precious signs. She was standing up with her friend when one of them, wearing a button that said “Abortion is not health care,” asked her if she wanted to sit down. She glared at him–and she has an icy glare, I well know from her teen years!–and said “I wouldn’t sit next to you if I only had one leg!” I did something right in her upbringing!
Peter
Wait, isn’t public transportation socialism? The right loves to bash people who think we need metros over roads. Didn’t Hitler fund the building of metros? Why is Mr. Riehl pushing us down the road to fascism?
Leelee for Obama
@scav: No, those would be the true thugs for whom Riehl would have been justified calling the police. This is the result of asshats like Riehl and Malkin and Drudge having had any audience whatever the last few years. Now, they can spew their race-baiting bull-crap all over, and Sully is surprised. I’m so disgusted by this, I could hurl.
Jacy
The other day in the grocery line, some woman was bitching about Obama and I started talking to the S/O quite animatedly about how stupid Republicans were, how they would believe anything they heard, how they just couldn’t accept that they were out of power so had to constantly make shit up. Hell, yes, I hope I intimidated that yahoo.
I’m a white woman edging towards middle age and I have excellent diction, but I’ll gladly be a thug. Fuck, if I could find a group of middle-aged white women with big mouths and like minds, we could run around in a gang, causing all kinds of mischief. Dammit, I want to be uppity!
someguy
Jimmy Carter is right. The people who oppose Obama are a pack of filthy bigoted racists.
The fact that they oppose Obama doesn’t make them filthy bigoted racists.
They were filthy bigoted racists long before Obama came along. He’s just a convenient scapegoat. Y’know, when some innocent kids on the subway aren’t around to fantasize about (lynching).
Jay in Oregon
@Crashman06:
It’s the double-tap of perceived loss of privilege (“How dare America want a non-white President!”) and the pants-wetting post-9/11 fear of Teh Muslims.
Michael
“Boys! Avenge me! Avenge me!”
WOLVERINES!!!!!
Leelee for Obama
@rdale: Could you hug her extra for me? That was awesome!
slag
Technically, this very item is what John just posted on. But I liked your commentary also, DougJ.
lushboi
I heard a comment from one of the cops I work with today that he’s waiting to hear the “Patriot’s call” so he can bust out his AR-15. I almost asked him who he planned to shoot with it on that day, but thought better of it.
Bubblegum Tate
@rdale:
Don’t you see how this proves that Teh Left is a bunch of thuggish jerks, unlike real Americans, who scream that the president is a socialist commie nazi muslim who will force you to murder your grandparents? Also.
Bubblegum Tate
@rdale:
Don’t you see how this proves that Teh Left is a bunch of thuggish jerks, unlike real Americans, who scream that the president is a soshulist commie nazi muslim who will force you to murder your grandparents? Also.
PhoenixRising
Jacy, I’m with ya. Technically, can we be thugs despite our diction?
Technical thugs, they hit ya with the Roberts’ Rules of Order manual, and then wrap a USB cord around your neck…
Jay in Oregon
Until you could run home and write a wanktastic post about the “confrontation” and how the big manly 9/12’ers coulda taken them if they were given an excuse, right Dan?
MK
Ya know, there have been plenty of idiotic things in the past year (especially in the passed year) to get pissed off about from the right wing. Appalling as they were, I was able to take most of it in stride. But for whatever reason, this has just set me off in a way I can’t explain.
I mean seriously, a bunch of adults can take on kids? Really Riehl? That’s some great machismo you got there. What about Kenyan babies born to ACORN workers that aren’t wearing lapel pins – would you guys be able to take them on as well?
I think I’m having a bad day.
Shell
“And if the several adults there for 9/12 actually needed to do something about it, the kids wouldn’t have lasted very long.”
Yeah, keep flexing that phony bravado.
Ash Can
There is so much that’s wrong with that excerpt from Riehl that if I sat here finding fault with it all I’d get jackshit else accomplished this afternoon. I’m sure that this horse’s ass would insist to his dying breath that he was not, not, not racist, too. Also.
Crashman06
@rdale: Bravo for your daughter. I’m convinced that the only way we can win this fight is by outbreeding these people.
Punchy
Too bad exactly ZERO percent of his readers even know what “diction” means…
Surreal American
What self-respecting teabagger would use tax-subsidized public transportation anyway? Isn’t that, like, socialism and stuff?
Ash Can
Whoops, boldface fail. But you get the picture.
scav
@Leelee for Obama: check you monitors. that was exactly the point.
MysticalChick
@Jacy Can I come be part of your pack of marauding sorta-almost middle aged chicks? I can be bitchy and snarky with the best of them and I have NO hesitation in doing so in public,
SpotWeld
Riehl has shut down comments on that post after it got flooded with mockery of his stupidity.
