# There's no Pit thread on the Romney bullying story yet, so . . . **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 11, 2012, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582 "2012-05-11T02:30:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582/121 "2012-05-11T15:31:23Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > I just love this “It was legal and even if it wasn’t people were not prosecuted for it back then, so therefore it logically follows that it was ethically and morally the correct thing to do”. > > Please tell it again. Maybe it will get better in your 5th telling. > > As you’ve been told - it’s not so much the event in the past that is telling here. Many of us have done stupid things that we regret. > > Romney however seems to have done stupid things that he either totally forgets due to some cognitive impairment, or he did stupid things that he does not particularly regret. This **current** behavior of his shows us what kind of man he is **today**. And it does not look good. Never said it was ethical or moral. Maybe you’ll get fucking stupider and less accurate on your second go around. ---
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582/122 "2012-05-11T15:31:48Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I’m more than beyond the average participant in this thread when it comes to general knowledge about politics cite? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582/123 "2012-05-11T15:32:24Z")
> [@Airbeck](#): > > cite? Dumb. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582/124 "2012-05-11T15:32:42Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > The GOP care too much about social issues and it will cost them long term. But on economics neither party makes any sense. The GOP are mentally retarded since about 2002 on tax policy but the Democrats are mentally retarded on issues of free trade and corporate taxation, as well as being moderately stupid on some environmental policies. In the land of tards, the least tardy is king. Republican economic policy is a failure. Unless you want flat middle-class wages and increasing income disparity. > [@](#): > > The problem with voting for Democrats is the risk of them saddling us with programs that will probably be disastrous long term (like Obamacare.) The risk with voting for the GOP is they refuse to generate any government revenue which creates problems of its own, but I think those problems are less than the problems of creating lots of new entitlements. Obamacare will save us money. You do know that other countries spend less and have better results and more people covered, right? ---
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582/125 "2012-05-11T15:33:18Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Dumb. no, you are. And we’re all the idiots, huh? ---
**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 11, 2012, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582/126 "2012-05-11T15:33:28Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Dumb. “Four legs bad two legs good.” Yep. Let’s not forget Romney’s “little prank” of running a nearly blind person into a door. Of course he and his gang had dehumanized the victim first by calling him, “the bat”. If this were “isolated incidents” we could rightfully laugh them off. But they are part of an obvious pattern. Like counseling a woman to have a baby even though it might have killed her to come to term, laughing at the poor jobless slobs in Michigan whose jobs had moved to Wisconsin when the band played On, Wisconsin!, liking to fire people, causally betting $10,000, saying $486,000 wasn’t much added income, causally mentioning his (illegal in Massachusetts) treatment of his pet dog, and casually mentioning his wife’s two Cadillacs. This man lacks empathy. Considering how high functioning he has been, I it may not be pathalogical, but I think the case is very clear. Is lack of empathy always a bad thing? Perhaps not. I seem to recall reading somewhere that it was better for surgeons not to have too much considering that their work usually caused a great deal of pain. Meanwhile, Romney in high school reminds me of the charactor Biff from Back to the Future or the charactor Dougie from Animal House. An unlikable bully. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582/127 "2012-05-11T15:37:51Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > In the land of tards, the least tardy is king. Republican economic policy is a failure. Unless you want flat middle-class wages and increasing income disparity. I agree Bush’s economic policy was mostly as failure as is the current crop of “no tax ever” policy proposals, but I don’t evaluate economic policy as being good or bad based on middle-class wage growth or income disparity. Valid economic policy should not try to deterministically control such results. > [@](#): > > Obamacare will save us money. You do know that other countries spend less and have better results and more people covered, right? It might, but I don’t know that it actually will. I think single payer health care like the UK had would save us money, but that isn’t what Obamacare is, so to say that other countries spend less as some evidence Obamacare will actually save us money is not a very good argument. Obamacare lacks the power of a true single payer system and from what I’ve seen a lot of the necessary cost controls aren’t actually in place. ---
**Author:** ![MysteryFellow63427](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e4f/32.png) [@MysteryFellow63427](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MysteryFellow63427)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582/128 "2012-05-11T15:46:11Z")
Hey, when is the WaPo going to run a major expose article on Obama’s cocaine use or dog eating? Oh, right. Never. ---
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582/129 "2012-05-11T15:47:58Z")
> [@neuroman](#): > > Hey, when is the WaPo going to run a major expose article on Obama’s cocaine use or dog eating? > > Oh, right. Never. Not necessary, Obama covered both just fine in his book. So its not news. Newpapers cover news. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582/130 "2012-05-11T15:49:28Z")
> [@neuroman](#): > > Hey, when is the WaPo going to run a major expose article on Obama’s cocaine use or dog eating? > > Oh, right. Never. Uh… he admitted both in his book. And dog eating isn’t evil. And cocaine use isn’t evil. Holding down a terrified crying man with a group of jock douchebags while you cut his hair to humiliate him is evil. Are you kidding? Or are you just that vapid? ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582/131 "2012-05-11T15:53:38Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > This basically boils down to this, no one here that has a problem with this was going to vote for Romney anyway. Everyone here will find ridiculous reasons to call Republicans sociopaths and et cetera, there’s no reason to take that stuff seriously. The Democrats on this forum are basically moronic mouth breathers who masturbate furiously to the Daily Kos and watch more Fox News in a week than most Republicans so they can scream in righteous indignation. This really is very similar to some of the **Starving Artist** posts in that penn state thread. That’s pretty funny. