We Sure Have Taken a Turn for the Worse, Haven't We?
With his latest in an epic string of gaffes, Mitt Romney let slip a bold admission of truth about who we are as Americans – or at least, who Romney and his campaign advisors think a majority of us are: people who have lost all capacity for kindness and all empathy for our fellow human beings. Today, we came face-to-face with Romney’s belief that 47% of Americans are irresponsible and wish only to live off of the hard work of others — a viewpoint so outrageous and mean-spirited that it’s hard for me to believe I just heard it issue from the mouth of someone who wants to be taken seriously as a prospective leader of even a small group, say, Beverly Hills, not to mention a nation whose population includes 46.2 million who live in poverty.
One could argue that there are professions that don’t require even a basic level of compassion: maybe prison guards, pest exterminators, or traffic cops. Whether or not that’s true, serving as the leader of a free and honorable country isn’t among those jobs.
I often wonder: What’s happened recently that has brought us to the point that almost half of the U.S. electorate will go to the polls in November and vote for this guy to run our country? How, in a period of just a couple of decades, could we have fallen so fast, and become so desensitized? Is it just my imagination? Weren’t we better, smarter people 20 years ago? I have my own theories on this, but I’m more interested in hearing yours.
Desensitized? Because socialism and the ‘What have you done for me today’ mentality rule, and as a result we are fraught with the lazy people you are so interested in defending. Just how many of these poor people are enjoying your living quarters? That’s what I thought … I have no problem with anyone who immigrates to this country with the intention of putting their talents to use, but I detest those who expect to be served as though they are the reason the country exists. Without labor there is no fruit.
I will no longer tolerate your weak knowledge of energy matters now that I have witnessed your equally weak understanding of the nature of lazy people to live off the labors of others without any concern for the damage they do to the community. You are not part of the solution Craig, you and others like you are the problem.
Gary Johnson needs to be in the debate or else there is no reason for ordinary people to watch. The too-big parties do not care about real people. They both keep double-entry promise logs. The promises to their big funders get kept. The promises to the people were never real.
Craig,
I agree with your evaluation of Romney. However, there is a danger in mixing issues. Your main issue is energy systems and how they affect the environment. There may be people who support your main issue but who agree with Romney except on environmental issues. Thus, although I agree with your evaluation of Romney, by bring up issues not related to your main issue, you will probably reduce your effectiveness in working on your main issue.
There is a crucial relationship between the midset and strategy of our leadership and the development of the most desirable energy strategy for the present and future of our nation and our world. I feel that you are therefore wise to bring these concerns up for discussion, Craig.
I’m an independent voter and, since I attained voting age, I’ve voted for every GOP candidate ever to win the office (with the proud and notable exception of GW Bush). I’ve also voted for a number of Democrats.
Now, though, neither Eisenhower nor Nixon, nor even Reagan could ever achieve the presidential nomination in the new Greed Over Patriotism GOP. The strident warnings of Barry Goldwater (Sr.) and others of his ilk have proven to be tragically predictive.
As Grover Norquist says, the current elite in the GOP want to shrink our government (which, ideally, is the protection and enforcement arm of We the People) down to the size that they can “drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” That’s the true cause behind the tax breaks and the stripping back of vital regulations.
They don’t want or need a powerful and effective leader in our White House, just someone who can “hold a pen” and will sign more of their retrograde fascist repression into law. They slipped George W. Bush in for precisely that reason, and then rapidly shredded half of our Bill of Rights. These people aren’t about true Liberty, they’re merely about the freedom and impunity of the global ultra-wealthy to have their way with the rest of us and our planet.
As the institutions of law and governance proceed under this logic, the beneficiaries have been and will increasingly be confined to private interests, as the public treasury is placed more and more in the service of private capital, and profits are increasingly privatized while losses are socialized.
The statutory requirement for monetary contribution to collective investment for the preservation and enhancement of the public commons (otherwise known as taxes) will quickly fade (as in the Bush Tax Giveaways, for example). Public institutions and infrastructure will be starved and cannibalized out of existence.
We see this phenomenon at work in the death of low-cost public universities, and in the continual threats, subversions and strictures leveled against our post offices and our public schools, in the sale and leasing of our public lands, and in the privatizations of other forms of our public commons (like the commercial operation of our national parks and the management of our national ports and waterways). The increasing decay and backwardness of our infrastructures, from our roads and rails to our broadband access, provide further examples of the impacts of this philosophy.
As is so often the case in life, a look back is needed here before taking a step forward. In the defining words of our founders, our government’s purposes are…
“…to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity….”
This is all about working together and planning for the future. As a species, we emerged from the fragile condition of nomadic hunter-gatherers into the relatively stable prosperity of agrarian societies. We did this by sharing and cooperating for mutual benefit – the common good.
In contrast, today’s self-interest and deregulation signal a return to “the law of the jungle” from which the durable human tradition of common good had escaped. Like most creatures, we thrive best by combining our talents and resources together to achieve what self-serving motives can’t and won’t ever achieve.
We developed common ground rules to prevent injustice and concentrations of power. Regulations are necessary because some people can’t restrain their passions. Greed is among the most potent of passions, and it inspires vicious and dishonest tactics.
Romney obviously possesses fine skills as applied to using money to gain more money, regardless of the offshored masses of capital, the domestic job losses, and the heavy burdens of corporate debt left chained to the stripped commercial carcasses that his coldly calculated business strategy leaves in its wake.
Those talents do not exemplify the skill set required to lead our nation as we move forward into what our preceding leadership has made a far more unfriendly world.
Among many changes in our current direction, we need a forward looking and collectively supported energy strategy. We require a leader in our White House who understands how use civil dialog to build consensus, and how to drive cooperation across disparate values and needs. Obama may not, in the end, prove to be that leader, but a pontiff of avarice like Romney is most certainly proscribed from consideration.
I can’t believe Romney’s stupidity in voicing these thoughts in the manner in which he did – even if that is what he privately thinks!
How does he expect to win an election when he has already written off 47% of the electorate and antagonised many more by calling the poor lazy spongers living off the public purse?
If 47% of the electorate aren’t even worth courting for their vote because they are poor, and the Democrats are polling high in Hispanic, and Black communities who form an increasingly large and prosperous part of the community – especially in heavily populated states like California, Florida and New York, who is Romney expecting to get elected by?
It seems to me that the only possible way Romney could win would would be with a very low voter turnout. Even this is looking unlikely as by antagonising the very people most likely to vote for Obama, he is likely to motivate “lazy” Democrats who might otherwise have stayed at home on polling day to get out and vote.