# The numbnut who had the freakout at the Arlen Specter townhall meeting **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 12, 2009, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206 "2009-08-12T19:14:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206/121 "2009-08-13T03:25:43Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Glad you agree with me then that these muppets are not the face of the Republican party just because the OP says they are. Not just because the OP says they are, but because they and the other crazies DO represent the mainstream of the Republicans. > [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > No, they wouldn’t be poor. You and the other liberal douches only see results and what is, you don’t see processes and what came before. People make choices based on their perceptions of the results of those choices. If you pay people to do nothing, you end up with a lot of people that do nothing. > > You think that stopping the payments means they will still do nothing, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think they’ll get jobs and become productive members of society like the rest of us. > > And then you say that I am the one that hates poor people. I want to treat poor people like people. You want to treat them like pets. No, I want to keep them alive and in good health, and in a position to better themselves if they can. You want them enslaved, suffering or dead. That IS what happened before the government stepped in. > [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Another thing that is telling about your philosophy is that you think I want poor people to die just because I don’t want the government to redistribute wealth by making cash handouts to poor people. This shows that your whole perspective on poor people is that they only get what the government gives them. Which history shows to be true. That is exactly WHY the government stepped in. The magic market had thousands of years to do something about it and never did. The government stepped in, and suddenly we don’t have people dying in famines anymore. > [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > And yet you insist that I hate poor people. Please. The man that gives his child everything his child wants or needs and doesn’t teach his child anything hates his child. I’m more like the man that teaches his child how the world really works and inspires his child to be independent and take responsibility for the child’s actions. That is true love–equipping a person to be everything they can be. No, you are like a parent who rapes his children because they are helpless, and therefore deserve whatever happens to them in your eyes. > [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > But no, you’d rather that your group stay in power, so you want the poor to stay on a leash so you can drag them to the voting booth every few years. Garbage; it’s those like you that want the poor enslaved. You want the wealthy and powerful to be able to reduce the poor to slavery, or kill them. Just like the good old days. You want the wealthy to be able to tell people things like “hand over your daughter as my sex toy or you and your family starve”, and you want the government to only step in if the poor man tries to do something violent to stop him. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206/122 "2009-08-13T03:30:53Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > I’m not into gay scat play Well, you’ll eventually meet a nice man in prison and all that will change. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206/123 "2009-08-13T03:36:19Z")
Can we just create a forum for just Der Trihs and Rand Rover and keep them off the rest of the board? ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206/124 "2009-08-13T03:37:19Z")
You know, I’d like to suggest that **Rand Rover** and **Der Trihs** attend a town hall meeting sometime, and report back on what kind of reception their respective ways of presenting their viewpoints gets. ---
**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:** [August 13, 2009, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206/125 "2009-08-13T03:58:28Z")
Can anyone explain where he was going with the czar thing? Did he just mishear something Rush said? Or is he just retarded? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206/126 "2009-08-13T04:01:33Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Sorry, the correct answer is Barack HUSSEIN Obama. I didn’t know you shared the president’s name. You shit for brains hypocritical troll. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206/127 "2009-08-13T04:08:30Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Can anyone explain where he was going with the czar thing? Did he just mishear something Rush said? Or is he just retarded? And really, the Tsars were overthrown almost a century ago. Duh! 😉 > [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Once! Once!! Hell, this kind of shit has been de rigueur for your side for forty years! As **luci** himself so surprisingly admitted not long ago, “a determined minority trumps an apathetic majority”, and shit like this is exactly how you people have managed to so thoroughly fuck things up in this country for so long. And now that the tables have been turned and you no longer have a lock on the media, judgeships, and demonstrations but find these very weapons turned against you for a change, you cry like babies and wail _“How can intelligent people act like this? They must be morons!”_ > > Well, welcome to how we’ve been viewing you for decades. This from the guy who’s always whining about how 1968 fucked everything over – hippies, you know. :rolleyes: Beotch, por favor. **Hamlet** , **El Kabong** , great idea – and you could sell it on pay-per-view! ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206/128 "2009-08-13T04:47:57Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > This from the guy who’s always whining about how 1968 fucked everything over – hippies, you know. Not whining, _describing_. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206/129 "2009-08-13T06:17:13Z")
> [@SCSimmons](#): > > Unfortunately, the people intelligently criticizing Obama’s proposed health care changes are getting drowned out by these sorts of numbskulls. And the leadership of the Republican party doesn’t seem to have the power to focus the debate … > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Are you sure they want to? Of course not. The Republican leadership is getting exactly what they want. They have the power, they choose to fan the flames. They realize that real health care reform will turn out to be popular and impossible to get rid of once it’s in place. Like Social Security. And they know they can’t convince anyone otherwise. The more the crazies dominate coverage, the less real debate there is, the better off they are. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206/130 "2009-08-13T06:23:51Z")
