# The Unitd States of Cunts **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 25, 2017, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738 "2017-02-25T15:37:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738/121 "2017-02-26T19:28:50Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > The important thing will be to find a way to blame Obama for the drop in tourism dollars. Blaming Obama should be good for around 5 or 6 years. That’s about how long Democrats blamed Bush for everything after Obama was elected. It’s an excellent diversionary tactic for taking the heat from a sitting President, far too useful a tool to be not taken advantage of. And sometimes it’s even justified, although the longer you use it the less justified it becomes. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738/122 "2017-02-26T19:37:01Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Blaming Obama should be good for around 5 or 6 years. That’s about how long Democrats blamed Bush for everything after Obama was elected. It’s an excellent diversionary tactic for taking the heat from a sitting President, far too useful a tool to be not taken advantage of. And sometimes it’s even justified, although the longer you use it the less justified it becomes. Because, of course, all such claims are equally grounded in fact. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738/123 "2017-02-26T20:24:25Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > The important thing will be to find a way to blame Obama for the drop in tourism dollars. Obama said that climate change was a bad thing and we need to cut emissions. So now people are staying home in droves and refusing to travel. QED. It will take Team Trump a while to fix up this mess that Obama made, and let the world know that everyone is welcome in America\*. - Muslims, Mexicans, and Australian authors of children’s books excepted. Also any foreigner that looks suspicious, which unfortunately is most of them. > [@QuickSilver](#): > > Well, [here’s his chance to save coal jobs](http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/24/politics/manchester-ohio-power-plants-closing-trump/). Worth keeping an eye to see how that goes. This is how the CNN article begins – emphasis mine for added effect: Manchester, Ohio (CNN) Smokestacks rise up through a swipe of naked trees under a gray sky. **Nestled between two coal-fired power plants** , Manchester is a mass of closed storefronts, a smattering of broken windows and a couple of restaurants and one bar along the Ohio River. Doesn’t that just make you want to move there right away? I mean, the part about “nestled between two coal-fired power plants” is like something out of an idyllic children’s fairy tale – something that Mem Fox might have written. I couldn’t help wondering about health in this wonderful place, nestled between two coal-fired power plants. So I did a quick unscientific study. [Here’s a start](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Killen_Generating_Station): deaths and respiratory diseases attributable directly to fine-particle emissions (only) from the Killen plant alone. [Here’s another](http://www.catf.us/fossil/problems/power_plants//). If you zoom in on Ohio on that map, and look at Adams County where Manchester is located, there is a great big black circle of death at the precise location of Manchester indicating 25-75 deaths a year directly related to coal-fired power plant emissions, and considering the low population density (Manchester is a village of some 2000, and the entire county population is less than 30,000), Manchester sounds like a contender for Death Capital of the US in terms of per-capita incidence of cardio-respiratory disease and premature death. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738/124 "2017-02-26T20:30:05Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Blaming Obama should be good for around 5 or 6 years. That’s about how long Democrats blamed Bush for everything after Obama was elected. It’s an excellent diversionary tactic for taking the heat from a sitting President, far too useful a tool to be not taken advantage of. And sometimes it’s even justified, although the longer you use it the less justified it becomes. Do actual economic factual data mean anything at all to you? Are economic conditions now pretty much exactly the same as they were in early 2009? In other words, do you have a fucking clue? ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738/125 "2017-02-26T20:36:32Z")
By five years in, I think we were largely just blaming the Koch brothers. You know, the guys Bush and Gingrich worked for? Oh, and Bob Rubin. ---
