# 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:** 473
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/9441 "2013-05-08T23:38:09Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > I’m sure that they think that this act will pressure teens to come forward to their parents about their sexual activities. Interesting notion, but I don’t think you’ve quite grasped the subtleties of the conservative mind. You see, if they make it illegal for teens to get tested for STD’s, why, they’ll just stop getting STD’s. Ipso facto … yada yada yada … what more do you need to know? It’s purely preventative to them. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/9442 "2013-05-08T23:43:20Z")
That was his dissertation at Harvard? Wow. ---
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/9443 "2013-05-09T00:55:42Z")
> [@a35362](#): > > How do we know that immigrants have lower IQs? Exactly. If I took an IQ test written in Russian I’d be measured as a sub-moron. So these native Spanish speakers, many of whom have come from poor communities with limited academic opportunities, are tested in English? Even if tested in Spanish how many are literate? Does being illiterate signify low IQ or merely lack of opportunity? Could the writer have survived in some dirt poor backwater Guatemalan village? To me, the only fair IQ comparison is between two people who’ve had the same basic background and education. At that point there’s probably some validity whatever test is administered. Otherwise there are just too many variables involved. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/9444 "2013-05-09T01:46:14Z")
> [@BigAppleBucky](#): > > Even if tested in Spanish how many are literate? When my wife taught ESL lots needed to be taught to read in Spanish, first, and for some of the Spanish was their second language, speaking Yaqui or, I don’t know, Nahuatlan or something at home. Let’s add _The Mismeasure of Man_ to our Republican reading list. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/9445 "2013-05-09T03:41:46Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > I’m sure that they think that this act will pressure teens to come forward to their parents about their sexual activities, when all it will really do is make sure that any STD they do get just goes untreated. I also think that there is a very strong undercurrent on the right that desires to punish anyone who has sex outside marriage, and might see having an STD treated quickly and quietly as escaping their just deserts. A large part of the difference between the progressive and conservative brains are that conservatives believe only if (the right kind of) people are adequately punished will society be it’s ideal. If people go unpunished for what conservatives think they should be punished for, then society will by definition suffer. Ex, the recidivism rate in prisons in the USA vs Norway got a lot of rage and indignation from conservatives, yet Norway’s criminals do not re-offend nearly as much as ours do. But it matters not, what matters is that criminals SUFFER their PUNISHMENT, regardless of how US prisons make re-offending monsters that come back into society to rape and murder again. Doesn’t matter. ---
**Author:** ![legalsnugs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@legalsnugs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/legalsnugs)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/9446 "2013-05-09T12:21:33Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > I’m sure that they think that this act will pressure teens to come forward to their parents about their sexual activities, when all it will really do is make sure that any STD they do get just goes untreated. I also think that there is a very strong undercurrent on the right that desires to punish anyone who has sex outside marriage, and might see having an STD treated quickly and quietly as escaping their just deserts. I think that “strong undercurrent” is pretty selectively applied. In South Carolina, if you have sex outside marriage, you may well win the Republican Presidential Primary or get elected to Congress. ---
**Author:** ![Ca3799](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9f8e36/32.png) [@Ca3799](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ca3799)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/9447 "2013-05-09T12:47:25Z")
> [@rogerbox](#): > > A large part of the difference between the progressive and conservative brains are that conservatives believe only if (the right kind of) people are adequately punished will society be it’s ideal. If people go unpunished for what conservatives think they should be punished for, then society will by definition suffer. Ex, the recidivism rate in prisons in the USA vs Norway got a lot of rage and indignation from conservatives, yet Norway’s criminals do not re-offend nearly as much as ours do. But it matters not, what matters is that criminals SUFFER their PUNISHMENT, regardless of how US prisons make re-offending monsters that come back into society to rape and murder again. Doesn’t matter. Along the same lines, conservatives think premarital sex and single parenting or teen parents are best treated with shotgun weddings to “make an honest woman” of her- as if sex were ‘dishonest’ in some way. I guess they mean ‘dishonorable’. It seems that conservatives think marriage following pregnancy is best because ‘babies make families’ where the libs are more interested in the idea that ‘families make babies’. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/9448 "2013-05-09T12:51:06Z")
