Defending Romney
So, Mitt won again, just besting Ron Paul*. I guess maybe people didn’t like Newt slamming capitalism. Now, I don’t like Romney and I would jab a hot poker in my eye before voting for him. That said, shut up Newt. Don’t attack capitalism, that’s a realm of douchebaggery reserved for the left. Not good in the primary, Sparky. Romney is right:
Corporations do give money to people. Where do you think the money they rake in goes? To magical fairy land? No, it pays wages, dividends, and buys goods and services. All that goes to people.
We should like firing people who suck. Why would we not want someone who goes to DC to fire people? Hell, that’s a feature.
And, yes, Romney closed businesses which is what you do to unprofitable ones. Suck it up, Nancy.
That said, Romney may have been a capitalist in the private sector. But, in the public sector, he’s never seen a free market that didn’t warrant some government meddling. So, I’m not convinced.
* In other news, two good place finishes for Paul. I’m shocked.
January 12th, 2012 at 12:14 am
The problem with Romney is that he blows with the political winds, and so is unreliable. Don’t make the mistake of Mitt believes in anything other than Mitt. Hell be an improvement over Obama, but only because he’s beholden to different interests that are more business friendly.
January 12th, 2012 at 12:17 am
I don’t think Paul has a chance of winning the nomination, but the fact that he’s doing much better than anyone thought possible is a positive sign. I am hoping it will encourage other libertarian leaning candidates in the future.
I think if the GOP takes back the White House in 2012, that GOPer will be a one termer as well. The economy sucks for fundamental reasons, and it’s still going to suck in 2016. I’m find with sacrificing Mitt the Shit to the suck, if that’s how it has to be.
January 12th, 2012 at 12:40 am
You’re on a boat, the closest shore is miles away, and you spring a leak. You have only two bails, and one has holes in it but still can be used, the other is completely unusable. All around you are boats with friends in them, some good friends, but most just acquaintances. Your good friends boats are in worse shape than yours, and your acquaintances, well, lets just say they hope you can get back to shore and then come help them.
The water is full of sharks.
What do you do? Bail with the leaky but usuable bail you have, or throw your bail in the water and wait to sink?
Me, I’ll bail for all I’m worth with the faulty bail. A lot of you are willing to throw the bail out and sink, me thinks!
Sorry, that won’t work for me!
We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. “We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be.” Sir Winston Churchill
“At all costs, under every circumstance…From the last plane, to the last bullet, to the last minute, to the last man. We Fight, We Fight!” Cuba Gooding, JR. RedTails
January 12th, 2012 at 10:48 am
Yes and no. In this case, a vote for Romney is a vote for Obama-with-less-melanin.
In which case (or for anyone but Ron Paul), I’ll vote for the Libertarian Party candidate – which will probably turn out to be Gary Johnson.
I do wish I could vote in the Republican primary to try and keep Romney off the ballot, but since I can’t do so in good conscience because of their bloody “loyalty oath”, I’ll go vote for Johnson in the LP primary instead.
January 12th, 2012 at 11:06 am
We are regularly propagandized to vote for “the lesser of two evils” as though the Democrats and Republicans own the votes, which is simply concentrating the power in fewer hands for more control over us. I will ALWAYS vote FOR someone who wants my vote because they pledge or have a record (like Ron Paul) of upholding their oath to the Constitution and, more importantly, ALL of the Bill of Rights. If Obama and Romney are the “lesser of two evil” choices, I will NOT vote for evil, but will probably vote for the Constitution Party, or possibly Libertarian candidate as I did the last two presidential elections.
January 12th, 2012 at 11:47 am
@ Jake and Ron W:
Which makes your votes completely useless and continues the socialist march.
Ever hear the phrase, “cut off your nose to spite your face”?
While I’ll certainly agree that the system sucks, what the two of you, among others, are doing is throwing the only functional bail you have into the water, because it leaks and isn’t exactly perfect for your use.
And we call the Republicans the “Stupid Party”!
January 12th, 2012 at 2:40 pm
And you think that a Romney presidency will even slow it down?
If we keep voting for Statist-R so that Statist-D doesn’t win, all we’ll ever have is statists.
Your “bailing bucket” analogy doesn’t really hold water. To stretch it to the breaking point, the bucket with holes in it can fix itself if we don’t use it. If we do use it, it will leak all the water back into the boat before we can dump it overboard.
In this case, if the Republican candidate loses because enough people vote independent or Libertarian – or (to a lesser extent) just stay home – maybe, just maybe, the Republican Party will get a clue and start fielding candidates who are actually worth voting for.
