# What are we to do with these insects we refer to as Republicans? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 1, 2019, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076 "2019-10-01T04:34:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076/201 "2019-10-02T07:35:32Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > You know what else is dehumanizing?, denying people of their own thoughts, you don’t want to recognize me as a thinking, honest person Disbelieving what people claim about their own thoughts may be insulting and dismissive, and it may not necessarily be accurate, but it’s not “dehumanizing”. There are plenty of human beings who make dishonest claims about their own thoughts, and it’s not dehumanizing you for **Evil Economist** to suggest that you’re one of them. (I’m not saying I necessarily agree with him on that suggestion, just that I think you’re overdramatizing it.) ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076/202 "2019-10-02T07:58:15Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Disbelieving what people claim about their own thoughts may be insulting and dismissive, and it may not necessarily be accurate, but it’s not “dehumanizing”. > > There are plenty of human beings who make dishonest claims about their own thoughts, and it’s not dehumanizing you for **Evil Economist** to suggest that you’re one of them. (I’m not saying I necessarily agree with him on that suggestion, just that I think you’re overdramatizing it.) _Cogito ergo sum_ ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076/203 "2019-10-02T08:20:52Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > _Cogito ergo sum_ Yeah, and _cogito, ergo mentiri possum_. Being able to lie about one’s thoughts is entirely human, and accusing somebody of lying is not “dehumanizing” them. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076/204 "2019-10-02T08:39:15Z")
There’s so much sarcasm in this thread I am completely lost. ---
**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:** [October 2, 2019, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076/205 "2019-10-02T08:40:26Z")
@ **The Plutonium Kid** - I don’t know if you are hate-filled vermin, or just one of the many millions of Americans gulled by FoxNews and tweets from @TheRealDonaldTrump who are too stupid to change the channel. I hope for your sake that it’s the latter. In that case, don’t take my comments personally; just use them to understand how you come across to someone who _doesn’t_ hate facts, who _doesn’t_ reject humane values, who _doesn’t_ believe only “Christians” should be allowed as U.S. citizens. There’s even a fair chance that you and many of your ilk think that you are well-informed and righteous, and that it is OP and I who seem detached from reality. In that case, throttle your emotions and use my post as a learning experience. > [@The\_Plutonium\_Kid](#): > > Okay, I’m wondering how you plan to do away with me and most of the people I know. Perhaps you want to follow the Stalinist example and ship us off to work camps where, lacking adequate food, clothing, shelter and medical, we will be slowly die off from exhaustion, starvation, beatings and execution by the camp guards. > > Or perhaps you want to go full blast and send us to death camps where we will be gassed and machine gunned, everybody, all of us, from grandmothers and grandfathers down to toddler and newborn babies… > > Or will you swine only be happy when Western civilization and Christianity are wiped from the face of the earth? :eek: 😕 Wow!! What hateful speech. Do you wear the label “vermin” proudly? And your post is gibberish from beginning to end. Like many sinners you assume others are infected with your own sins. It’s _your_ ilk (assuming you are a Trumpist or a Republican or one of the vermin who have usurped the label “conservative”) that like to lock children in cages. It’s _your_ ilk that brags about how many guns you have. It’s _your_ ilk that applauds when a cop shoots an innocent black. It’s _your_ ilk that applauds when Muslims with valid visas are turned back at our border for the crime of being Muslim. It’s _your_ ilk that supports the treasonous actions of Trump and other Gopsters to steal elections. It’s _your_ ilk which has twisted the religion of loving Christianity into a religion of hatred and greed. And, most relevantly to your absurd post, it is _your_ ilk which delights in violence. (“I had to shoot him, officer. He didn’t look Caucasian so I had to assume he was going to kill me.”) If it comes to Civil War, Trumpists versus the non-vermin, it is your side that will win. **OP and I exaggerate our words because we are so angry. It is _your_ ilk that really would murder your political opponents with pride.** Don’t worry about centrists and liberals sending you to work camps. That’s not who we are. That’s who _you_ are. If you are a “conservative” in the old 20th-century sense but do not support criminals, pederasts, corporate whores and kleptocrats then say so explicitly in bold-face, as I instructed above. Otherwise, especially given the hate-filled post I excerpted above, I must assume you are indeed evil vermin. hth ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076/206 "2019-10-02T09:14:11Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > Isn’t “NPC” a specific sort of dehumanizing code word used by right-wing extremists, and which in fact has used in the manifestos of right-wing terroristic mass murderers? > > This seems much more troubling than calling people insects, given that the sort of people who tend to use “NPC” code words language have gone on to actually murder people. > > And in the above post it was used in the specific context of dehumanizing “the left”. Isn’t this hate speech? Shouldn’t we ban this poster? ‘We?’ Since you are a nobody, I’d say ‘no.’ And, a word of advice: work on your people skills. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076/207 "2019-10-02T09:14:27Z")
