My blood boils knowing that a man who is rich enough several times over—for life!—wants to be president of a country he doesn’t care enough about or have enough faith in to invest his vast fortune in, but uses Caribbean tax havens and Swiss bank accounts to avoid paying taxes the way those of us he wants to govern have to.
Equally maddening is that a large number of people in my economic group who will be hurt by his economic strategy and social ideology—if anyone can figure out what that really is—will vote for him. Talk about whacking off your nose because you have a zit on your chin!
Where is the logic?
Women, for instance.
Do women who vote for Republicans have such low self esteem that they think they deserve to be paid 25 percent less than men with the same education and experience for the same work?
Do women who say they’re voting for Mitt Romney and other Republicans think they should have to pay higher insurance premiums than men with the same risk factors—or do they really believe that being female is a risk factor?
Do they really believe it’s moral, ethical or just for insurance companies to cover Viagra, but not contraceptives?
Do they think the government shouldn’t help ensure the only access many uninsured females have to preventative healthcare such as Pap tests and mammograms?
Do they really want something akin to a “Personhood” amendment to become the law of the land, which will end in vitro fertilization, outlaw some contraceptive methods including The Pill, and ban pregnancy termination at the very earliest stage?
Do they think “small government” means a government that intrudes on Americans’ personal lives by dictating who they can marry, what medical procedures—needed or not—they must undergo, what pregnancy-prevention methods they can legally obtain and use?
Do they relish the idea of being called liars if they are impregnated from being raped?
How about immigrants?
Do immigrants who vote for Republicans really believe in the wholesale deportation of undocumented residents, including those who were babies or young children when their parents brought them to this country and are living as Americans in every way?
And people of color.
Do African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans or Middle Eastern Americans who plan to vote for Republicans think it’s OK to be racially or ethnically profiled as criminal suspects and traffic violators, or screened out as job or college applicants and prospective home buyers, or barred as customers in commercial establishments? Republicans want to strike down laws that prevent such profiling and Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices routinely rule that profiling—by any other name—is not unconstitutional.
And homeowners.
Do people who are eligible for a home-mortgage tax deduction really think it’s worth the risk of losing that and other family-related deductions, which Mitt Romney refuses to take off the table for eliminating, should he be elected? And do they think losing those relatively very modest deductions is fair when Romney and his fellow Republicans will not eliminate the very lucrative federal subsidies to highly profitable companies and corporations, especially when it’s been demonstrated that those subsidies do nothing to create jobs or improve the U.S. economy?
And even gun owners.
Do people really believe President Obama has or will restrict gun rights--or even “take their guns away” as is falsely warned in special-interest, including NRA, political ads? Contrary to such misinformation, President Obama has expanded gun rights, making it legal to carry guns in national parks and on the federally funded passenger train line, AMTRAK.
In stark contrast, as governor of Massachusetts eight years ago, Mitt Romney signed into law what was hailed as “one of the toughest assault weapons laws in the country.” But to gain gun-owners’ support, early in his presidential bid he tried to tout his pro-gun cred to a “Live Free or Die” New Hampshire crowd by saying, “I've been a hunter pretty much all my life.”
He also said he owned a gun and claimed to be a “lifetime member of the NRA.”
All three claims had to be taken back. His claim of being a hunter all of his life was a flat out lie. His scrambling staff said after his New Hampshire claim that he had actually been hunting only twice in his life. The first time was at age 15 when he went gunning for rabbits. The second was nearly 50 years later when he was after quail in Georgia. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/25/romney-s-flip-flops-on-gun-control-over-the-years.html.
His claim of owning a gun was also bogus. He told reporters two days later that he didn’t own a gun but that one of his sons did.
Rather than being flat out false, his claim of being a lifetime NRA member was just misleading. Rather than being an NRA all his life, he joined in 2006 and paid for a Lifetime Membership. He admitted it was a calculated move.
“I’m after the NRA’s endorsement,” he told an audience in Derry, N.H. “I’m not sure they’ll give it to me. I hope they will. I also joined because if I’m going to ask for their endorsement, they’re going to ask for mine.”
But will he give it? His positions on all manner of issues have shifted and changed and flip-flopped so much over the past decade, he's like the guy who will say or do anything to a gal to jump in the sack with him.
To me, Mitt Romney is nothing more than an amoral opportunist whose lifelong quest has been to enrich and aggrandize himself to ever-higher pedestals and who is in complete denial of the proverbial eye or the needle.
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