And if they can’t get that clue and fix themselves, then we need to abandon them, anyway.
January 12th, 2012 at 3:13 pm
For those of you who say Ron Paul is unacceptable due to his foreign policy: Do you believe that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been worth it? $3T of our $15T national debt (20% of our debt) can be attributed to these wars, and add another $1T in the future for the care of veterans. Over 4000 US lives, and many others wounded physically or psychologically. Among other costs too numerous to mention.
Personally, I believe that one American life is too many. If those same young men and women had been employed during these past 8 years extracting oil and gas out of US soil, building new infrastructure to market natural gas as a fuel for vehicles, and guarding our southern border, we would be well on our way to independence from foreign oil, which is by far our greatest national security concern. Misguided protestors say the war in Iraq was about oil — if only it were so!
US lives should not be wasted on foreigners. I’m a Nationalist, pure and simple. American soldiers should not be sent to die defending Iraqis, or Afghans, or Brits, or Somalis, or Bosnians, or Japanese, or Israelis. Outside of a clear and present danger to US citizens on US soil, US troops should not be involved. Period. If they want to go die for foreigners, they can sign up as mercenaries/contractors. If they sign up for the US military, they should only be deployed for the above stated clear and present danger.
“But Gun Blobber! There are all kinds of sophisticated threats out there in the world! If we don’t defend Group X, then Group Y will send terrorists here!” There are all kinds of scenarios that can be constructed, and you could probably create a scenario right now that would end up with us pre-emptively nuking China, or Russia, or Iran, or India, or Japan, right now. You can line up the dominoes and set up all the little logical hoops that you want, and come up with any result that you want. Of course we only end up attacking dirt poor countries that could never do us any harm, and use the specious logic to justify those cases where we attack; but we do not apply that same logic to justify attacking anybody who could, you know, actually hurt us. Note that we finally got Bin Laden in Pakistan, with a small team of Special Forces. We did not invade Pakistan on the premise of harboring terrorists. *ahem*
It’s a principle known as the slippery slope. We are a good ways down the slippery slope in terms of allowing ourselves to get into wars that we shouldn’t be in. Friendly, well-armed neutrality is exactly where we should be in the world.
We simply cannot afford to protect every little pissant country or ethnic group around the world. We are bleeding ourselves dry already. Let them protect themsleves or die trying. Self-defense, self-reliance. These are precepts that we “gun people” hold to in our personal lives — why should they not apply in the realm of international relations?
If some dumbass group somewhere is not smart or strong enough to defend themselves from invasion or to break free from a tyrannical government, it should not be our responsibility to do it for them. If private US citizens or corporations want to donate their time, money, or lives to do it, then they are more than welcome to do so! But the government should not take MY tax dollars (plus the tax dollars of my unborn children) at the point of a gun and then turn around and pay good ol’ American boys and girls to go over there and die doing it in my name.
Big government is big government, whether it’s big because it’s waging big wars or because it’s giving big welfare. Either way, it’s taking MY resources away from ME by threat of force and deciding what to do with them, regardless of whether I agree with the goals or not; and regardless of whether the government is competent to achieve those goals or not.
You can’t be partway Libertarian. You can’t say “I’m a Libertarian, BUT this one thing matters so much to me that I think the government should have free reign in this one little area.” If you say that, you’re nothing more than a statist in Libertarian clothing, and you have no intellectual grasp of the true meaning of Libertarianism. Any dollar that the government spends is a dollar taken out of a citizen’s hands. Any decision that the government makes is a limitation on the liberty of the citizens. Giving the government more money for ANY purpose is just feeding the monster.
January 12th, 2012 at 3:17 pm
@ Jake,
I don’t really want a Romney presidency, particularly, but I definitely don’t want any more Obama presidency, and in this case, Romney is better than Obama…and that’s all that matters.
The Stupid Party isn’t going to change who it runs because people want a more Libertarian candidate, because the Libertarians can’t come up with an electable candidate either! Why do you think Ron Paul stays running as a Republican? He hopes that enough of the Republicans will ignore his incompetence on foreign policy!
Not voting, or voting for a 3rd party candidate, doesn’t tell the Republicans what you want in a candidate any more than not attending the Catholic church tells the Baptists what you believe.
Want different candidates? Get involved at the local and state level. Your plan won’t work!