As long as it’s your “soul mate” you cheated on your wife with and spent pubic money to travel overseas to see. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/9449 "2013-05-09T13:16:41Z")
What’s the exchange rate these days on pubic money? ---
**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:** [May 9, 2013, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/9450 "2013-05-09T13:53:43Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > What’s the exchange rate these days on pubic money? Five Sanfords to a Clarence. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/9451 "2013-05-09T13:55:16Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > What’s the exchange rate these days on pubic money? I’m not sure, though Google does show hits: [QUOTE=[The Association For Objective Law (TAFOL)](http://www.tafol.org/bulletins/b25.html)] The United States Supreme Court recently refused to hear two cases concerning the constitutionality of the use of money from school vouchers by religious schools. In both cases the lower courts had held that the state must exclude religious schools from the use of pubic money. [/QUOTE] (Does this seem unfair? Don’t some religions have tantric rituals where pubic money might be needed?) [QUOTE=[The Island goes PUBIC | The Missing Sandwich](http://themissingsandwich.wordpress.com/2008/03/07/the-island-goes-pubic/)] The Island headline of Wednesday 5th March said the following – “Robbers of PUBIC funds will burn in hell – Chief Justice“. There you have it. I’m sure the Chief Justice doesn’t want to have anything to do with pubic money, if such a thing even exists. I’ve broken it down to possibly mean money that belongs to prostitutes, but even that doesn’t seem right. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=[Yahoo Search - Web Search](http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111015130057AA1Acck)] … atrocities the Vatican were committing - the pope having childeren, incest, they were hiring prostitutes for their amusement - watching them have sex with eachother and then having orgies with them, having sex with childeren, even charging the pubic money to get into Haven. [/QUOTE] Perhaps you need a ButtCoin website to find out exchange details. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/9452 "2013-05-09T15:27:40Z")
> [@L. G. Butts](#): > > That was his dissertation at Harvard? Wow. The whole thing is [here](https://docs.google.com/file/d/1V4W0QUDIbm7GaMTIQ8SXIJo7rbSNrUGzx05riNKPVPp9lg1MZ4Jz8OxUeDGe/edit) for anyone who wants to read it. In the irony of ironies, he’s also written a [Forbes op-ed](http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/24/bobby-jindal-indian-americans-opinions-contributors_immigrants_minority.html) calling Indian-Americans the “model minority”\*, in which he notes that: > [@](#): > > To be a great speller–or, more importantly, a great doctor or IT manager–you have to be smart. Just how smart are Indian Americans? We don’t know with much certainty. Most data sets with information on ethnic groups do not include IQ scores, and the few that do rarely include enough cases to provide interpretable results for such a small portion of the population. “Mr. Richwine, you should totally read this thesis. It’s by a guy also called Jason Richwine, and it’s got all sorts of IQ statistics for immigrant populations!” ---
**Author:** ![Askthepizzaguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askthepizzaguy/32/9405_2.png) [@Askthepizzaguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askthepizzaguy)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/9453 "2013-05-09T15:32:55Z")
Wait. I’ve just been flushing them down the drain all this time, and they’re worth MONEY??? ---
**Author:** ![a35362](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/9454 "2013-05-09T15:57:27Z")
Again – the guy makes it sound like one tiny data point – somebody’s IQ – is the only thing we need to know about you and the value you will bring to society. Like the bureaucrats in _GATTACA_ or _Logan’s Run_. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/9455 "2013-05-09T17:26:38Z")
