Alan Keyes
Slurring America's earners- -should Romney resign the GOP nomination?
By Alan Keyes
The Romney campaign has chosen to deploy a strategy that depends on drawing a contrast between Romney's proven competence and Obama's disappointing incompetence (while being careful always to obscure the fact that Romney's competence came in the role of socialist administrator during the Massachusetts phase of his career). But just as the debris of Obama's (competently executed?) policies for destroying America's international prestige and security comes burbling to the surface of events (an ideal moment for Romney to expose this destructive competence for what it is), Romney puts on his own display of incompetence. His badly timed reaction to the assassination of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya handed Obama the chance to appear "Presidential," while Romney appeared to be so focused on scoring political points that he didn't even bother to inform himself of the true context in which he was speaking.
Looking at all this, we're supposed to believe that the competent Mr. Romney suddenly morphed into a bumbling incompetent at the moment when he should have been raising a valid question about whether the damage Obama has inflicted comes from incompetence or malice. Of course, despite the clear implications of Obama's record, Romney's campaign strategy forbids him to notice Obama's ideologically-driven malice toward America.
Just as Romney's mask of competence slips, we get word of what appears to be another false step: video-recorded remarks of a secret meeting with rich donors to his campaign in which Romney frankly voices what some will certainly see as his malice toward the 47% of the electorate he claims will vote for Obama no matter what. Almost in so many words, he characterizes them as shiftless parasites, driven by delusions of victimization into an entitlement mentality that drives them to suck with rabid dependency on the teat of government largesse.
In the years when he was a self-proclaimed liberal, Mitt Romney proudly sought, in the name of justice and compassion, to prove how much he cared about people. He and his leftist RINO buddies were not loath to join the socialist Democrats in fashioning, protecting, or refining the very programs they claimed were needed to care for the people he now excoriates. It's almost comically outrageous, for example, that Romney should be found secretly venting his contempt toward people who believe they are entitled to healthcare. After all, when he thought it would serve his political ambition, he boasted proudly about the socialist healthcare approach he and his leftist/corporatist buddies instituted in Massachusetts, an approach that assumed and catered to that very entitlement.
The noblesse oblige of "limousine liberals" like Mitt Romney has always been accompanied by an arrogant presumption of elite superiority. This arrogance is the hallmark of socialist policies devised on the assumption that elitist academics and socialist engineers know best. There is a starkly pharisaical quality to this arrogance, a "thank God I'm not like those failures" kind of contempt for anyone not enjoying the copious blessings of mammon.
Romney's rant against the very people he once claimed to care for amply confirms the suspicion that supercilious contempt for regular folks hides behind the mask of liberal compassion. All the more so because Romney spoke behind a presumed veil of secrecy, to those whom he regards as his peers in the priesthood of mammon.
But even as the Obama wing of the elitist faction moves dutifully to exploit Romney's latest false step, I find myself wondering, Was it false or was it intentional? Given his record as a liberal/leftist/socialist, Romney and his advisers might actually have seen some benefit in remarks they may assume to offer a little "red meat" to the Bigoted Bubbas who, in their grotesque elitist fantasies, populate the Tea Party element of the GOP's grassroots constituency. "You know, when folks aren't looking, Romney's just like you," they think to say.
But such an elitist fantasy would make them blind to the implications Romney's Bubba act has for the people who really make up the authentic grassroots movement the GOP elitists have worked so hard to co-opt. Let's think this through.
Lately much of the government's largess has taken the form of bank bailouts and stimulus packages, all aimed at securing the financial institutions and products that constitute the instruments and depositories of the wealthy. Though Romney's remarks imply that people who don't pay taxes are idle, shiftless dependents of government, it turns out that many of them are simply beneficiaries of the programs and tax provisions the Democrats and money-is-God RINO Republicans like Romney have used to manipulate people into voting for them. Many such people work hard for a living. They didn't realize that their efforts to keep more of what they earn, by perfectly legal means, deserves the kind of contempt Romney has expressed toward them.
Romney is pretending to be a conservative, but his contemptuous remarks display the same kind of contempt for America's working middle-class people that was on display when Obama despised them for holding on to God and guns. In his remarks, Romney also displays the leftist bent for stirring up class warfare in order to gain political advantage. As far as I'm concerned, one of the most hateful things about the whole income tax system is that it lends itself to this kind of "let's you and him fight" approach to politics. The power-grabbing politicians set different classes to fighting among themselves, whilst they make off with the means to control and dominate them all.