January 12th, 2012 at 3:23 pm
@ Gun Blobber,
No one WANTS our soldiers overseas, but I would point out that something is working, because even though the Islamists want desperately to bring the war to us, they haven’t been able to do so. NO deaths on US soil in 10 years does mean something.
It’s not Ron Pauls view on overseas ventures that I can’t stand, its his flat out refusal to accept that Iran will nuke Israel, the U.S. and anyone else it sees as being in its way. Don’t think so? Then please explain why they are so determined to have one? They don’t have any Middle Eastern enemies that are threatening them with one. They have flat out stated they WILL use WHATEVER means they have to annihilate Israel, do you think they will stop before they use a nuke? Ron Paul doesn’t care.
January 12th, 2012 at 4:00 pm
On the plus side of all this, what we *can* expect as the Republican race moves toward the convention on this trajectory is that Ron Paul and the libertarian wing can and must get a bigger influence on the party platform and begin (continue?) to reform it from the inside.
It’s going to have to be a Long March. IMO, watching and hoping it crashes and burns is the last option. What grows out of the ashes is not likely to be a good thing. We used up all our good fortune after Yorktown and Appomattox.
January 12th, 2012 at 4:29 pm
@Bill: They “want to bring the war to us”. Ok, let’s spend our money on protecting OUR borders, not those of Iraq and Afghanistan! Let’s go after EVERY foreigner who’s overstayed their visa (as many of the 9/11 hijackers had done) and kick ’em all out! Not to mention the millions who came here illegally. Let’s stop giving so many visas in the first place, until we have a way to be SURE who we’re letting in our country and having a GOOD way of keeping track of them while they’re here! The only way to stop foreign attacks on US soil is to ACTUALLY PROTECT US SOIL. And I have not seen any effective measures put into place to do that. We have plenty of good ways to harass US citizens who just want to fly from place to place, but actually keeping track and kicking out people who are not allowed to be here? Not so much. There have been a few things in the news, but I am talking about deporting literally MILLIONS of people here. Once that is done, then MAYBE we can spend some money going overseas and taking out a few people. (More along the lines of the Special Forces attack on the Bin Laden compound… should have been the way we ran the whole war from beginning to end.) I don’t believe that the cost of over 4000 American lives (more than died in the 9/11 attacks) has been worth it.
I do not understand your concern over Iran. MAD worked in the US vs. USSR. Israel has nukes. Plenty of ’em. (And what do you mean, Iran doesn’t have any Middle Eastern enemies who are threatening them with nukes?) Would Ahmadinejad REALLY sacrifice every single Iranian citizen in order to nuke Israel? If so, he will be replaced, by vote or by coup or by revolution, before that is allowed to happen. I cannot believe that an entire nation of 75 million people is suicidal.
I just don’t understand why we should be spending so much money to defend a country that is perfectly capable of defending itself. (And that goes for Japan and South Korea too.)
January 12th, 2012 at 4:42 pm
IF you really don’t believe that Ahmadinejad isn’t stark, raving crazy, then I understand your point. (He is, but that’s beside the point!)
What Middle Eastern country threatens Iran with nukes?
MAD only works when both sides have reasonable, sane men at the helm. Iran has NONE. The US and USSR disagreed on many things, but both had sane men running the country, regardless of their differences. Iran has NONE. He won’t be replaced, they’ve tried. MAYBE after the nukes rain down, but not before.
I agree, we shouldn’t be defending other countries, or nation building. BUT…that’s beside the point. We can’t start fixing it with the current administration, and we can’t change anything unless they are gone. Romney would be imperfect, but a better start.
January 12th, 2012 at 5:32 pm
AFAICR, Israel is threatening Iran with nukes, in order to try to prevent Iran from getting nukes.
North Korea has nukes. They haven’t started shooting them off yet. I would argue that Kim Jong Il was crazier than Ahmadinejad.
Do you really think that he would sacrifice the entire land and population of Iran in order to get rid of Israel?
I agree that Romney would be better than Obama. I’m actually more in favor of Romney than anybody else but Paul. I think that Romney has a better head on his shoulders than anybody else in the field. I’m not a “Ron Paul or nothing” guy. I recognize that RP has very little chance of winning either the primaries or the general election, but I like that he’s running, and I agree with him on almost everything, and I’m glad that he’s spreading true libertarianism and letting people know what that means. But if Romney’s the best we’ll get, I’ll take him. That was never my argument. My argument was about people who like Ron Paul on everything but foreign policy.
Do you at least agree that Congress should declare war before we send troops into a country where they’re not invited? That’s a big part of RP’s foreign policy stance too — stop starting wars without a formal declaration. That way Congress has to stand up for the war instead of being able to put the blame onto the President.