> [@BigAppleBucky](#): > > [Internal Affairs: After ’embarrassing’ rape comments, California Republican Assembly ousts president – The Mercury News](http://www.mercurynews.com/internal-affairs/ci_23176609/internal-affairs-after-embarrassing-rape-comments-california-republican) > > Ah the GOP and rape. They need to learn to STFU. > > **California Republican Assembly ousts president** > > > [@](#): > > > > Celeste Greig’s odd remarks as president of the California Republican Assembly dismissing pregnancy as a risk from rape earlier this year – in a national story our Capitol correspondent broke – proved too much even for that highly conservative group to bear. > > > > The CRA, which Ronald Reagan once called the “conscience of the Republican Party,” ousted Greig as president last weekend in an 84-78 vote at its convention, replacing her with John Briscoe, a 63-year-old accountant from Fountain Valley. > > > > Briscoe’s campaign manager, Aaron Park, a conservative blogger from the Sacramento area, said Greig’s comment that pregnancy by rape is rare “because the body is traumatized” was “embarrassing” and led to a collapse of her support among CRA members. He added that her failure to address the blowback compounded the problem. Its probably only embarrassing because of her failure to address the blowback. Proof: 48% of the group still voted to keep her. And how much do you want to bet that her replacement probably believes the same thing she does, but is just smart enough not to say it ---
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/9456 "2013-05-09T19:02:47Z")
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/05/08/chaos-governing/?tid=socialss](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/05/08/chaos-governing/?tid=socialss) GOP only wants to pretend they’ll take the country to the ledge? _The art of economic hostage taking._ > [@](#): > > **Chaos governing** > _ **snip** _\* > > Republicans are flatly refusing to even start budget negotiations until they can threaten default on the national debt if they don’t get their way. Apparently this is literally the only way they’re now willing to do business. > > It’s actually even crazier than Beutler and Drum say. Republicans are not willing to enter into fiscal negotiations without being able to wield the threat of crashing the economy to get their way — even as they have already revealed they are not willing to actually crash the economy to get their way. > > _ **snip** _ > > And so the GOP position, with no exaggeration, is this: Of course we’re not crazy and irresponsible enough to allow default to wreck the economy, but Democrats should pretend we are indeed crazy enough to do just that, so that we can win concessions from them in exchange for coming down (hint, hint, wink, wink) from the ledge. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/9457 "2013-05-09T19:08:22Z")
Given that the Democrats fall for this and the voters do not hold the GOP accountable, it’s genius. ---
**Author:** ![user\_hostile](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/user_hostile/32/474_2.png) [@user\_hostile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/user_hostile)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/9458 "2013-05-09T20:18:17Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > Given that the Democrats fall for this and the voters do not hold the GOP accountable, it’s genius. Acting! ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/9459 "2013-05-09T20:26:27Z")
> [@](#): > > To be a great speller–or, more importantly, a great doctor or IT manager–you have to be smart. Just how smart are Indian Americans? We don’t know with much certainty. Most data sets with information on ethnic groups do not include IQ scores, and the few that do rarely include enough cases to provide interpretable results for such a small portion of the population. " Or in other words…we don’t have any statistically valid data on IQ and ethnicity. But let’s not let that slow us down…here are some sweeping generalizations I’m more than happy to make. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/9460 "2013-05-10T20:43:43Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > The whole thing is [here](https://docs.google.com/file/d/1V4W0QUDIbm7GaMTIQ8SXIJo7rbSNrUGzx05riNKPVPp9lg1MZ4Jz8OxUeDGe/edit) for anyone who wants to read it. In the irony of ironies, he’s also written a [Forbes op-ed](http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/24/bobby-jindal-indian-americans-opinions-contributors_immigrants_minority.html) calling Indian-Americans the “model minority”\*, in which he notes that: > > “Mr. Richwine, you should totally read this thesis. It’s by a guy also called Jason Richwine, and it’s got all sorts of IQ statistics for immigrant populations!” Heh. Not really a SRIOTD, but reports are that the [Heritage Foundation fired this guy](http://washingtonexaminer.com/breaking-jason-richwine-has-resigned-from-the-heritage-foundation/article/2529392). They don’t give a reason, but my guess he’s an Obama plant! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897.md?page=472) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897.md?page=474)