He closed with all the wit and wisdom of the intial post.
By this I assume he means, “Shrieking loudly with his fingers in his ears until they go away or someone gives him a cookie”.
Cruel Jest
The funniest bit: he gets absolutely hammered in the comments, then posts a retort the equivalent of flashing open his trench coat and closes the comments. The Mighty Dan Riehl. Hitting himself in the face with the Nunchucks of Freedom once again.
BombIranForChrist
Sorry dude, you are wrong.
For these people, black = thug full stop.
All the rest is window dressing.
Leelee for Obama
@Crashman06: I don’t see how that’s possible. Most left-leaning folk like their kids to have shoes, health-care and teeth, even if they give them up to make it happen. So, they have fewer kids. This is apparently optional in wing-nut land.
I know that’s bitchy, and I probably shouldn’t post it, but I really am disgusted today. Between the Louisiana dipshit this AM and now Riehl and Malkin, I’m about done in.
Ailuridae
Am I the only one that noticed that Riehl and the teabaggers were all using public transportation to take them to and from their DC destinations out to their collar suburbs where there hotels were? Porkulus, also?
Years ago here (Chicago) I encountered someone from the state Libertarian Party boarded the El at one of our main transportation hubs. Anticipating that I might be a Libertarian sympathizer (pale, shaved-head, striking resemblance to Derek Vinyard) he asked me to sign a petition. I politely declined and told him to have a nice day asking for signatures on public transportation. He then smiled broadly and showed me that he was indeed using a reduced fare pass that they provide from non-profits and advocacy groups.
Nick
“Without resorting to the poor diction it was along the lines of, these are the people who think Obama is the anti-Christ.”
Really? Thanks for sparing us the poor grammar.
Ailuridae
@Surreal American:
Drat, you beat me to it.
Ash Can
@MK: This is a standout for me too, and I think it’s because of the implied violence on top of the overt — and particularly senseless — racism.
Since you’re having a bad day, though, I’m going to invite you to the happy place these photos put me in this morning. I perused them with my morning coffee and it just set a good tone for the whole day. I can iron-clad guarantee that they’ll make you feel better.
Bill E Pilgrim
So uh, ahem, question? These kids were saying what again?
Without resorting to the poor diction it was along the lines of, these are the people who think Obama is the anti-Christ.
So the kids were talking about Rheil and whoever he was with, and how did the kids know that Rheil and company were Glenn Beck followers, who thought Obama was the anti-Christ and so on? Obviously because Rheil and the others were probably talking trash about their opinions of Obama, and/or wearing them, as signs stapled to their golf hats or whatever.
So the upshot is that its okay to speak up audibly with your opinions on these things if you’re white, but if anyone black does the same, it’s obviously thuggery. Technically.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
If you want to get technical, Dan, and I know you do….
If these people were technically Thugs, they would have ingratiated themselves to these out-of-town travelers, put them off their guard, and then garroted them as a sacrifice to Kali. Technically. If you want to get technical.
Leelee for Obama
@scav: Sorry, took it for serious-should have known better.
Ash Can
@Leelee for Obama: Leelee, it sounds like you should check out the link I posted @ #48. It’ll do your heart good.
Leelee for Obama
@Ash Can: Thank you again, Ash. Those are so great! That family always makes me smile, and feel good about my Country, no matter what’s going on.
ibid
Gotta love how this is presented as evidence that white people should be afraid of black people when he says that the white adults would have attacked the black kids if they had been a little louder. Maybe “love” isn’t the right word, but you know what I mean. Needless to say, it’s not hard to imagine white people saying the same sorts of things the kids said, and it sounds like they they could tell Riehl’s group were 9/12 protesters, so they weren’t just going around pestering random white people. Like the bus incident, the only racial overtones are those ascribed to it by the observer.
@Napoleon:
I doubt he made it up since it’s just so pathetic. But conservatives do tend to overestimate the number of people at a particular event if it suits their interests, so there was probably only about three kids rather than ten.
General Winfield Stuck
Way Off Topic
But this is one of the sweetest videos I’ve ever seen/
Sid Viscous
How offensive that a group were “talking loudly enough to make sure they’d be heard” on the subway, as you travelled home from grandstanding on the National Mall to make sure you’d be heard by the entire country.
Ash Can
@General Winfield Stuck: LOL! Too, too cute!
Zach
I really hope Dan was chatting with some muscle, because this lump of meat wouldn’t stand much of a chance against any determined group of “thugs” I’ve ever seen.
Comrade Darkness
The utter lack of self-awareness… it burns.
freelancer
@General Winfield Stuck:
That is really damned cute.
I’m of half a mind to stay off the blogosphere today what with the Right going full Freeper wingnut a la “Don’t wrestle with a pig, you get covered in shit and the pig likes it”.
