Stupid Right-Wing Tweets, Donald Trump Edition
Credit: Michael Vadon
May 2, 2015

How did I miss this one from earlier this week?

I believe the stupidity speaks for itself without any explanation, but if you're interested, here's a history of the word "thug."

In all that, the history of "thug" goes back not just to the hip-hop scene of the 1990s—to Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, to Tupac Shakur and the "Thug Life" tattoo that stretched, arc-like, across his abdomen—but back, also, to India. To the India, specifically, of the 1350s. "Thug" comes from the Hindi thuggee or tuggee(pronounced "toog-gee" or "toog"); it is derived from the word ठग, or ṭhag, which means "deceiver" or "thief" or "swindler." The Thugs, in India, were a gang of professional thieves and assassins who operated from the 14th century and into the 19th. They worked, in general, by joining travelers, gaining their trust ... and then murdering them—strangulation was their preferred method—and stealing their valuables.

The group, per one estimate, was ultimately responsible for the deaths of 2 million travelers. Mark Twain, reporting on the Thugs in his book Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World, called the collective a "bloody terror" and a "desolating scourge":

Sounds more like Republicans than those people in the streets, doesn't it?

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