I declare Liberal to be the face of Rand Rover. And Rand Rover to be the ass of Liberal.😛 ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206/131 "2009-08-13T06:42:32Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > They realize that real health care reform will turn out to be popular and impossible to get rid of once it’s in place. Like Social Security. Congratulations. You are both right and wrong at the same time. Social Security is not popular. It’s a disaster in constant need of greater propping up by an ever-diminishing percentage of the population. The government has taken funds from it and used them for other things, which then creates a shortfall that can only be rectified by more taxation, but people for generations have been of the belief that by the time they retire the Social Security system will have gone bankrupt. And most people would get far more for their money if they had been forced by government decree to put the same amount of money in a simple bank savings account…plus they’d have money to pass on to their spouse and/or heirs if they should die prematurely. As it is you pay and pay and get precious little in return, and if you die prematurely the money you paid in just goes up in smoke; no one else (i.e., your family) gets the benefit of it as they would with a private savings or investment account. You are right however in that it would be impossible to get rid of…just like Social Security, which now has so many people who’ve paid into it for so long that they’re not about to give it up. That still doesn’t mean that it’s a good program or that people will get anywhere near what they should have based on what they’ve been forced to pay into it. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206/132 "2009-08-13T06:59:29Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > This from the guy who’s always whining about how 1968 fucked everything over – But…I was born in 1968. [sobbing]Why is everything always _MY_ fault.[/sobbing] ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206/133 "2009-08-13T07:42:47Z")
There is no God, and He hates you. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206/134 "2009-08-13T07:51:16Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > …Social Security is not popular… Well, damn! And here I’d heard that it was pretty popular! But I reckon you wouldn’t say if it weren’t true. Its kinda like, you know, about how they can’t say stuff on TV unless its true. So there you have it. **Yook** , its really none of my business, but you might consider apologizing to **Starv** for being so wrong, when all you had to do was ask. Up to you, really. ---
**Author:** ![SmashTheState](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@SmashTheState](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmashTheState)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206/135 "2009-08-13T08:00:11Z")
What really fascinates me is the ability of the rabid right to hold two entirely opposite ideas at the same time, both at fanatical levels of belief: “Our enemies are nearly omnipotent, are hidden everywhere in vast uncountable numbers, and threaten us at every turn with total destruction” and “We are all-powerful and all-knowing, invulnerable to harm, and our enemies are weak and small in number.” I am baffled at how these people manage to simultaneously hold both beliefs, and often state them in the same breath without seeming to realize they are mutually exclusive. It reminds me of a conversation I once had with a racist Amerikan neo-con who referred to Mexikans as “human garbage.” When I asked him why, he said, without the slightest irony, “They come here, take all our jobs, and they’re all lazy and on welfare.” ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206/136 "2009-08-13T08:16:43Z")
That’s funny. I thought neocons wanted Mexicans to come here because they are all hard workers and can be hired for peanuts. I guess you run with a different breed of Amerikans than we hear about around here. And I’ve never heard a conservative, on this board or elsewhere, refer to Mexicans either as garbage or lazy. Were it not for the fact that in a country of three hundred million people it’s virtually guaranteed that anything can be said by somebody, I’d question not only the accuracy of your claim but your honesty and motives in submitting it as well. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206/137 "2009-08-13T08:26:02Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > **Yook** , its really none of my business, but you might consider apologizing to **Starv** for being so wrong, when all you had to do was ask. Up to you, really. No apology necessary. I’m sure he meant no offense. (And besides, if being wrong was cause for apology you’d have time for little else.) 😉 ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206/138 "2009-08-13T09:24:32Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Medicare was a lot better before 1968, then the hippies fucked it up. Cuz they’re _dirty_. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206/139 "2009-08-13T10:21:58Z")
I feel bad for the guy, but at the same time I don’t really think that had the election gone the other way (ESPECIALLY if McCain bit it and Little Miss Dipshit Alaska skipped to the Presidency) the sides wouldn’t just be flipped. Hell, I’m not sure _I_ wouldn’t be that guy in that scenario. I saw it on here during the election, a strange nebulous fear that sometimes morphed into this almost terrifying vitriol at points. If Palin had gotten promoted to office I’m not convinced every other Pit and GD thread would be espousing that Palin was going to ban science and make bible study an entire class in school. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I don’t think anything but the source would be different in a parallel universe where things went the other way. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206/140 "2009-08-13T10:23:31Z")
**Starvin’** , how would elderly people live without Social Security? Medicare? Seriously, how can they buy food and pay for a place to live? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbnut-who-had-the-freakout-at-the-arlen-specter-townhall-meeting/506206.md?page=8)