Mitt Romney’s recent video where he describes the 47% as lazy moochers who are dependent on the US government has me thinking. How can a guy who’s father was on public assistance be so heartless, divisive and dismissive of his fellow Americans?
The Pie Chart that just sunk Romney.
It also implies that the odds are overwhelmingly against success. It isn’t hard work that makes you rich, sure it’s a component that is often part of the equation, yet without the enormous luck it takes to be at the right place at the right time, it would never happen.The enormous luck they have experienced is rationalized by Social Darwinism. In other words, you are poor because you deserve to be poor, you will never be rich and no matter how hard you work, it doesn’t really matter because only those who are meant to be rich will get there. What they don’t ever cop to is luck. Why? Because it is easier to believe you are chosen by God to be rich, to be a master of the peasants. “I’m rich because I’m awesome! Special! Blessed by the heavens even!”Those born rich, like Mitt Romney, tend to be worse. They’ve never had to work a day in their life. Work is optional, so to them it really is a choice to get richer with daddy’s money. Remember, however, the first rule in capitalism: It takes money to make money. So if you’re rich, it’s not really a terrific American story to get richer. Perhaps this inferiority haunts them as the reality of their luck threatens to make them either guilty or cynical. Seems that Mitt chose the later.
Romney and his rich buddies have little pity for those born under the top tax brackets.
From the way these entitled families treat “new money”, pretty horribly, it’s obvious that they don’t welcome people to the neighborhood as GOP token Latino Marco Rubio recently said:
“We have always been a nation of haves and soon-to-haves. Americans never drive through a nice neighborhood and say, ‘I hate these people in these nice houses.’ They are a people who drive through a nice neighborhood and say, ‘Congratulations on your nice house. Guess what, we’ll be joining you soon,”
It seems more likely that they don’t want the competition. They seem to even feel threatened by upstarts who live the “American Dream” and rise from nothing. Look how they treated Clinton and how they treat Obama. Men who rose from nothing to become the most powerful persons in the world are scoffed by the son of a man who ran for President. Do they even see how ridiculous they look?
Mitt’s dad George Romney was on welfare, a fact Mitt Romney admits. George was able to turn his life into a success story that embodies the American Dream. Though again, these cases are extremely rare, and not respected by the Republican aristocracy, which may even explain a bit why Mitt himself has been largely disliked by the GOP elite.The Republican philosophy of everyone being rich isn’t realistic. If everyone was rich, nobody would be rich. If everyone had money, we would need barrels of cash to buy a loaf of bread. This fantasy is often referred to in the real world as Hyper-Inflation. It’s a pipe-dream mean to keep you working your tails off to make people like Mitt Romney even richer, while he sits on his yacht and collects millions from selling your job of 20 years to China, and bankrupts the company so your pension is useless. Why does he even need the money? Perhaps to prove it to all those rich elite Republicans, like the staunch conservative billionaire Koch Brothers who could buy everything Mitt Romney owns at 10 times what he’s worth and not even feel the pinch one bit.
Their life seems cold, driven by blind ambition, poor ethics and an out of touch, dislocated set of morals and beliefs that most Americans find revolting when the curtain is raised. When Mitt spoke at that $50,000 a plate dinner, as Chris Mathews pointed out, it was as if the Willard of Oz was revealed to be nothing but a tiny man hiding in a closet. Also at that meeting, as Bill Maher recently pointed out was a man who was asking Mitt what’s wrong with “killing yourself” to be rich, working longer hours than anyone else and not getting to spend time with your family. This is the life you get to live when you’re rich? Then what’s the point?
A better goal is to be middle-class, to eliminate poverty and educate our society. Simple goals that make life better, more meaningful and more successful then the society of pyramid schemes the GOP promotes. It is a society where we all chip in and we all get something out of it. We lend a hand to those below us and get a hand from those above us. It is not a significant hand. It can be help when we lost our job, or get injured. It can be some extra cash to buy books and Top Ramen when we are in school. It can be a class that teaches us how to fill out a resume again after losing your job of 20 years. These hands are a hand up, not hand out and you know what’s funny? These investments in the American people are inexpensive. Nobody stays on these programs unless they are utterly helpless, like a wounded veteran who has made tremendous sacrifice to keep us safe. Are these heroes victims and moochers? Isn’t it our responsibility to care for the soldier who gave up the best years of his or her life to keep us safe?
As Americans, we believe we are in control of our own destiny. We want to believe we can make it, even if we never do. Perhaps that is what is so disturbing about what Romney said. It not only ruins the American Dream, it makes us seem almost pathetic, as if we are little pawns to be worried about by big important people like Romney. He feels sorry for us?
That is why Romney is so wrong about the 47%.
First off, of the 47%, most of these people are working their tales off too, not spending time with their families and, even worse, arguing a lot about money. Getting the tax credits that relieve them of their income tax burden, first of all was once a Republican argument, passed first by Reagan, secondly, they ARE paying Federal Payroll taxes, state taxes and sales taxes. They are paying into Social Security and Unemployment insurance and contributing to the tune of 15% or more of their income. Can you think of a person who just released a tax return and paid only 14.1%? Yep, the man who called hard-working Americans moochers for paying more taxes than he did: Willard Mitt Romney.
Furthermore, only 7% made too little to pay taxes either by not working or just not making enough. The rest are retired elderly people, disabled people who cannot work, disabled veterans and our troops. Are these really the people Mitt wants to throw under the bus? Especially since they usually vote Republican. They are not co-dependent Democrat voters. No these people actually vote against their own interests on most occasions, much to their discredit.
Yet if Obama wins, will he throw those people under the bus? Nope! You know why? Because he understand the values of MOST Americans. We believe in business and hard work. We believe in the American Dream, no matter how naive it actually is and we love our country, sometimes more than it loves us. We do not see ourselves as victims oh and one more thing. We rarely vote for people who don’t understand our values.
So Mitt, don’t be surprised if you find yourself unemployed in November.
