# Why are there so many freaking retards in the Republican party?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [July 3, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433 "2004-07-03T23:51:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433/1 "2004-07-03T23:51:25Z")
From [Slate](http://slate.msn.com/id/2103314)
> [@](#):
>
> There are three things I know about John Kerry," says Randal Vinson [a lifelong Republican]. "First, that he speaks three or four languages, and one of them is _French_…
There is not much to say, really. Just that it seems that an awfully high number of Republicans think like this. It’s truly pathetic.
Not that the Democrats in Tennessee are any brighter
> [@](#):
>
> Tennessee Democrats say Kerry wants to take their guns, that he’s more liberal than Al Gore, that they don’t know anything about him and don’t really care to
Yes, you morons, Kerry wants to come to your houses and personally take your guns :rolleyes:
And how come you “don’t know \*anything \* about him”, when you seem to know the most “important” facts, i.e. that he wants to take your guns away and that he’s more liberal than Al Gore, you imbeciles.
Maybe it’s not Republicans or Democrats, but something to do with the part of the country. Maybe something in the water.
Although I still take the _he-speaks-French_ “accusation” as far more stupid than the ones coming from Democrats.
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### Author:  [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2004, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433/2 "2004-07-04T00:23:22Z")
Uh, what?
So a few republicans are yahoo idiots. Or maybe they are yahoo idiots because they are from a certain part of the country. I know both republican _and_ democratic yahoo idiots. So what?
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### Author:  [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2004, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433/3 "2004-07-04T00:35:12Z")
I do have to agree, the “they’ll take our guns” has to be the dumbest ideas ever. How can anyone be so monumentally deluded to think that any Democrat would ever ban all firearms? Kerry owns three guns himself for goodness sakes. The only seroius national action on guns Democrats will ever achieve is to keep military style weapons out of the hands of civilians, or to oppose concealed carry laws. Nobody but the fringe gives a damn about taking away shotguns and hunting rifles, or making it illegal to have a trustly colt on the mantle.
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### Author:  [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2004, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433/4 "2004-07-04T01:14:27Z")
OMG LOOK HE’S TAKING AWAY SOMEBODYS GUN!!!
[http://apnews.myway.com/image/20040703/KERRY.sff\_WIGH109\_20040703173948.html?date=20040704&docid=D83JKL080](http://apnews.myway.com/image/20040703/KERRY.sff_WIGH109_20040703173948.html?date=20040704&docid=D83JKL080)
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### Author:  [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2004, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433/5 "2004-07-04T01:34:11Z")
So a better title may be “Why are there so many fucktards in _our_ party?”
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### Author:  [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2004, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433/6 "2004-07-04T01:40:54Z")
Because the 'pubbies don’t want the Democrats to have a monopoly on anything. 😃
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### Author:  [@Abbie\_Carmichael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abbie_Carmichael)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2004, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433/7 "2004-07-04T02:16:19Z")
**Maybe it’s not Republicans or Democrats, but something to do with the part of the country.**
Two quotes and we can safely conclude that all southerners are idiots?
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### Author:  [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2004, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433/8 "2004-07-04T03:39:06Z")
Columnists love to quote idiots. It makes them sound so much smarter. They certainly wouldn’t enjoy quoting reasonable folks - where’s the fun in that?
OTOH, demonizing your opponents, making sweeping generalizations based on flimsy to no evidence seems to have supporters from all sides. The OP is a case in point.
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2004, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433/9 "2004-07-04T04:21:33Z")
Given the text of the OP, the title is certainly misleading.
I suspect that a great many people of all ideologies would find the **SDMB** rather uncomfortable. Odd accusations against particular groups would indicate a strangely provincial world view.
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### Author:  [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2004, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433/10 "2004-07-04T05:46:46Z")
Great scott! That brush you’re painting with is so wide it just knocked my plants off the balcony! Forsooth, sirrah, I demand satisfaction! Or at least some new pots.
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### Author:  [@11811](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/11811)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2004, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433/11 "2004-07-04T12:29:57Z")
…my first thought:
Recruitment drive! 😃
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2004, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433/12 "2004-07-04T12:53:48Z")
The French bashing is the most remarkable thing to me. “If it wasn’t for us, you’d be speaking German.” Well, if it weren’t for the French, we’d be English subjects. It was the unilateral decision of a Frenchman, Admiral de Grasse, to risk his fleet at the start of hurricane season, along with the cooperation of the French King and France’s great generals and fierce fighters — not to mention so much monetary investment that the country was nearly bankrupted — that led to victory against Cornwallis at Yorktown, and won American independence from Britain. As a matter of fact, it was for all intents and purposes a French victory. Conrnwallis’s representative offered his sword to French General Rochambeau, but he refused to accept it, telling O’Hara to take it to Washington. Washington refused it too, on the basis that Cornwallis himself did not deliver it, and instead ordered General Lincoln to receive it. Anyway, the notion that people who constantly invoke the founders, the Revolution, and what America fought for at that time would bash the very people who made it all possible is just… bizzare.