Vids like yours are helpful.
MK
@Ash Can:
I couldn’t help thinking while looking at those pics “Where the hell is the ‘family values’ crowd in all of this? Oh right, supporting fine family men such as Vitter and Sanford”.
But yes, that *was* heartwarming. Thanks.
Leelee for Obama
@General Winfield Stuck: Hugs are in order for that whole family! Really sweet and thanks for posting it.
ppcli
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
Chuckle. Good one. I hope those kids weren’t technically Vandals too.
ppcli
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
Chuckle. Good one. I hope those kids weren’t technically Vandals too.
ppcli
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
Chuckle. Good one. I hope those kids weren’t technically Vandals too.
Nutella
Well, obviously
young + black + male = thug
especially since those young black males were speaking respectfully about a democratic election and the president who won it.
People like this must be stopped! Or at least whined about.
trollhattan
@DougJ
Props for the XTC reference. As to the topic, I’ve nothing to add.
That is all.
someguy
@ Ailuridae
A true, philosophically pure libertarian would abstain from breathing, to avoiding taking advantage of the many benefits provided by Teh Evil Gubmint’s Clean Air Act.
General Winfield Stuck
@freelancer:
Best idea on the tubes today. The problem is they NEVER EVER quit with the crazy stupid.
jibeaux
Who IS this idiot? I don’t watch a lot of TV, but:
ppcli
@Crashman06:
“I’m convinced that the only way we can win this fight is by outbreeding these people.”
Don’t forget our secret DemonRat Lieburl weapon: Illegal immigrants, baby!
Now that they know they can get free emergency rooms if they accidentally cut a hand off working on heavy machinery without a guard, they’ll be flowing in by the bazillions.
jibeaux
@MK:
Holy cow, the Obama girls are seven feet tall. They’re growing up so fast. Really cute pictures.
Ash Can
@jibeaux: Oooh, he’s tough. I’m impressed.
Seriously, that guy’s how old?
jibeaux
@Ash Can:
He looks like he would get winded walking to the cubicle on the other side of the building, you ask me.
Svensker
@Ash Can:
@jibeaux: Oooh, he’s tough. I’m impressed.
Seriously, that guy’s how old?
From his tough guy talk I figured he was somewhere between 14-22. Imagine my surprise when I found out he was a middle-aged dude. With issues, apparently. Small issues.
GranFalloon
One of the common themes we’re hearing more and more is that “it’s not racist to disagree with Obama.” And that’s absolutely true.
However, what is all too apparent is that this is being so disingenuously worked into the collective consciousness of the rightwing using all-too-familiar and despicable means. And what it really has come to mean is that “if you say anything about Obama, it’s not racist.” In other words, the response to ANY criticism of Obama – no matter how crude, base and flat-out racist – is being accused of playing the race card by calling the speaker a racist.
The net effect of this is that the dimwits carrying around the disgusting images of Obama as jungle witchdoctor can now claim – plausibly in their own minds and to many others – that this is good political commentary. That is, if you disagree with the sign, you’re playing the race card and not to be trusted. Who can doubt that, when Glenn Beck accuses someone of “playing the race card,” that his listeners assume that person to be wrong, evil and not trustworthy. That’s all it takes.
The only thing more dangerous than “playing the race card” is the swing-back – the “playing the playing the race-card” and using it to get a free pass. Racists now have a free pass under the guise of “political criticism.”
These guys have it so damn easy. Just change the rules and, voila, it fits. It is so intellectually dishonest that it sickens me.
Jay in Oregon
@General Winfield Stuck:
I like that video. :)
@freelancer:
I’m with you. I’m glossing over the wingnut batshit crazy stuff today, I can’t deal with it right now.
I want to surround myself with sun and music and fresh air today. I want to enjoy being around people.
Jay in Oregon
@Ash Can:
Geez, those pictures make me happy.
How there can be people who would look at that family and hate it?
Who could call an 11-year-old girl a whore because of the color of her skin and her father’s job title and pretend it’s “political commentary”?
I’m tired of the hate and ugliness in this world.
Demo Woman
Thank you to Ash Can and General Stuck. I needed that!
Mnemosyne
Okay, it took me a while to figure out what Riehl was saying because of his, er, original approach to grammar and punctuation, but basically he and his pathetic, middle-aged buddies got mocked on the subway by a bunch of teenagers and they totally would have won a fistfight if they’d been able to unwedge their fat asses from the seats.
Is that about right?
General Winfield Stuck
@Ash Can:
So sweet. This is what life is about. Thanx for pics!
Ash Can
@Mnemosyne: Now I have the image in my mind of these 9/12ers having to stay on the Metro to the end of the line and wait for the maintenance guy to come around with a crowbar.