January 12th, 2012 at 6:09 pm
@Gun Blobber:
I don’t disagree with anything you said in the first half of #62, but I think Ron Paul would. Firstly, even a low-intensity SOF campaign in a foreign country to hunt down AQ would run afoul of his stated doctrinaire Libertarian outlook where we, US, are the cause of muslim hatred toward America. Secondly, rounding up and deporting foreigners would be so much of an affront to his sensibilities we don’t even need to discuss it.
And that’s the nub of the problem with Ron Paul and his more rabid supporters: He has an extraordinary ability to take the essence of a good idea and distort it to absurd, unsupportable lengths – mostly on foreign policy.
Sure, we need to know better than to spend blood and treasure trying to convert 7th Century savages into Jeffersonians. It can’t be done and should have never been tried. The “you break it, you buy it” admonition of Colin Powell is nonsense and it cost thousands of American lives IMO. But we also have a responsibility to ourselves to maintain some semblance of a world we would actually want to live in. Nazism threatened that, Communism threatened that, and I would argue radical Islam threatens that. I’ll not argue that we hugely overstepped hugely. We did. But there’s a balance to be had between isolatioism and, well, where we are now and it will never make everyone happy.
As far as the second part of your post, I honestly think you’re transposing Western values onto people who view human life as cheap and disposable. This planet is full of SOB’s that need to be kept in check -responsibly. It sucks, but the absence of Pax Americana sucks harder.
January 13th, 2012 at 1:50 am
AFAIK, RP supported going after Bin Laden (but not killing him without a trial), and even supported, to a limited extent, action in Afghanistan.
I also go for the “doctrinaire Libertarian outlook” because, well, it’s pretty simple really. Can you imagine if China had troops stationed in Canada and Mexico, and kept one aircraft carrier parked in the Gulf of Mexico and another off the coast of California? Would you put up with that? Wouldn’t China kinda seem like, well, a big bully? Why are they over here with all their guns and tanks right on my borders, mingling with the people who I consider my neighbors? Why can’t they just stay over on their side of the planet where they came from? There are more specific problems that the Islamists have with the US, I know, but this basic one is pretty universal and understandable IMO. It wouldn’t necessarily lead me to suicidal anger, but it certainly could make a reasonable person wish for a certain comeuppance for the country that would see fit to occupy so many of the world’s supposedly sovereign nations with their troops and to keep their aircraft carriers parked in every quadrant of the globe.
The fact is, our media and technology have colonized and converted more countries around the world than our armies could ever dream of. I saw photos of rioters/revolutionaries in Cairo and Tripoli wearing Nike and Polo. I’ve seen Microsoft Windows and Intel processors on computers in China. The world is getting smaller and adopting our ideas and our way of life. I truly believe that China is no longer the enemy it once was. Too many of the young Chinese have fallen for the American Dream: education, love, marriage, owning a home, having a “fulfilling” job. This is the way that we will conquer the world, not with troops but with commerce.
Deporting the foreigners might be an affront to his sensibilities, yes. He certainly has expressed some pretty soft views on that front. But he wants the laws changed to be more welcoming, and I don’t think that he would shy away from enforcing the laws on the books to the extent that they are fair. I am not saying that Ron Paul would support those ideas; I am saying that those who think that RP’s foreign policy would lead to an unsafe US, are not calling for the actions that would actually lead to a safer US.
Nazism, Communism, Islamism et al. will always fall under their own weight. Those belief systems are not compatible with basic human nature. The thing is, people don’t want to be told what to do. The urge for Freedom is present in everyone. The simple fact is that the radical Muslims couldn’t even get over here if we didn’t provide them with the means to do so. Isolate them, keep them out until they have proven themselves civilized. Take away the things we’ve provided them (electricity, medicine, etc.) and see how long they last before they’re begging us to come back.
As to your final paragraph, I understand your sentiments, and if we were talking about Arabs, I might be more inclined to agree with you. Iranians are different though. The streets of Tehran do not look like the streets of Riyadh, Baghdad, or Cairo. JMO.
Keeping SOB’s in check will bleed us dry. There is no “responsibly.” Once we do it once, it’s a long way down the slippery slope. We’ll be defending weak dumbasses from armed assholes until we run out of money or troops, or both. It’s simply unsustainable. We need to defend ourselves, and that’s it. Everybody else is on their own. We can’t carry the world on our shoulders any longer.