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### Author:  [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2004, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433/13 "2004-07-04T13:07:19Z")
> [@Liberal](#):
>
> It was the unilateral decision of a Frenchman, Admiral de Grasse, to risk his fleet at the start of hurricane season
I hadn’t known about the hurricane aspect of it (or forgot about it). That could make for a very useful lead-in for an alternative history story; I wonder any author has used that yet? They could throw in the butterfly effect too.
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2004, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433/14 "2004-07-04T13:19:17Z")
His fleet left the West Indies on August 10, and arrived at Chesapeake on August 30.
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### Author:  [@laigle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/laigle)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2004, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433/15 "2004-07-04T13:53:35Z")
> [@Abbie Carmichael](#):
>
> **Maybe it’s not Republicans or Democrats, but something to do with the part of the country.**
>
> Two quotes and we can safely conclude that all southerners are idiots?
No, we have a lot more to go on than the two quotes.
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### Author:  [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2004, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433/16 "2004-07-04T14:47:51Z")
The other two things that Mr Vinson knows about Kerry are
> [@](#):
>
> Second, that he’s married to an ex-senator’s wife who’s worth a billion dollars. And third, he is _supposedly_ a Vietnam vet.
(italics in original)
I make no comment about Republicans, the South or what have you, but Randal Vinson is a complete and utter tool. “Supposedly”?
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### Author:  [@Unregistered\_Bull](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unregistered_Bull)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2004, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433/17 "2004-07-04T15:14:49Z")
I’ve always wondered how some Democrats could be so pathetically stupid to not belive the"they’ll take our guns" bit about their putrid party. The Democrats are the party of the gun control and have always had some fairly whacko legislation out there concerning firearms and ammunition. They have to keep their far left wing supporters happy. To say that Democrats are not ‘anti-gun’ is like saying that Republicans are ‘pro-gay’.
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### Author:  [@RTA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTA)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2004, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433/18 "2004-07-04T15:32:46Z")
My first reaction to the thread title is, “because they’re the broadest and most dependable pool of voters the GOP has”.
We would be well served by a study that determined just how many voters bought into that whole France/take guns away/dirty traitor liberal/etc. etc. etc. worldview - that simple, simple worldview boosted by the usual suspects in the media.
I think it’s important to know once and for all, if we could see some real numbers on this. Because though the OP quotes a mere two yokels, I think we can all agree that those sort of beliefs are not restricted to just those two yokels.
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2004, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433/19 "2004-07-04T15:42:52Z")
Cheez Louise, **Machetero**! You’re not making a whole lot of sense here, ya know? Democrats are marching in hive-mind lock-step on the gun control issue, total committment, and don’t even know it? Just how is this astonishing feat accomplished? Mind control rays? Good thing _you’re_ protected by your _tres chic chapeau_ from House of Alcoa.
It’s Hilary, isn’t it? She’s just waiting, got her crack UN commando teams in the wings, black helicopters all warmed up, just waiting for the day to swoop down and collect all those guns. Gonna require house-to-hourse searches, right? I mean, to get all those guns. How many guns, **Machetero**? Millions of ‘em, right? So lets say they got ten thousand troops ready for the task. Rarin’ to go, just waiting for the order from Der Hilary.
Show off your math skills. How many years would it take for them to clear out all the guns from New York City _alone_? And once they get them all, how do they stop people in the recently disarmed New York from getting more? Considering how peachy-dandy the war on illegal drugs is going.
Gotta admire the cunning, though. The war on the 2nd Amendment is so secret, even the conspirators don’t know about it! Now, _that’s_ security! If you yourself don’t know that you’re rabidly committed to a particular cause, you can’t spill the beans, can you?
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### Author:  [@syncrolecyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/syncrolecyne)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2004, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-many-freaking-retards-in-the-republican-party/253433/20 "2004-07-04T15:48:29Z")
What’s even worse is the frequent snipe I hear that John Kerry “looks French”.
Having spent some time in the tourist industry, I can attest that French people, in general, are physically indistinguishable from Americans (other than possibly being less prone to obesity, though plenty of French people are on the heavy side as well).
Anyway, some of this Grench bashing started out as something of a lark, but a lot of people with no grasp of irony have taken it way too far. Anyway, its so 2003.
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