SenyorDave
Webster’s online dictionary definition of “racism”
1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2 : racial prejudice or discrimination”Technically thugs”
Racist post by Riehl, end of argument.
And I guess Danny and his 9/12 buddies are real tough guys because he is pretty sure he could take care of a bunch of teenagers real quickly.
Honestly, this is one of the most overtly racist posts I’ve seen by a blogger. I’m hoping this sack of shit doesn’t actually make an income from his posts, although I’d guess the neo-nazi groups might pay him for this drivel.
Tony J
Shorter Rhiel –
“I was on this train, see? And these n—-r punks were down at the back, in their place, heh, disrespecting me and my crew, dissing the Tea Tang Klan loud enough for us to hear and shit. My gut was all like “Let’s fuck them up, boys, let’s show them a little White Might”, but in my head I knew how the Libs would spin it into some kind of bullshit hate-crime ‘less we could prove they fronted us first, and I knew they wasn’t gonna do that, ‘cos they pussies. So I bit my tongue – near clean off – and stayed in my seat. I’m no chump.
But I just wanted you all to know, from the heart, I coulda taken their skinny asses Rhiel-style. I mean, shit, they just kids, and I’m a big ol’ white man. I don’t need t’ prove nuthin t’ no technical thugs. I just want my country back, ‘sall.”
Even shorter Rhiel –
“Back in my crib, I’m The Man. An’ I don’t take shit from no-one.”
Pathetic little prick.
SenyorDave
By the way, I was in the grocery store the other day with my buddies and I heard a bunch of people cracking wise about how the Republicans would take over soon and be in charge forever, and tough luck for people like us.
We grabbed a couple and were going to kick some serious ass, but their mothers came over to take them off to day care.
Bubblegum Tate
Sounds like ol’ Danny was looking to be on the wrong end of a “Punks Jump Up To Get Beat Down” re-enactment.
“One day when I was riding on the train I heard these teabaggers talking/
Spewing bullshit like Michelle Malkin”
asiangrrlMN
Seriously? This asshat actually wrote this? I was cracking up over the vid in Cole’s post and didn’t click the link. This? This motherfucker whiny-ass bitch went to the Teabagging parties with a bunch of idiots from the Midwest (sayz this idiot from the Midwest) with their racist signs and hateful slogans, and he has the effrontery to be galled by a couple of black kids loudly voicing their opinions back?
What a putrid, wretched, miserable, small-minded, shriveled-heart piece of shit he is, and a wuss, to boot. I dearly hope he gets his ass kicked one of these days.
asiangrrlMN
P.S. Ash Can, thank you for the photos. They were a much-needed antidote to the poison of politics today.
ThresherK
I can’t quite remember the quote about “righties aren’t stupid but the vast bulk of self-directedly ignorant are righties”.
To paraphrase that: Jimmy Carter is half right, as in “Not every one opposing Obama is a racist, but the overwhelming bulk of racists are opposed to Obama”.
Of course, I wouldn’t give a toss if only there was right-winger who is trying to talk their racist, gun-toting, media-fetishized brethren down. If such a person is getting traction on the intertubes or in the mainstream media, I haven’t seen it.
PS Cool XTC. About two quotes annually is all I ask. And that wasn’t even a single, was it?
slag
@asiangrrlMN: What you said.
LD50
I think this anecdote is Reihl’s equivalent of carving a backwards ‘B’ on his cheek.
LD50
Andy K
I can’t help now but imagining Dan Riehl as Woody Allen.
Scott
Dan Riehl’s hand are soft and smooth.
Scott
Fie upon those pesky plurals. >:(
chopper
@Zach:
dude looks like he gets winded licking stamps.
but sure, he could easily wipe the floor with all of us if he wanted to.
calipygian
Dan Riehl’s final comment:
“if you heard a group of white kids talking like that on the bus, would you find that intimidating?”
Sure, why not, if they were punks. But you morons missed the entire point in your pathetic clouded little liberal minded way. You really are pretty worthless scum. When I said Dangerous times, I meant only for America should the races end up more divided as a result of this failing black president. Or did you idiots sleep through the OJ debacle. Have you even stopped to consider what would happen if this idiot doesn’t get relected for his obvious incompent and corrupt Democrat ways?
But you don’t care. You’d be perfectly content to keep a liberal in office for eight years by trying to intimidate the population into thinking they don’t dare oppose him, or it’s racist and our cities could explode. You don’t give a damn about this country. You care about your pathetic selves and your even more pathetic liberal pet causes. FOAD chumps. I can wipe you away here just as easy as we could do it in the streets if it ever came to that. Sleep tight, morons.Buh bye.
Uh, Dan? I was at the MIllion Moron March with you people are you are all bark and no bite. Seriously.
jak
Dan Riehl is probably one of those people that stands on the left side of the metro escalator along with the other visitors.