Posted on 05/10/2012 12:10:38 PM PDT by presidio9
There may be a good reason voters cant get a good bead on Mitt Romney. And it may be because the real Romney has a troubled, sadistic history. High School classmates of Romney recall an incident thats disturbing to its core. Romney, then a popular senior at the prestigious Cranbrook School in Michigan, disapproved of classmate John Laubers long, blond locks, which Romney allegedly took as a clue that Lauber was a homosexual. So Romney assembled a posse of bullies and held the boy down and brutally chopped off his hair.
He cant look like that. Thats wrong. Just look at him! an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemanns recollection. Mitt, the teenaged son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Laubers look, Friedemann recalled.
A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the schools collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Laubers hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.
The incident was recalled similarly by five students, who gave their accounts independently of one another. Four of them Friedemann, now a dentist; Phillip Maxwell, a lawyer; Thomas Buford, a retired prosecutor; and David Seed, a retired principal spoke on the record. Another former student who witnessed the incident asked not to be named. The men have differing political affiliations, although they mostly lean Democratic. Buford volunteered for Barack Obamas campaign in 2008. Seed, a registered independent, has served as a Republican county chairman in Michigan. All of them said that politics in no way colored their recollections.
Today, Romneys actions would be considered a hate crime. The assault itself is a felony.
So is Mitt Romney sorry for his actions 47 years ago? Nope, unlike five of his classmates, the Republican presidential candidate has no recollection of assaulting Lauber. His campaign team put out this statement:
the former Massachusetts governor has no recollection of the incident.
Why would Mitt Romney not remember straddling another boy and savagely cutting off his hair? Because the event meant nothing to Romney. Lauber was beneath his contempt. He wasnt human to the young Romney.
But wont voters find it disturbing is that five classmates vividly recall the event, but Romney doesnt? Uh oh, time for shake the Romney Etch-A-Sketch . Oh that brutal attack? It appears Mitt does remember assaulting Lauber, but
I certainly dont believe that I thought the fellow was homosexual. That was the furthest thing from our minds back in the 1960s.
And he still hasnt apologized.
Also Romney is trying to claim that rampant homophobia didnt exist in the 1960s? Perhaps thats why it was so easy for homosexual men to come out back then. You better try again Mitt, youre getting caught in yet another deep, disturbing lie.
Romneys actions may be decades old, but they highlight a current problem among the Republican Party: Bullying is an acceptable form of punishment to quell dissent and non-conformity. From Ray Kellys spying on Muslims and brutal treatment of peaceful Occupy Wall Street voters to Rush Limbaughs labeling of independent women as feminazis, sluts, and prostitutes, the GOP has bcome vile, mean, and intolerant at its core.
Lauber died in 2004, so it is too late for Mitt Romney to apologize to him, but it doesnt mean he shouldnt apologize to the public for his actions. As a bullied child myself, I find Romneys actions in 1965 to be beyond contempt. The emotional scars I bear from the bullying and assaults I had to endure during my teenage years still haunt me.I remember my attackers gleeful faces as they heckled and assaulted me. I remember the names they called me, I remember feeling the spit on my cheek, I remember the punches they threw, I remember the helplessness I felt. There are millions of people like me, we were the retards, the fags, the geeks, and the losers. You see, it doesnt matter to us whether Lauber was gay or not. It also doesnt matter that Romney didnt attack him for being gay. What matters is that Lauber was physically assaulted for being different, for being subhuman, to being on a lower social stratus than a scion of wealth and affluence.
I have never received an apologies from the bullies that made my life hell. Today, one of them even denies the events ever happened. To me, this only heightens my contempt for bullies; when caught, they feel its acceptable for them to dismiss the event. It either didnt occur or didnt matter. My contempt for bullying has only grown because of this. And now, I have a new-found contempt for Mitt Romney, Americas lead bully. And his denying the significance of such an event is just as despicable as the assault.
Since you have dropped the pretense of posting on a thread topic, and have gone totally personal I’ll respond with this summary, and see if you think that it is reasonable, or the “lies” of a “narrow minded bigot”.
You find this (below) spreading falsehoods? I call it sane and truthful.
There is very little difference between Romney and Obamas actual records. Both supported abortion, gay rights, gun control, liberal judges, global warming, compulsory health insurance, individual mandates, government control over the economy, etc, in other words liberal progressive policies. And they both loathed Reagan, conservatism and the tea party.
Romney now swears hes a Reagan conservative. He also claims that his brand of government controlled, government forced, mandated compulsory health insurance is a free-market conservative solution. He also still says that even if president, he would do nothing about gays in the military. You can bet that means he will do nothing to thwart the advancing gay agenda. He also still says today that man-made global warming is real and that government will eventually have to do something about it. There goes our free-economy. He also says that TARP, the bailouts, the stimulus spending, etc, were all good ideas and that more may be necessary. So he truly does believe that government control of the economy, picking winners and losers, etc, is a good thing. Crony capitalism. He never even mentions the constitution which doesnt give the federal government the authority to do any of the above. Wonder why.
No Reaganite here, so guess thats just another lie too.
And they now call me a troll too for simply stating the truth.
This so-called incident has been debunked. Shown to be nothing more than a screed built of fabrication, exaggeration, innuendo and political skulduggery.
This is only the beginning. During the summer and fall, as Obama’s re-elect numbers continue to be dismal, as I believe they will, no lie against Romney and other Republicans will go untold.
OFGS
Why are you taking this article seriously?
It has been refuted by everyone. The family of the so-called victim denies it and resents that their (now dead) relative is being lied about for political purposes.
If you don’t like Romney, fine, but don’t start believing all the lies told about him by the left.
Make up your own lies.
That was 2 days ago. The woman hadn’t refuted it yet.
Plus, Romney seems to have a bit of a mean streak in him. Period.
It hasn’t been debunked or even close to that, but Romney has apologized for it.
Truce about what, you merely need to reign in your posting actions and personalizing attacks on freepers.
Post 141 was a reasonable summary of where freerepublic should be in regards to Romney.
As far as your effort to limit discussion on Mitt Romney, you need to visit this post to JR at this link.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2883067/posts?page=266#266
Yes. The tea party folks will take him out in the GOP primary. Unless the threat of being taken out in the primary makes him govern right.
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