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582/132 "2012-05-11T15:53:41Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > You’re a moron, he didn’t get away with it because his father had pull but simply because society did not care about this. People would laugh at you if you called this a “criminal assault” in 1965, literally laugh at you. > > Enforcement of the law changes with societal mores. I know someone who drove drunk through a college campus in the 60s and slammed their car into a park bench. Police showed up and drove the guy home and got his car towed out of there, no charges were pressed. > > Thirty years later, that guy would have been expelled, had DUI/DWI on his record and etc. Fifty years ago you could be arrested for having gay sex, by the 1980s those laws were still legally valid but virtually never enforced. > > Changing mores change how the law would be enforced, and most likely even the victim of this thing would **never** have considered this a criminal matter in 1965. Romney didn’t avoid trouble because his dad had pull, he avoided trouble because this wasn’t seen as a big deal. Do we even know if the victim reported it to anyone? That in itself is extremely unlikely given the attitudes toward bullying in the 1960s. None of which changes the fact that Romney caused pain and suffering to a fellow student. That student’s suffering matters. And honestly, I don’t believe for a minute that forty years ago, it was socially acceptable for teenagers to assault each other in school. The fact that the other people involved in the assault felt bad about demonstrates that Romney’s is the outlier. ---
**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:** [May 11, 2012, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582/133 "2012-05-11T15:55:21Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Never said it was ethical or moral. Maybe you’ll get fucking stupider and less accurate on your second go around. You know, all you’re currently missing in this thread is to tell us how you stuck a paper towel tubes on your dick, and that proved that Romney is a man of good character. But keep up the good work! ---
**Author:** ![Enkel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Enkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enkel)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582/134 "2012-05-11T15:58:12Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > His behavior was _notable_ at the time, I don’t know that it could be said to be unusual. Pranks and bullying were super, super, super common. \*\*Encouraged by many parents and authority figures and never really something the rest of the parents and authority figures lectured about or tried to prevent. \*\* So, you think that Romney, who was raised in the Mormon faith was never instructed or discouraged from being a bully? And you think it is okay to hand a multi-billion dollar military force over to a guy who spent his youth being encouraged to pull pranks and be a bully? That Romney claims to not remember this incident proves that he is either a bald faced liar or a psychopath. Neither of which should be our Commander in Chief. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582/135 "2012-05-11T16:04:35Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > None of which changes the fact that Romney caused pain and suffering to a fellow student. That student’s suffering matters. > > And honestly, I don’t believe for a minute that forty years ago, it was socially acceptable for teenagers to assault each other in school. The fact that the other people involved in the assault felt bad about demonstrates that Romney’s is the outlier. It was definitely socially acceptable to assault each other. The student’s suffering is irrelevant to me and anyone who is dispassionately deciding on a candidate based on the important issues of governance. Of course, the only people who care have already decided they aren’t voting for Romney. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582/136 "2012-05-11T16:05:26Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I don’t really pay much attention to gay marriage issues because I don’t care . . . I wish they’d start locking up people who want gender assignment surgery for the mentally ill people that they are and taking children away from gay couples who have no business adopting, too. _Zowie!_ I assume you are just trolling to make some kind of hilarious point here, because I am going to give you the benefit of a doubt and say there is no way you could be this ignorant and hateful and not actually implode from it like Rumpelstiltskin. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582/137 "2012-05-11T16:05:42Z")
> [@Enkel](#): > > So, you think that Romney, who was raised in the Mormon faith was never instructed or discouraged from being a bully? > > And you think it is okay to hand a multi-billion dollar military force over to a guy who spent his youth being encouraged to pull pranks and be a bully? > > That Romney claims to not remember this incident proves that he is either a bald faced liar or a psychopath. Neither of which should be our Commander in Chief. Doesn’t prove either of those things, great false dichotomy though. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582/138 "2012-05-11T16:06:19Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Anyone who cares about this is mind-numbingly stupid. He’s 65+ years old, this happened in the 1960s which is so far removed from today where society actually cares about bullying as to be ridiculous. George Bush (not the real one, the younger one) said that when he was young and stupid, he was young and stupid. We give kids a pass for things, and I give Mitt a pass for being a bully in high school. But you are wrong in saying the 60s was a Long Time Ago and so does not matter. Romney dodged the draft as young man in the 60s. That cost him my vote. ---
**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:** [May 11, 2012, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582/139 "2012-05-11T16:07:05Z")
> [@Enkel](#): > > That Romney claims to not remember this incident proves that he is either a bald faced liar or a psychopath. Neither of which should be our Commander in Chief. Now now. As mentioned before, he could be suffering from a cognitive impairment. This can be caused by a variety of things. We can probably rule out alcoholism, but memory loss can be caused by a brain tumor, trauma to the cortex, epilepsy, Transient Ischemic Attack, Pick disease or many other causes. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582/140 "2012-05-11T16:10:22Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > _Zowie!_ I assume you are just trolling to make some kind of hilarious point here, because I am going to give you the benefit of a doubt and say there is no way you could be this ignorant and hateful and not actually implode from it like Rumpelstiltskin. My positions on mentally ill persons who want gender reassignment therapy and homosexuals are extremely well established on these boards: > **[Three parents](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=387286)** > > So, I was waiting to post in the new polygamy thread until I got home, but I see it has been closed. So, I will say what I wanted to here. My daughter has three parents and is doing quite well. She is bright, learns quickly and seems to get along... [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7905768&postcount=205](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7905768&postcount=205) I know I’ve been involved in more discussions on the topic than that, but those are the only two I was able to easily find. It is absolutely not trolling but a genuine belief of mine that I have maintained on these boards for years, and I resent the implication that I’m saying it just to troll people. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theres-no-pit-thread-on-the-romney-bullying-story-yet-so/621582.md?page=8)