# Stupid Republican idea of the day **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 26, 2009, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897 "2009-03-26T18:48:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1863
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2018, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/37242 "2018-04-07T23:55:59Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > That works for me. But terminate all federal highways/maintenance at the state line. Start charging foreign postal rates. Impose tariffs on water and electricity coming into the state from The Other 49. In fact, just build a freaking Border Wall around the whole state and require passports to enter the USA. And enshrine in law that they get absolutely NO foreign aid from the USA. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2018, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/37243 "2018-04-07T23:58:44Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > I was wondering: what did people like Sean Hannity do back before cable TV? (I mean people who were about his age, pre-1970.) They weren’t on television. I gather there was some ‘talk radio’ from the 1960s and even earlier, so I suppose that’s where people like Hannity—non-journalist hatemongers—worked. > [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > I think most of them were employed mopping up the toilets down at the John Birch Society clubhouses. So, engaged in honorable work. Unlike now. > [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > I, for one, want to see more jazz trumpet players in the Congress…along with saxophonists, trombonists, pianists, bassists, drummers, etc. One long jam session. What, no ukuleles??? ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/37244 "2018-04-08T01:25:08Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > More fun from South Carolina: > > [SC Republicans introduce bill to consider secession over gun rights](http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/382003-south-carolina-house-republicans-introduce-bill-to-consider-secession) Isn’t it illegal to secede? I remember reading that it was tried once, with disastrous results ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/37245 "2018-04-08T01:30:05Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > Isn’t it illegal to secede? I remember reading that it was tried once, with disastrous results It is illegal to secede unilaterally. If SC passes a resolution of secession, they must submit it for Congressional approval for it to take effect. (As I recall, a JR is not an Act, so the governor could not veto it). ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/37246 "2018-04-08T01:56:38Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > Isn’t it illegal to secede? I remember reading that it was tried once, with disastrous results > [@eschereal](#): > > It is illegal to secede unilaterally. If SC passes a resolution of secession, they must submit it for Congressional approval for it to take effect. (As I recall, a JR is not an Act, so the governor could not veto it). Yes, and the disaster was that we in the North won, and then accepted the Loser South back. We’d be way better off as a nation if we didn’t have the Confederate states sucking us down. Not even considering political & moral issues, just economics – most of those states get welfare that is paid for with taxes from the north. They take in more Federal money than they pay in taxes. If they try it again, this time we’d be glad to let them secede. Good riddance! Or better yet, let us northern & west coast states secede. We’d join up with Canada, and leave the south with the US national debt. And Donald Trump. Serve 'em right. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/37247 "2018-04-08T02:55:23Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Yes, and the disaster was that we in the North won, and then accepted the Loser South back. > > We’d be way better off as a nation if we didn’t have the Confederate states sucking us down. Not even considering political & moral issues, just economics – most of those states get welfare that is paid for with taxes from the north. They take in more Federal money than they pay in taxes. > > If they try it again, this time we’d be glad to let them secede. Good riddance! > Or better yet, let us northern & west coast states secede. We’d join up with Canada, and leave the south with the US national debt. And Donald Trump. Serve 'em right. How do you rank Kentucky? Mostly neutral during the Civil War, but generally considered a part of the South. Am I gonna have to move? ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/37248 "2018-04-08T03:22:02Z")
Over on Twitter, Dinesh D’Souza apparently is having trouble with the idea that settlers \*were \*immigrants. > [@](#): > > America is not a nation “built by immigrants.” It is a nation built by settlers that subsequently attracted millions of immigrants And some of the comments are … Honestly, somedays it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed. I think I’m going to go back to it. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/37249 "2018-04-08T03:58:43Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > Over on Twitter, Dinesh D’Souza apparently is having trouble with the idea that settlers \*were \*immigrants. You mean Dinesh “born in Bombay of Indian national parents and spent the first 18 or so years of his life in India before he IMMIGRATED to the USA as an exchange student” D’Souza? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/37250 "2018-04-08T06:58:09Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > More fun from South Carolina: > > [SC Republicans introduce bill to consider secession over gun rights](http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/382003-south-carolina-house-republicans-introduce-bill-to-consider-secession) They better watch it. The Prez got a bigger button than they do. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/37251 "2018-04-08T09:12:16Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > I was wondering: what did people like Sean Hannity do back before cable TV? (I mean people who were about his age, pre-1970.) They weren’t on television. I gather there was some ‘talk radio’ from the 1960s and even earlier, so I suppose that’s where people like Hannity—non-journalist hatemongers—worked. There’s been hateful shitheads on the radio since at least [Father Coughlin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coughlin) in the 1920s. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/37252 "2018-04-08T15:37:49Z")
