# We pit malicious GOP behavior! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 28, 2015, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-pit-malicious-gop-behavior/732869 "2015-09-28T20:15:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2015, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-pit-malicious-gop-behavior/732869/21 "2015-09-29T19:17:39Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > But reaching all the way back to 1948 for an equivalence when the GOP version is listing contemporary cases seems like a bit of a reach. Impeach LBJ! ---
**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:** [September 29, 2015, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-pit-malicious-gop-behavior/732869/22 "2015-09-29T19:23:24Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > The districting statute has an expressed criterion\*\*\* to provide minorities favorable electoral outcomes\*\*\*, i.e. “gerrymandering” to get a black district. Which statute is that? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2015, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-pit-malicious-gop-behavior/732869/23 "2015-09-29T20:13:20Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > Impeach LBJ! Well, it’s about time. ---
**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:** [September 29, 2015, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-pit-malicious-gop-behavior/732869/24 "2015-09-29T21:33:15Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Which statute is that? Sorry. Not a “statute” by the corrupt legislators of Flordia. A [_ **Constitutional Amendment passed by the People of Florida** _](http://ballotpedia.org/Florida_Amendment_6_(2010),_constitutional_text_changes): > [@](#): > > (1) No apportionment plan or individual district shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent; and districts shall not be drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process or to diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice; and districts shall consist of contiguous territory. Again, if you think the prison move was not “drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process or to diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice” then please Pit yourself. Googling, I see that [the Florida State Supreme Court has already found the legislature to be in violation of this Amendment](http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fl-senate-redistricting-supreme-court-decision-20150709-story.html). But aren’t you a lawyer? Why don’t you find the details yourself? ---
**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:** [September 29, 2015, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-pit-malicious-gop-behavior/732869/25 "2015-09-29T21:39:57Z")
Alas, there are great difficulties with finding details that don’t actually exist. You will note (or would have noted, if you had read it) that the constitutional amendment says something completely different from what you claimed previously. ---
**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:** [September 29, 2015, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-pit-malicious-gop-behavior/732869/26 "2015-09-29T21:51:38Z")
LBJ needed a stronger revenue stream & a much better foreign policy, but he had his good points. As to the gerrymandering issue, we could solve that by doing what the Greeks do regarding voting rights: Even prisoners have the right to vote, except for those convicted of treason or mutiny. Even a resident of a psychiatric hospital has the right to vote unless specifically declared incompetent by a judge. I think not only ex-convicts but prisoners should have the right to vote in general. Heck, ex-cons should even be able to run for office. (DeLay and Hastert might be delighted to hear that!) Otherwise, one can trump up new “felonies” to exclude political enemies from participation in high office, as the USA has done. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2015, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-pit-malicious-gop-behavior/732869/27 "2015-09-29T23:48:59Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > 😕 😕 > > 😕 😕 😕 😕 > > Since we’re in the Pit, I’ll say it: _ **You two cannot read for comprehension.** _ > > The districting statute has an expressed criterion\*\*\* to provide minorities favorable electoral outcomes\*\*\*, i.e. “gerrymandering” to get a black district. I’m seeing the same thing **RnATB** is seeing-- the constitutional amendment you cited does NOT say districts have to be drawn to provide minorities with favorable outcomes. Can you underline the part that you quoted that you think does? ---
**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:** [September 30, 2015, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-pit-malicious-gop-behavior/732869/28 "2015-09-30T00:02:12Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > I think not only ex-convicts but prisoners should have the right to vote in general. I once started a thread asking why not let American felons vote. Some respondents seemed offended by the impertinence of the question. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-pit-malicious-gop-behavior/732869/29 "2015-09-30T01:35:50Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > We already have two or three threads whose titles should be _Right-wing Stupidity as Performance Art._ Is this thread going to be hijacked into another one? Well, it’s just so _easy_. ---
**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:** [September 30, 2015, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-pit-malicious-gop-behavior/732869/30 "2015-09-30T03:08:32Z")
> [@Biffy the Elephant Shrew](#): > > Impeach LBJ! > [@CalMeacham](#): > > Well, it’s about time. Our state Democratic Party Platform had a years-old plank saying _Impeach Nixon!_. (This was from pre-Watergate; I think the main cause given was his illegal bombing of Cambodia circa 1969.) Years later, I served on a Commission that was reorganizing the platform, rearranging a lot of disorganized & overlapping planks, and removing obsolete ones that had been accomplished, or bypassed by events. We sent the Convention floor a recommendation modifying nearly a hundred platform planks; the _Impeach Nixon!