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January 29, 2014

Casper Milquetoast AKA Mitt Romney AKA "Yes, it's true. The man has no dick."

And yet, when it came time to attack President Obama and his enablers in the media, Romney became Casper Milquetoast.
Apparently, he was afraid of the mainstream media and Barack Obama. The only people Romney and many other Republicans are not afraid to attack are ... their fellow Republicans. No other explanation makes any sense at all. Had Enough Therapy?: Milquetoast Mitt Romney

Posted by gerardvanderleun at January 29, 2014 9:54 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

And I passionately urged AD commenters and readers to vote for Mitt, front-and-center, thanks to Gerard.

In my defense, it seemed like a good idea at the time, considering the alternative. But that's history now.

Posted by: Don Rodrigo at January 29, 2014 9:57 AM

I agree that you should have voted Romney. It was the good idea of the time. It was the choice and not the echo. But it was not to be. A vote for Romney, down at the wire, was NOT a mistake.

Posted by: vanderleun at January 29, 2014 10:12 AM

A vote for Romney was a vote to say you approve of the hard left stance of the republican party and want to see it keep moving to the left. A vote for Romney was a vote in support of big government, big spending and less freedom. Nothing more.

Posted by: Potsie at January 29, 2014 10:32 AM

A vote for Romney was a vote to say you approve of the hard left stance of the republican party and want to see it keep moving to the left. A vote for Romney was a vote in support of big government, big spending and less freedom. Nothing more.

Potsie. You may think you have a "good sense of perspective," but you have a complete lack of strategic and tactical thinking; you also suffer mightily from the disease of "moral equivalence," whcih is simplistic and unhelpful; I want things to actually happen, you just want to spout what you think are clever "bon mots.". Romney and the GOP don't have the fanatical mindset of Obama and the Democrats. A Romney presidency would have been replete with all the bad things you mention, but the battle against his regime would have been easier than against the current one. Also, the economy would have improved markedly, which would have satisified a whole lot of people.

Unfortunately, Potsie, we can't simply engage in ideological masturbation about having the world work "our way," because we have to share it with people who want at least some of what the Romneys and Obamas offer. Changing many minds is a generations-long task. Potsie's grandkids may have the world Potsie wants, but only if they follow a path as prescribed by the Don Rodrigos.

Posted by: Don Rodrigo at January 29, 2014 11:00 AM

This tone of voting for Romney was a vote for the darkness is, to my mind, Pure crap. A vote for Romney, while it could in the abstract be considered to be the things listed by potsie, was first and foremost and going away a vote AGAINST Obama. That was the primary purpose for many, many millions. As it should have been for the millions more who were sitting it out in their 2012 Blue Huffmobiles.

You can't always vote for what you want, sometimes you have to vote for what you need.

Posted by: vanderleun at January 29, 2014 11:01 AM

As with Romney, Dole, McCain, etc. if you back down to your opponent then you will certainly back down to any foreign potentate who casts you as an aggressor or racist.
This country does not need any more of these ( it's my turn and you owe ) candidates.

Posted by: Kelvin at January 29, 2014 11:49 AM

If Candy Cow-ley had taken a rusty screw driver out and plunged it into Mitt Romeny's eye during that debate, ol' Mitt would forgive her before the ambulance arrived and tell us in every subsequent interview that "if he had been moderating a debate he would not have conducted himself the way she had done." Worse, he would feel good about this. Stop being a female sex organ. Nobody but other losers think you are doing it right. When you don't fight back, you make the rest of us targets. Don't pretend you've never been warned.

Nobody attacks Leftists in govt or media because those targets exact a penalty for attacking them. The Mayberry Types, however, cannot or will not learn form this simple rule: you will be attacked unless the attackers are afraid of you. The Mayberry Types are using The Kindergarten Protocol for adult political conflict.
"I shouldn't push for my views, that's selfish."
"I don't know much about politics, so I'll let the experts decide what I should do."
"There is too much incivility in politics, so I'll be polite and reduce overall incivility by 50%."
"I'm not being treated fairly, so I will document the unfairness and let the authority know and they will make things fair."
"I've been taught conflict is bad, so I will pretend the opponent's desired outcome is no different than being given chocolate ice cream when I prefer vanilla."
"I've never fought back before, so I will pretend the current situation doesn't warrant fighting back, NO MATTER WHAT."
"Churchill said God protects drunks, children, and the United States, so things will work out OK."
"If my plan was making things worse, I would change my plan. Therefore, if I document my opponents' plan isn't working they will eventually change their plan."
"Leftists are just one data point away from seeing things as I see them, so I will just wait for lowered poll numbers or declining TV ratings to do the work, I refuse to do."
"If I do things fair enough, well enough there won't be an excuse to attack me or my candidates as SIXHIRB (sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, islamophobic, racist, or bigoted).
"If I support a black/women/latino/homosexual then my opponents CAN'T call be names. Now who is that Johhny Come Lately we are supposed to admire?"

Leftists and Republicans attack us because they pay no price for attacking us. Spoiler Alert: they don't consider it a penalty when you stay home or when you vote for them, but have contempt in your mind.

Posted by: Scott M at January 29, 2014 1:14 PM

I voted for Romney and I make no apologies. Romney is "The Fixer". He has demonstrated over and over again that he has what it takes to put ailing organizations back on the right track. He was exactly what the country needed.