If he were a principled conservative, Romney would be campaigning to abolish the income tax. Instead, he covertly seeks to stoke and exploit the resentments roused by its politically motivated provisions.
The Federal Income Tax cannot be enforced without compelling people to surrender one of their vital constitutional rights ("nor shall any person...be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" — U.S. Constitution, Amendment V). It makes every earner a government parolee (required to report to the parole office, i.e., the IRS, by April 15th each year), just because he earns a living. The Federal Income Tax is a method of taxation entirely incompatible with maintaining the independence of will a free people must preserve if they are to remain free. Every conservative worthy of the name seeks to "alter or abolish" it.
But Romney is no conservative. Every conservative worthy of the name should rush to disavow his arrogant expression of elitist contempt for the very people he spent his whole career pretending to "help" with socialist schemes.
Romney and his elitist peers in the GOP leadership think that Todd Akin's unintentional offense against those who favor murdering innocent children for the crime of rape means that Akin should resign the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate in Missouri. By the same token then, what should Mitt Romney do? He arrogantly persists in his intentional elitist slur against every hard-working American who ever lawfully sought to keep their income out of the clutches of Washington politicians and bureaucrats (well over the 47% Romney claims). Should Romney resign the GOP nomination for President?
The knowledge of Romney's Obama-like contempt for regular folks is a seed of corrosive distrust that will gradually eat into his support at the grassroots. How can anyone who truly loves America's liberty allow Romney's fatally flawed candidacy to be liberty's only hope of surviving the elitist faction threat Obama represents? To begin considering an approach to the 2012 election that gives liberty a fighting chance, read Just say no to the whole elitist political scam.
[Will you say no to Obama? Will you say no to Romney? Will you say no to socialism, whatever party label it wears? Will you join in giving an unmistakable, visible political mandate to the GOP's "platform republicans"? If you will consider the "platform republican" voter strategy for the 2012 election, just send me an email at alan@loyaltoliberty.com. Put "Yes, I will" in the subject line. No further message is needed. Of course, your additional thoughts and suggestions will be welcomed. As the implementation of this approach develops, I'll send email updates to the reply address you use. Also, please share this idea with others, so they can consider it for themselves.]
September 20, 2012
The Romney campaign has chosen to deploy a strategy that depends on drawing a contrast between Romney's proven competence and Obama's disappointing incompetence (while being careful always to obscure the fact that Romney's competence came in the role of socialist administrator during the Massachusetts phase of his career). But just as the debris of Obama's (competently executed?) policies for destroying America's international prestige and security comes burbling to the surface of events (an ideal moment for Romney to expose this destructive competence for what it is), Romney puts on his own display of incompetence. His badly timed reaction to the assassination of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya handed Obama the chance to appear "Presidential," while Romney appeared to be so focused on scoring political points that he didn't even bother to inform himself of the true context in which he was speaking.
Looking at all this, we're supposed to believe that the competent Mr. Romney suddenly morphed into a bumbling incompetent at the moment when he should have been raising a valid question about whether the damage Obama has inflicted comes from incompetence or malice. Of course, despite the clear implications of Obama's record, Romney's campaign strategy forbids him to notice Obama's ideologically-driven malice toward America.
Just as Romney's mask of competence slips, we get word of what appears to be another false step: video-recorded remarks of a secret meeting with rich donors to his campaign in which Romney frankly voices what some will certainly see as his malice toward the 47% of the electorate he claims will vote for Obama no matter what. Almost in so many words, he characterizes them as shiftless parasites, driven by delusions of victimization into an entitlement mentality that drives them to suck with rabid dependency on the teat of government largesse.
In the years when he was a self-proclaimed liberal, Mitt Romney proudly sought, in the name of justice and compassion, to prove how much he cared about people. He and his leftist RINO buddies were not loath to join the socialist Democrats in fashioning, protecting, or refining the very programs they claimed were needed to care for the people he now excoriates. It's almost comically outrageous, for example, that Romney should be found secretly venting his contempt toward people who believe they are entitled to healthcare. After all, when he thought it would serve his political ambition, he boasted proudly about the socialist healthcare approach he and his leftist/corporatist buddies instituted in Massachusetts, an approach that assumed and catered to that very entitlement.
The noblesse oblige of "limousine liberals" like Mitt Romney has always been accompanied by an arrogant presumption of elite superiority. This arrogance is the hallmark of socialist policies devised on the assumption that elitist academics and socialist engineers know best. There is a starkly pharisaical quality to this arrogance, a "thank God I'm not like those failures" kind of contempt for anyone not enjoying the copious blessings of mammon.