_ plank was one we recommended deleting. And when that reached the thousand or so delegates on the floor … they objected. Strongly. As one speaker said “It doesn’t matter that Nixon has been dead and buried for years now, we should call for his impeachment – posthumously. Because he was such an evil man, and did such evil to this nation and the world.” After several minutes of impassioned speeches, that one recommendation was severed from the commission report, and the rest of it passed. So there were still people pushing to impeach Nixon, 30 years later. (It’s not in the current platform. A few years later, the entire platform was rewritten, and presented as a complete replacement. If anyone noticed that this new version had quietly dropped the _Impeach Nixon!_ plank, they didn’t mention it.) ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-pit-malicious-gop-behavior/732869/31 "2015-09-30T13:52:07Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I once started a thread asking why not let American felons vote. Some respondents seemed offended by the impertinence of the question. Yeah, I’ve never quite understood the urge to disenfranchize felons, either. They’re still citizens- as such, they should have their say as to how it’s run. If they are a large enough voting bloc to influence the laws that put them in jail then maybe the problem is with how many felons we’ve got, not that the felons we’ve got can vote. And besides- as a nation we’ve got a remarkably low voter turnout, anyway- are felon voters (an even smaller percentage of voters) really going to sway a vote in the first place? ---
**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:** [September 30, 2015, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-pit-malicious-gop-behavior/732869/32 "2015-09-30T13:58:37Z")
Well, we’ve got the largest inmate population in the world. > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I once started a thread asking why not let American felons vote. Some respondents seemed offended by the impertinence of the question. Because black people are disproportionately represented among inmates and paroled/probationary felons, so withdrawing voting rights from felons is an easy way to disenfranchise the African-American community without looking racist. For what it’s worth, Vermont and Maine allow everyone to vote, even current felony inmates. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-pit-malicious-gop-behavior/732869/33 "2015-09-30T13:59:19Z")
Aside from the Florida amendment under discussion, I think we can all agree that gerrymandering is bad, right? We can argue about whether that bad behavior crosses the line into maliciousness, but if we define willfully acted upon bad behavior as “malicious”, then so be it. But… if the goal is to identify “bad” behaviors associated only with Republicans, one could hardly pick a worse example than gerrymandering. If that is NOT the goal, then I’ll gladly join the shaming. One Republican in a state legislature discussed the idea of gerrymandering. Bad Republican! Malicious Republican! ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-pit-malicious-gop-behavior/732869/34 "2015-09-30T15:53:03Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > Yeah, I’ve never quite understood the urge to disenfranchize felons, either. You know, perhaps a bigger, more important question might be how I managed to misspell “disenfranchise”. That’s gonna bug me for _years_. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-pit-malicious-gop-behavior/732869/35 "2015-09-30T16:07:01Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > Which is why you had to reach back almost fifty years to find the example you posted in \*this \*thread? Sigh. No. I simply said start there. Posts like yours are why people say that liberalism is a mental disorder. You deliberately chose to overlook the point that I am making. The OP said let’s malicious GOP behavior. I asked why not pit malicious Democrat behavior as well, but OMG that’s just crazy talk because the Democrats have no malicious behavior at all, not one little bit, nosiree bob. You don’t like Box 13? How about Orval Faubus standing in the doorway of Central High School in Little Rock, denying admission to black students? How about LBJ bragging how the Civil Rights Act “will have those niggers voting Democrat for the next 200 years”? Or LBJ dragging us through the mud of Vietnam; it took a Republican to get us out of that clusterfuck. How about Clinton committing perjury while President? How about Obama selling us down the river on anything and everything he possibly can, the latest being the Iran nuclear treaty handjob? How about just little things, like Democrats vandalizing Jeb Bush campaign signs? There’s a shitload of stuff that the Dems have done. Neither side is innocent. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-pit-malicious-gop-behavior/732869/36 "2015-09-30T16:10:13Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > How about Obama selling us down the river on anything and everything he possibly can, the latest being the Iran nuclear treaty handjob? This one is pretty silly – the experts pretty uniformly agree that this is a good deal. This is the global-warming of nuclear non-proliferation… everyone who knows about the issue, pretty much, is on one side. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-pit-malicious-gop-behavior/732869/37 "2015-09-30T16:10:46Z")
Ancient history, rumors and petty crap? Oh, _please_ start a thread! ---
**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:** [September 30, 2015, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-pit-malicious-gop-behavior/732869/38 "2015-09-30T16:25:18Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Posts like yours are why people say that liberalism is a mental disorder. “People” don’t say that. Some morons say that. ---
**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:** [September 30, 2015, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-pit-malicious-gop-behavior/732869/39 "2015-09-30T16:29:04Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Ancient history, rumors and petty crap? Oh, _please_ start a thread! He already did, you silly history-ignorant liberal, you! And it was the bestest thread EVER!!! ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-pit-malicious-gop-behavior/732869/40 "2015-09-30T16:31:41Z")
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