I remember a talk radio station my mother listened to in the '70s. It was tolerable and not dominated by right-wing shitheads. Of course, the RWSHs were a little less vocal in that era. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/37253 "2018-04-08T15:51:05Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > You mean Dinesh “born in Bombay of Indian national parents and spent the first 18 or so years of his life in India before he IMMIGRATED to the USA as an exchange student” D’Souza? Also known as Dinesh [“Convicted Felon”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinesh_D%27Souza#Election_campaign_finance_conviction) D’Souza. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/37254 "2018-04-08T20:29:07Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > There’s been hateful shitheads on the radio since at least [Father Coughlin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coughlin) in the 1920s. And before that, there were the bastards who came up with [The Protocols of the Elders of Zion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion). Hell, we can probably go back to shortly after the introduction of movable type. And it wouldn’t surprise me if there was hate speech in cuneiform tablets. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/37255 "2018-04-08T20:51:12Z")
> [@OttoDaFe](#): > > Hell, we can probably go back to shortly after the introduction of movable type. And it wouldn’t surprise me if there was hate speech in cuneiform tablets. Cuneiform was invented by the Babylonians, who were then absorbed by the Semitic Akkadian people. It would not shock me if there were anti-semitic purists in ancient Babylon when those Akkadians started knocking on the door. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/37256 "2018-04-08T21:06:56Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > You mean Dinesh “born in Bombay of Indian national parents and spent the first 18 or so years of his life in India before he IMMIGRATED to the USA as an exchange student” D’Souza? > [@BlankSlate](#): > > Also known as Dinesh [“Convicted Felon”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinesh_D%27Souza#Election_campaign_finance_conviction) D’Souza. That’d be him. You could cut the irony with a knife, but why do that to a good knife? ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/37257 "2018-04-08T21:20:05Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > I was wondering: what did people like Sean Hannity do back before cable TV? (I mean people who were about his age, pre-1970.) They weren’t on television. **I gather there was some ‘talk radio’ from the 1960s and even earlier, so I suppose that’s where people like Hannity** —non-journalist hatemongers—worked. > [@Derleth](#): > > There’s been hateful shitheads on the radio since at least [Father Coughlin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coughlin) in the 1920s. True, but it wasn’t ‘talk radio’ in Coughlin’s era–it took a while for most Americans to have a telephone, for one thing.\* But, yes, there have been hatemongers for as long as there have been humans, probably. \*Wikipedia is lousy on the history of the spread of telephone usage over the decades of the 20th century–the writers were too excited about talking about the advent of cell phones to pay any attention to it, I guess. I found a book citation from 1994: “In 1930 Canadians had 10.1 residential telephones per 100 persons … compared to 10.6 in the United States.” > **[America Calling](https://books.google.com/books?id=0yE-CP4SmlYC&pg=PA54&lpg=PA54&dq=%22telephones%2Bper%2B100%2Bpersons%22%2B1930s&source=bl&ots=R2sZHy9EH0&sig=cDJOjYrV19CvbZ61-carJmMBKiI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiRpauizKvaAhUvtlkKHfFcCvIQ6AEINTAB#v=onepage&q=%22telephones%20per%20100%20persons%22%201930s&f=false)** > > The telephone looms large in our lives, as ever present in modern societies as cars and television. Claude Fischer presents the first social history of this vital but little-studied technology—how we encountered, tested, and ultimately embraced it... ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/37258 "2018-04-08T21:23:52Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > True, but it wasn’t ‘talk radio’ in Coughlin’s era–it took a while for most Americans to have a telephone, for one thing.\* Ummm, maybe I am missing something, but radio transmissions are not received on telephones. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/37259 "2018-04-08T21:25:18Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Ummm, maybe I am missing something, but radio transmissions are not received on telephones. Talk radio requires people to phone in, doesn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/37260 "2018-04-08T21:58:27Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > Talk radio requires people to phone in, doesn’t it? No. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2018, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/37261 "2018-04-08T22:01:42Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > Talk radio requires people to phone in, doesn’t it? Ummm, I don’t think so? It is that it is talk, rather than music, that defines the format. The wiki page on it says “Talk radio typically includes an element of listener participation, usually by broadcasting live conversations between the host and listeners who “call in” (usually via telephone) to the show.”, but I don’t see that as a necessity, just something that can be included, and often is, in modern times. Then goes on to say “Expressing and debating political opinions has been a staple of radio since the medium’s infancy. Aimee Semple McPherson began her radio broadcasts in the early 1920s and even purchased her own station, KFSG which went on the air in February 1924; by the mid-1930s, controversial radio priest Father Charles Coughlin’s radio broadcasts were reaching millions per week.”, as well as “Talk radio as a listener-participation format has existed since the 1930s.” As far as only 10% of people having phones in 1930, that number was going up very rapidly during that time, and that number would have been much higher in cities, where the shows would have been more heavily marketed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897.md?page=1862) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897.md?page=1864)