Romney's rant against the very people he once claimed to care for amply confirms the suspicion that supercilious contempt for regular folks hides behind the mask of liberal compassion. All the more so because Romney spoke behind a presumed veil of secrecy, to those whom he regards as his peers in the priesthood of mammon.
But even as the Obama wing of the elitist faction moves dutifully to exploit Romney's latest false step, I find myself wondering, Was it false or was it intentional? Given his record as a liberal/leftist/socialist, Romney and his advisers might actually have seen some benefit in remarks they may assume to offer a little "red meat" to the Bigoted Bubbas who, in their grotesque elitist fantasies, populate the Tea Party element of the GOP's grassroots constituency. "You know, when folks aren't looking, Romney's just like you," they think to say.
But such an elitist fantasy would make them blind to the implications Romney's Bubba act has for the people who really make up the authentic grassroots movement the GOP elitists have worked so hard to co-opt. Let's think this through.
Lately much of the government's largess has taken the form of bank bailouts and stimulus packages, all aimed at securing the financial institutions and products that constitute the instruments and depositories of the wealthy. Though Romney's remarks imply that people who don't pay taxes are idle, shiftless dependents of government, it turns out that many of them are simply beneficiaries of the programs and tax provisions the Democrats and money-is-God RINO Republicans like Romney have used to manipulate people into voting for them. Many such people work hard for a living. They didn't realize that their efforts to keep more of what they earn, by perfectly legal means, deserves the kind of contempt Romney has expressed toward them.
Romney is pretending to be a conservative, but his contemptuous remarks display the same kind of contempt for America's working middle-class people that was on display when Obama despised them for holding on to God and guns. In his remarks, Romney also displays the leftist bent for stirring up class warfare in order to gain political advantage. As far as I'm concerned, one of the most hateful things about the whole income tax system is that it lends itself to this kind of "let's you and him fight" approach to politics. The power-grabbing politicians set different classes to fighting among themselves, whilst they make off with the means to control and dominate them all.
If he were a principled conservative, Romney would be campaigning to abolish the income tax. Instead, he covertly seeks to stoke and exploit the resentments roused by its politically motivated provisions.
The Federal Income Tax cannot be enforced without compelling people to surrender one of their vital constitutional rights ("nor shall any person...be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" — U.S. Constitution, Amendment V). It makes every earner a government parolee (required to report to the parole office, i.e., the IRS, by April 15th each year), just because he earns a living. The Federal Income Tax is a method of taxation entirely incompatible with maintaining the independence of will a free people must preserve if they are to remain free. Every conservative worthy of the name seeks to "alter or abolish" it.
But Romney is no conservative. Every conservative worthy of the name should rush to disavow his arrogant expression of elitist contempt for the very people he spent his whole career pretending to "help" with socialist schemes.
Romney and his elitist peers in the GOP leadership think that Todd Akin's unintentional offense against those who favor murdering innocent children for the crime of rape means that Akin should resign the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate in Missouri. By the same token then, what should Mitt Romney do? He arrogantly persists in his intentional elitist slur against every hard-working American who ever lawfully sought to keep their income out of the clutches of Washington politicians and bureaucrats (well over the 47% Romney claims). Should Romney resign the GOP nomination for President?
The knowledge of Romney's Obama-like contempt for regular folks is a seed of corrosive distrust that will gradually eat into his support at the grassroots. How can anyone who truly loves America's liberty allow Romney's fatally flawed candidacy to be liberty's only hope of surviving the elitist faction threat Obama represents? To begin considering an approach to the 2012 election that gives liberty a fighting chance, read Just say no to the whole elitist political scam.
[Will you say no to Obama? Will you say no to Romney? Will you say no to socialism, whatever party label it wears? Will you join in giving an unmistakable, visible political mandate to the GOP's "platform republicans"? If you will consider the "platform republican" voter strategy for the 2012 election, just send me an email at alan@loyaltoliberty.com. Put "Yes, I will" in the subject line. No further message is needed. Of course, your additional thoughts and suggestions will be welcomed. As the implementation of this approach develops, I'll send email updates to the reply address you use. Also, please share this idea with others, so they can consider it for themselves.]
To see more articles by Dr. Keyes, visit his blog at LoyalToLiberty.com and his commentary at WND.com and BarbWire.com.
© Alan KeyesThe views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