**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:** [February 26, 2017, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738/126 "2017-02-26T21:04:09Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > A small price to pay to secure the Homeland from the Moos-lims. Besides, the displaced tourism workers will be able find jobs in newly opened coal mines. Apologies if I missed this elsewhere in the thread, but [the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t see eye to eye](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/homeland-security-report-disputes-trump-travel-ban-targets-article-1.2981676) with His Orangeness about the danger of Moos-lims (this from the _New York Daily News_, which last time I looked wasn’t exactly a bastion of leftist journalism). I expect to see more than a few DHS intelligence analysts “leave to pursue other opportunities” in the not-too-distant future. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738/127 "2017-02-26T21:22:25Z")
And Trump’s new National Security Advisor [has told his staff not to use the phrase “Radical Islamic Terrorism”](http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/02/25/trump_s_national_security_adviser_wants_to_avoid_phrase_radical_islamic.html). (But I thought those were the Magic Words that would keep us safe!) ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738/128 "2017-02-26T22:37:06Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > From that well known lefty rag Forbes - Trump Travel Ban: [Experts Predict ‘Severe Damage’ To U.S. Tourism Industry](https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewbender/2017/02/10/trump-travel-ban-experts-predict-severe-damage-to-u-s-tourism-industry/#5c899abc6e44) > > And you can see why - what parent wants to risk sending their kids off on a school trip with their Welsh teacher - born and raised in Wales - only to have him get sent back and the trip short a chaperone. [British Muslim teacher denied entry to US on school trip | US immigration | The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/20/british-muslim-teacher-denied-entry-to-us-on-school-trip) > > It isn’t going to take long before the places dependent on international tourist dollars (Florida for instance) see a problem. Fashion is suject to all kinds of ridiculus fluctuations, so who’s to say? They may be right. Maybe people didn’t know this happened before, and now they are finding out, they will stay at home. My sympathy for the Welsh would be greater if it wasn’t that the UK has a long-standing reputation for doing the same kind of thing. Anyway, border turnbacks really make me feel sick, wheniver I heare about it being done by Aus immigration and border protection. (Perhaps because getting from anywhere to Aus, or Aus to anywhere, is such an expensive excercise.) Whatever the justification for the foreign citizen ban, that’s what visas are for. Turning people back at the airport after you’ve given them a visa is lying. Do you want to be a liar? Do you want your country to be known as a country of liars? It’s just an evil thing to do. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738/129 "2017-02-26T22:53:25Z")
The rhetoric of the President seems to have given a certain kind of border official the idea that all the foreigners born in the wrong places are for targeting, as the known [French historian Roussou as the France 24 reports, also detained for 10 hours and subject to bad treatment](http://www.france24.com/en/20170226-renowned-french-historian-detained-10-hours-us-customs-officials). There is no doubt the fad effect in the wildfire way these stories are spreading, but it is also seeming the case that the aggressive actions seem to have highly escalated. The widening image of the USA as becoming an unreliable place to travel, not helpful even if exagarated. The price to pay for a leader who is making wild statements and encouraging indirectly the lower levels segments with bad judgments to act like he does. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738/130 "2017-02-26T23:08:18Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > Well that was her 117th visit to the US so maybe she has only just recently become a suspicious visitor. Not the first Author to get in trouble at a US border: Ian McEwan: (British, 2004) “British author detained 24 hours at border” [British author Ian McEwan detained 24 hours at U.S. border (YVR) - FlyerTalk Forums](http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/practical-travel-safety-security-issues/309924-british-author-ian-mcewan-detained-24-hours-u-s-border-yvr.html) and Peter Watts (Canadian, 2009): > [@](#): > > So what it came down to, ultimately, was those moments after I was repeatedly struck in the face by Beaudry (an event not in dispute, incidentally). After Beaudry had finished whaling on me in the car, and stepped outside, and ordered me out of the vehicle; after I’d complied with that, and was standing motionless beside the car, and Beaudry told me to get on the ground - I just stood there, saying “What is the problem?”, just before Beaudry maced me. > > And that, said the Prosecutor in her final remarks - that, right there, was failure to comply. That was enough to convict. ([http://io9.gizmodo.com/5497556/sf-author-peter-watts-found-guilty-of-felony-resistance-against-border-guard](http://io9.gizmodo.com/5497556/sf-author-peter-watts-found-guilty-of-felony-resistance-against-border-guard)) (Insert joke about dangerous intellectuals) ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738/131 "2017-02-26T23:14:27Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > And Trump’s new National Security Advisor [has told his staff not to use the phrase “Radical Islamic Terrorism”](http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/02/25/trump_s_national_security_adviser_wants_to_avoid_phrase_radical_islamic.html). He might want to wait to unpack the boxes, because he may not be in his new office very long. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738/132 "2017-02-26T23:24:26Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > Turning people back at the airport after you’ve given them a visa is lying. Do you want to be a liar? Do you want your country to be known as a country of liars? It’s just an evil thing to do. The past generation, and for all I know, long before, individual American Customs agents and TSA have had the capacity and willingness to turn back any alien traveller on the agent’s _own decision_, without appeal, for any reason — which they are not obliged to share with anyone… Doesn’t matter if one has a visa, doesn’t matter if one is from a Visa Waiver Program country, doesn’t matter whether you are carrying $0 or $10,000, doesn’t matter if one has a return ticket, doesn’t matter if one is due to deliver an important academic speech or if one plans to pick fruit on one’s holiday, doesn’t matter if one will be slain if returned. One customs agent decides all. \*One of the questions on the paper was, “Are you an anarchist?” To which a detached philosopher would naturally feel inclined to answer, “What the devil has that to do with you? Are you an atheist” along with some playful efforts to cross-examine the official about what constitutes atheist. Then there was the question, “Are you in favor of subverting the government of the United States by force?” Against this I should write, “I prefer to answer that question at the end of my tour and not the beginning.” The inquisitor, in his more than morbid curiosity, had then written down, “Are you a polygamist?” The answer to this is, “No such luck” or “Not such a fool,” according to our experience of the other sex. But perhaps a better answer would be that given to W. T. Stead when he circulated the rhetorical question, “Shall I slay my brother Boer”–the answer that ran, “Never interfere in family matters.” But among many things that amused me almost to the point of treating the form thus disrespectfully, the most amusing was the thought of the ruthless outlaw who should feel compelled to treat it respectfully. I like to think of the foreign desperado, seeking to slip into America with official papers under official protection, and sitting down to write with a beautiful gravity, “I am an anarchist. I hate you all and wish to destroy you.” Or, “I intend to subvert by force the government of the United States as soon as possible, sticking the long sheath-knife in my left trouser-pocket into your President at the earliest opportunity.” Or again, “Yes, I am a polygamist all right, and my forty-seven wives are accompanying me on the voyage disguised as secretaries.” There seems to be a certain simplicity of mind about these answers; and it is reassuring to know that anarchists and polygamists are so pure and good that the police have only to ask them questions and they are certain to tell no lies. \* _I have stood on the other side of Jordan, in the land ruled by a rude Arab chief, where the police looked so like brigands that one wondered what the brigands looked like. But they did not ask me whether I had come to subvert the power of the Shereef; and they did not exhibit the faintest curiosity about my personal views on the ethical basis of civil authority. These ministers of ancient Moslem despotism did not care about whether I was an anarchist; and naturally would not have minded if I had been a polygamist. The Arab chief was probably a polygamist himself. These slaves of Asiatic autocracy were content, in the old liberal fashion, to judge me by my actions; they did not inquire into my thoughts. They held their power as limited to the limitation of practice; they did not forbid me to hold a theory. It would be easy to argue here that Western democracy persecutes where even Eastern despotism tolerates or emancipates. It would be easy to develop the fancy that, as compared with the sultans of Turkey or Egypt, the American Constitution is a thing like the Spanish Inquisition._ G. K. Chesterton — **[What Is America](http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features/gk_america_nov04.asp)** ---
**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:** [February 26, 2017, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738/133 "2017-02-26T23:29:06Z")
[U.S. detains and nearly deports French Holocaust historian](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/02/26/u-s-detains-and-nearly-deports-french-jewish-historian/) > [@](#): > > Henry Rousso is one of France’s most preeminent scholars and public intellectuals. Last week, as the historian attempted to enter the United States to attend an academic symposium, he was detained for more than 10 hours — for no clear reason. Apparently others were given worse treatment: > [@](#): > > “Thank you so much for your reactions,” Rousso posted Saturday evening on Twitter in response. “My situation was nothing compared to some of the people I saw who couldn’t be defended as I was.” ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738/134 "2017-02-26T23:32:27Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > And Trump’s new National Security Advisor [has told his staff not to use the phrase “Radical Islamic Terrorism”](http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/02/25/trump_s_national_security_adviser_wants_to_avoid_phrase_radical_islamic.html). > > (But I thought those were the Magic Words that would keep us safe!) I can’t wait to be told by right-wing assholes that the problem was that Obama said the phrase “radical islamic terrorism” TOO MUCH. That would be par for the course for these brainless shitheels. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738/135 "2017-02-26T23:45:29Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Blaming Obama should be good for around 5 or 6 years. That’s about how long Democrats blamed Bush for everything after Obama was elected. It’s an excellent diversionary tactic for taking the heat from a sitting President, far too useful a tool to be not taken advantage of. And sometimes it’s even justified, although the longer you use it the less justified it becomes. So, when will it stop being justified for Bush? Most Americans will never recoup the ground lost during the Great Recession. The typical American family’s savings haven’t yet gotten back to pre-Crash levels, let alone gotten back up to where they would have been absent the Crash of 2008. And once again, a Dem hands over a reasonably sound economy to a Republican, who will proceed to fuck it all up. And when the next Dem gets elected, s/he will spend most of two terms cleaning up after the goddam elephants. You know what really disappoints me about the election results? It would have been so great to see what a Dem could do in office, when she didn’t have to start off by cleaning up after someone else’s mess. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738/136 "2017-02-27T00:07:17Z")
School boards across Canada are [grappling with decisions](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/canadian-school-boards-u-s-trips-travel-ban-1.4000033)about whether or not to cancel trips to the US. Mainly, there is now increasing uncertainty about how current or future US travel bans will affect students and chaperones. I think that it is good that these decisions are being made at the board level, so that individual schools will have clarity about policy. Personally, I think all schools should cancel any future trips to the US. There is the uncertainty factor - what happens if one or two chaperones are turned back, or a student who must be accompanied back? This would leave students in a bad position of not having enough adults. Also, there is the moral/ethical message - should students go on a fun trip, and leave behind their Muslim classmates? I say no. Finally, there is overall safety. Students safety must be paramount, and there are increasing worries that the US is becoming an unsafe place to travel. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738/137 "2017-02-27T00:28:24Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Blaming Obama should be good for around 5 or 6 years. That’s about how long Democrats blamed Bush for everything after Obama was elected. It’s an excellent diversionary tactic for taking the heat from a sitting President, far too useful a tool to be not taken advantage of. And sometimes it’s even justified, although the longer you use it the less justified it becomes. > [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Do actual economic factual data mean anything at all to you? Are economic conditions now pretty much exactly the same as they were in early 2009? > > In other words, do you have a fucking clue? Ah, give \*\*aldiboronti \*\*a break. He was a toddler during the first Obama administration and doesn’t remember any of this stuff first hand. He’s only read about it. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738/138 "2017-02-27T01:50:21Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > Well that was her 117th visit to the US so maybe she has only just recently become a suspicious visitor. “We know you’re up to something! Why haven’t you been caught yet!” :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738/139 "2017-02-27T01:51:53Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Security? What the hell do you think an elderly woman was going to do? > > For all the accusations of liberals being snowflakes, you GOP fuckers are frightened of _everything._ Behind all their tough talking bullshit, they’re a bunch of scaredy yellow cowards. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738/140 "2017-02-27T01:58:45Z")
And in the Elections forum, Velocity, Pantastic and Rick Sanchez are trying to tell us that it is the Liberals who are the real racists. :smack: “Please Daddy, tell us the story again about how in the South, all races lived in peace and harmony and everyone knew their place until those evil libruls came in and gave the negroes ideas above their stations.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-unitd-states-of-cunts/780738.md?page=8)