[quote=“Kimstu, post:203, topic:841076”] Yeah, and _cogito, ergo mentiri possum_. Being able to lie about one’s thoughts is entirely human, and accusing somebody of lying is not “dehumanizing” them.[/QUOTE Depends of what the lie is supposed to be, Evil Economist accused me of lying when I said that right wing extremist that murder people are awful, not whether I ate that cookie or not. I think the implied message is that I secretly approve of right wing extremism or violence, is that right Evil Economist? In addition there is no explanation given on why Evil Economist choose to believe that, since I am 100% certain that I have never said a word in support of extremism or violence, right or any other wing. What all that adds up to is that IMO Evil Economist is more comfortable with me as a strawman rather than a real person. Something you yourself have done repeatedly in the past, so no wonder you’d chime in to support that sort of behaviour. Perhaps this time the message will successfully navigate the obtuse angles of your mind, when you decide to substitute what another person thinks and believes, what another person _is_, for a convenient, self serving caricature, you are dehumanizing that other person at the most basal level of what being a person means. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076/208 "2019-10-02T09:29:36Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > @ **The Plutonium Kid** - I don’t know if you are hate-filled vermin, or just one of the many millions of Americans gulled by FoxNews and tweets from @TheRealDonaldTrump who are too stupid to change the channel. > > I hope for your sake that it’s the latter. In that case, don’t take my comments personally; just use them to understand how you come across to someone who _doesn’t_ hate facts, who _doesn’t_ reject humane values, who _doesn’t_ believe only “Christians” should be allowed as U.S. citizens. There’s even a fair chance that you and many of your ilk think that you are well-informed and righteous, and that it is OP and I who seem detached from reality. In that case, throttle your emotions and use my post as a learning experience. > > :eek: 😕 Wow!! What hateful speech. Do you wear the label “vermin” proudly? > > And your post is gibberish from beginning to end. Like many sinners you assume others are infected with your own sins. It’s _your_ ilk (assuming you are a Trumpist or a Republican or one of the vermin who have usurped the label “conservative”) that like to lock children in cages. It’s _your_ ilk that brags about how many guns you have. It’s _your_ ilk that applauds when a cop shoots an innocent black. It’s _your_ ilk that applauds when Muslims with valid visas are turned back at our border for the crime of being Muslim. > > It’s _your_ ilk that supports the treasonous actions of Trump and other Gopsters to steal elections. It’s _your_ ilk which has twisted the religion of loving Christianity into a religion of hatred and greed. > > And, most relevantly to your absurd post, it is _your_ ilk which delights in violence. (“I had to shoot him, officer. He didn’t look Caucasian so I had to assume he was going to kill me.”) If it comes to Civil War, Trumpists versus the non-vermin, it is your side that will win. **OP and I exaggerate our words because we are so angry. It is _your_ ilk that really would murder your political opponents with pride.** > > Don’t worry about centrists and liberals sending you to work camps. That’s not who we are. That’s who _you_ are. > > If you are a “conservative” in the old 20th-century sense but do not support criminals, pederasts, corporate whores and kleptocrats then say so explicitly in bold-face, as I instructed above. Otherwise, especially given the hate-filled post I excerpted above, I must assume you are indeed evil vermin. > > hth There is nothing centrist or classically liberal in advocating the elimination of widely accepted fundamental human rights on the basis of the lack of humanity of one’s political opponents. Asahi is just explicitly stating what many on this board believe. iiandyiiii, the strawmen liberals are here. ---