Yes, it was worth voting against Obama for its own sake. But Romney was a good candidate. He certainly possesses ethics and basic honesty — qualities that Obama totally lacks.

Posted by: Smokey at January 29, 2014 3:12 PM

I also voted for Romney vs. Obama. It was no mistake eithet.

Fight like a scalded wildcat for the best option in the Primary. If you don't fight then you will be expected to eat your crap sandwich in silence in November. Our problem is this desire to short-circuit the Primary and then claim we were screwed in November. There are no options other than fighting. All alternatives lead to more fights and more demands on you. If you are as lazy as me, fight now so you won't have to do more later.

Posted by: Scott M at January 29, 2014 6:24 PM

If you did not vote for Rmney, not only should you be ashamed of yourself, you have lost your right to utter a single complaint about our present state.. Now shut up and sit down.

Posted by: Doug at January 30, 2014 5:26 AM

Doug said is best! Where we are now is a result of those sitting out the election instead of voting for the candidate we had.

Posted by: Charley Hua Chu at January 30, 2014 6:18 AM

Doug said is best! Where we are now is a result of those sitting out the election instead of voting for the candidate we had.

Posted by: Charley Hua Chu at January 30, 2014 6:18 AM

Ooops! dang double post. Sorry 'bout 'dat.

Posted by: Charley Hua Chu at January 30, 2014 6:23 AM

If you voted for US politicians you are getting exactly what you deserve and I hope you get a lot more of it.

Frankly, anyone that would choose another human being to rule over them must be out of their mind.

Posted by: ghostsniper at January 30, 2014 5:42 PM

ghostsniper, the situation you describe is the normal situation of all history beyond the Stone Age. Anarchists are full of shite, promising that complex systems will just form without some organizing principle. Beyond a certain point, time and time again, SOMEONE rises to start marshalling goods and services, and this results in government. Do you know of any exceptions to this rule?

If an army is necessary, someone must maintain and control it; you need a core of long-service veterans to maintain standards and training. You also need professional leaders, who need to keep in practice. You don't just pick it up as you go along. Armies developed to chew up individualistic romantic warriors. It gets even harder as technology increases. According to The Art of War, 60% of an army's budget around 300 BC went just for maintenance of the gear alone. It's worse now, and the funds have to be obtained regularly. Voluntary contributions probably can't do it.

Public works are necessary; beyond a certain point the works become too large and complicated to be run ad-hoc. People don't just show up and start digging away at the Mississippi/Missouri river; flood control needs a lot of experience and technology, all of which needs to be coordinated over a LARGE territory. Again, it has to be paid for.

My point is that any civilisation will have to have certain functions which must be done with machine-like regularity and dedication. This necessitates a bureaucracy, which will form a government of SOME kind.

Maybe it will become different with advances in technology, maybe not. But you MUST have an organization to run at least a few activities, and it must have regular funding, and therefore it will assume the status of a Government.

How well you control it or it controls you are entirely a separate matter. Give me any credible evidence that without people in some sort of authority you can get the activities without which civilization cannot survive.

Mitt Romney was by far the lesser evil, and it would have been far better had he won.

Posted by: JB at January 30, 2014 9:13 PM

For all the lazy slaves that have allowed themselves to be programmed into believing hiring violent thugs is beneficial.

This is a crucial thing to understand, and it's at the root of why most limited-government "libertarians" have no choice but to accept the very premises every commie on the planet uses, and ultimately, when pushed to it, will soon enough start arguing just like a commie.

It's inevitable.

The root of the problem is laziness and dishonesty, both a product of two of the basest human emotions/motivations: fear and greed.

To state it another way: humanity involves, most simply, the conscious and principled discipline and control of fear and greed, which one has no choice but to experience as a higher biological organism.

A good way to think about how the non-human homo sapiens respond to fear and greed is that they seek to hoard profits and spread losses.

The chief motivation is laziness and chief tool to satisfy all is dishonesty.

The interesting thing about dishonesty -- self, other directed, and institutionalized -- is that the better one is at it (the more dishonest) the less detectable and more powerful it is.

What's interesting about laziness is how hard people work at not producing tradeable values.

Consider a bum on the exit ramp day in, day out.

I've seen some of them work their asses off at begging in the hot, cold, and rainy for years on end.

How much easier it would be to work at a job?

It's the labor theory of value.

The lazy look to a world where raw physical activity, disconnected from any other requirements, is of paramount value.

To look at it in its plainest form, there are those advocating that some fears are just too great not to force others to pay for general anesthesia, and the argument turns on which anesthesia and in what dosage is most "efficient" and "useful."

Hey, maybe we can "privatize" the production and delivery of it, which still doesn't address the root laziness, dishonesty, individual responsibility or accountability.

Then there are those, "the nouveaux ancaps," who rightfully understand that you can't hold consistently to individualist principle and advocate any degree of state coercion, but have failed to understand that the state is an effect of a deeper problem.

They think that you have to win friends and influence people by trying to explain that life would be so much better without the state.

But you can't truly understand anarchism until you accept that it doesn't matter what society "would be like" without the state.

It's not the issue.

The issue is that nobody has any right to chain me to their fears or satisfy their greed at my involuntary expense and anyone who thinks otherwise, even just a little tiny bit can just go fuck right off and there's simply no kind way to put that.

I'll continue to let people live as they choose and you can go on trying to coerce, with violence.

Hopefully, for your benefit, we'll never meet.

Posted by: ghostsniper at January 31, 2014 7:02 AM

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