**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:** [October 2, 2019, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076/209 "2019-10-02T10:52:08Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > iiandyiiii, the strawmen liberals are here. I never denied the existence of individuals with harmful beliefs on any side. But you’ve condemned liberals as a group, and falsely claimed we are more likely to oppose free speech than conservatives (in addition to your silly free speech martyr complex). That’s what I’ve criticized, as well as your generally lazy posting style. ---
**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:** [October 2, 2019, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076/210 "2019-10-02T10:54:21Z")
Wow, some of you guys seem to really dislike each other. Maybe we should put up a wall to separate you, maybe flanked with trenches containing snakes and alligators. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076/211 "2019-10-02T11:04:19Z")
> [@The\_Plutonium\_Kid](#): > > Bah. I’m not likely to do anything which will get me locked up. The careful phrasing of this is way scarier than anything else in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076/212 "2019-10-02T12:00:02Z")
TIL that a “thorny locust” is a tree, not an insect. Good to know. > [@Miller](#): > > “ **Bricker** got less shit than **Starving Artist** ,” is not exactly a high bar to clear. He still collected a ton of shit, and most of it was pretty undeserved, at least from where I’m sitting. **Bricker** was a disingenuous asshole who deserved quite a lot of the shit he got, even if I didn’t see the full volume of it. His main shtick was to start endless “liberal hypocrisy” threads using the formulation “If one liberal says or does a thing, we can claim it’s representative of liberal ideology or actions as a whole even if there is ample evidence to the contrary, whereas if even one conservative doesn’t say or do a thing, it can’t be assumed to be representative of conservative ideology or actions as a whole even if there is ample evidence to the contrary.” I don’t deny his substantial positive contributions to the board in many ways but his fundamental dishonesty and hypocrisy in all political matters are not fully mitigated by them. > [@The\_Plutonium\_Kid](#): > > Okay, I’m wondering how you plan to do away with me and most of the people I know. Perhaps you want to follow the Stalinist example and ship us off to work camps where, lacking adequate food, clothing, shelter and medical, we will be slowly die off from exhaustion, starvation, beatings and execution by the camp guards. You mean in the way that the current administration is currently detaining immigrants including children in camps lacking adequate food, clothing, shelter and medical supplies - or indeed where Joe Arpaio held prisoners in even worse conditions - where there have already been multiple deaths? Is that the sort of thing you’re worried about? How about ICE rounding up people without proper warrants, including several American citizens, and detaining them indefinitely without legal representation or due process? I mean, if you’re concerned about these things happening, you must be furious with the Trump administration. > [@](#): > > Or perhaps you want to go full blast and send us to death camps where we will be gassed and machine gunned, everybody, all of us, from grandmothers and grandfathers down to toddler and newborn babies. Meanwhile this week it’s been revealed that Trump has actively been suggesting US troops shoot immigrants (which include everyone from grandparents to toddlers) to “protect the border”. It’s funny how these things you’re worried about liberals doing are things being advocated or have already been implemented by Republicans. > [@](#): > > Maybe you want to reduce to chattel, a social class of creatures barely considered human, the property of the ideologically correct elite who have no rights you are morally and legally required to respect and whose lives you may dispose of as you please with no regard for whatever suffering and death you may inflict on us. I’m guessing there’s a few women who might have some views on that one. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076/213 "2019-10-02T12:36:21Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > You know what else is dehumanizing?, denying people of their own thoughts, you don’t want to recognize me as a thinking, honest person, it serves you better to think otherwise so that is what you do. What’d follow is you feel you are in a moral position to judge others on what your thoughts are about them, irrespective of what they really thing, you know, like bigots do. > > The self deluding games you are playing are exactly the stuff that leads to the very thing you say you are fighting against; as it’s said “stupid is as stupid does”, you are being profoundly stupid in what you are doing. I don’t follow what you’re saying except that somehow it’s my fault you’re a bigot. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076/214 "2019-10-02T14:25:55Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Well, maybe in the sense that they’re deliberately boiling down their party to a stronger concentration of shit, but not in the sense that they’re getting **individually** worse. The Republicans who are shitty now were absolutely just as shitty under Bush and Obama, and were for the most part doing just as shitty things. > > But back then there was a broader conception of what it meant to be Republican, and shittiness wasn’t such a point of pride. As [the percentage of Americans who are Republican or lean Republican has shrunk since the early Iraq War years](https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx), and [all the demographic groups whose (relative) numbers and influence are increasing—nonwhites, women, youth—have been solidly or increasingly favoring the Democrats](https://www.people-press.org/2018/03/20/1-trends-in-party-affiliation-among-demographic-groups/), the GOP has been left with its core of older white men, a demographic **declining** in (relative) numbers and influence. > > So they’re scraping the bottom of the deplorables barrel, trying to pump up their numbers by appealing to the malevolent partisanship of shitty people. (They don’t **have** to do this, of course. They could instead confront and reject their own longstanding antagonism to economic fairness and social justice, and reshape their policy positions accordingly. But that would risk dislocating the central plank of “More Money for Rich People” in their party platform, which would get a lot of wealthy supporters very mad at them.) > > But none of those shitty people are actually more shitty than they used to be six months or two years ago. You just notice the shittiness more because more and more of the non-shitty people are abandoning or downplaying their identification as Republicans. I think it’s part and parcel of the whole identity politics angle that the GOP and far-right have been carefully setting up for the past couple of decades. First they set their audience up to fear the poor/ethnic people, and then used that to demonize their opposition party (Democrats), and now that they have a chance, I think the natural impulse for people who’ve been afraid and now aren’t, is to fight back against what they feared- poor/ethnic people and/or the Democratic party. So in their mind, this is righteous, as they’re fighting back against a perceived threat to them and theirs. Meanwhile, everyone who wasn’t afraid, or who doesn’t think it’s a good idea to go on the attack has left the party and ideology, leaving only those who feel that going on the attack is a good thing. And this also partially explains their love for Trump, as he’s both an irritant to the other side, and he spouts a lot of hot air about being a streetfighter, hitting back twice as hard, etc… so in their mind, he’s sort of a perfect avatar, once you overlook the other stuff like the infidelity, sexism, etc… which I’m sure they rationalize in one of two ways- great men are like that (didn’t help Clinton), or that they don’t like it, but that in their view, in his case, the good outweighs the bad. This is by no means an apologetic post for them FYI; consider it more like a “know your enemy” sort of intelligence brief. I’m not saying it’s good, but I think it’s a good explanation of what we’re seeing. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076/215 "2019-10-02T14:27:23Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > This is one weird-ass thread. Just wait until the comparisons to _cats_ start to come around, then we’ll have even more weird ass-threads. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076/216 "2019-10-02T14:40:17Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Just wait until the comparisons to _cats_ start to come around, then we’ll have even more weird ass-threads. You think **asahi** is going to start comparing Trumpeters to _cats?_ Inconceiveable! I _like_ cats. ---
**Author:** ![Translucent\_Daydream](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/translucent_daydream/32/16170_2.png) [@Translucent\_Daydream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Translucent_Daydream)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076/217 "2019-10-02T15:16:07Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Why are we worrying about **Bone** ’s shitlist, again? All he said was that it said more about them than it did about the insectoid republicans. And what it specidifically says is that **Bone** was none too discerning about who he put on the list. I don’t like the OP (post, not judging the poster) but I have to say that a god damn moderator of this message board making lists of posters to single them out rubs me the wrong way. I was about to bail on reading the rest of the thread when I saw Bone’s list of people. Both the list and the OP are in extremely bad fucking taste, in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076/218 "2019-10-02T15:25:03Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Just wait until the comparisons to _cats_ start to come around, then we’ll have even more weird ass-threads. If you ask me, we need to declaw the alleycats in the White House. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076/219 "2019-10-02T15:29:30Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > This is one weird-ass thread. It reminds me of the scene in _Jacob’s Ladder_ where the soldiers all start fighting with “the enemy.” I think **asahi’s** even doing that twitchy head-shaking thing. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076/220 "2019-10-02T15:36:58Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > You are what you hate, deep down you know it and that makes you even more hateful against others. That’s some real grade-A sanctimonious bullshit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-we-to-do-with-these-insects-we-refer-to-as-republicans/841076.md?page=12)